You wrote "The dead man has no special moral advantage or standing over his comrades," as if that is relevant.
Your analogy is straight out of a cheap dime novel, and also irrelevant.
The man's moral standing has no bearing on one's duty to act, and his participation in a game of chance and excitement do not negate the duty others have to him.
If you're going to take that approach, at least use the gold standard - Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven: "we all got it coming."
and scene
I beg your pardon. The man deliberately placed himself in a position where he knew full well that if he failed to pull it off, others would have to risk death or die themselves in vain attempts to save him from his folly. What principle gives him a claim on their lives? No man is required to forfeit his own life for another's man selfish vanity.
There is no nobility in this folly. None. Quit trying to put lipstick on a pig.
The really "cheap dime store stuff" here is the various sappy mental mastications calling this a "good samaritan" scenario. It is not. I'm sure it makes you feel holy and self-righteous to utter these silly edicts ex cathedra from the throne of your K-Mart task chair, but you really shouldn't conflate feeble and opaque ponderousness with wisdom.