A guide on the tower below her jumped up and down, waving his arms. Moments later Cowles crashed into the tower, according to a lawsuit she recently filed in U. When Cowles suffered a concussion, a traumatic brain injury and knee fractures on the ride she became one of thousands of thrill-seekers nationwide who likewise have been urged to trust the safety of zip lines only to learn of their vulnerabilities.
The American Journal of Emergency Medicine reported following a study that the number of emergency room visits for zip-line injuries in the U. A total of 16, people were injured during that year period, the report said. There have been fatal zip-line crashes in the U. In May , Lisa Lambe, 55, of South Carolina, was killed while zip-lining at Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah when a tree snapped off and fell in her path while she was traveling between 30 mph and 60 mph down a zip line, according to media reports.
In most instances, zip line brake equipment malfunctioned or patrons failed to use brakes and people slammed into towers, Narreau said. A few investigations are pending, he said. In some cases, private groups are operating zip lines without a state permit, believing they are exempted from stringent state rules requiring professionals to design the structures, Narreau said.
Exemptions are generally reserved for non-commercial operations. She subsequently sued Golden Bell and Cross Bearing Adventures, which claimed to have an exemption from state regulations.
Zip-line patrons across Colorado take roughly , zip rides annually and Narreau said he receives only three to five complaints a year.
AVA Colorado Zipline, which operates several zip lines in Idaho Falls and Buena Vista, runs its thousands of zip runs each season with an abundance of safety, said Rebecca Dowd, company spokeswoman.
Hazel was disoriented. Lisa remembers nothing after the collision. Jessica Bienstock, a physician with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who was on another tour nearby, heard the commotion and hurried over to the platform. She was horrified to see the Sky Rangers encouraging Hazel and Lisa to get up. Someone brought a first-aid kit, but, according to Bienstock, there was almost nothing in it except gauze, medical tape, and Band-Aids. After a pit stop at a nearby clinic to drain fluid from her right lung, Lisa finally made it to the Chiang Mai Ram hospital two hours later.
Doctors there discovered damage to her optic nerve. Lisa was in the intensive care unit for three days while Rich debated whether to approve a risky surgery to save her vision that would involve cutting open her skull. Before they were tourism attractions, zip lines were used to ferry people, goods, and livestock across remote jungle ravines. As an aerial alternative to familiar attractions like whitewater rafting or nature hikes, zip-line parks exploded in popularity.
Today, there are dozens in Costa Rica alone, and hundreds, if not thousands, strung up in tropical destinations around the world. In the past five years, hundreds of commercial zip-line parks have opened in the United States. At least are open nationwide, and more are on the way.
You can zip-line across ski runs in the off-season at Hunter Mountain in New York or over giraffes at the Columbus Zoo. It may seem straightforward to send one person at a time over a fixed line, but the risks of zip-lining are more in line with whitewater rafting than riding a roller coaster.
A study in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine found that the number of zip-line injuries in the United States has increased from a few hundred per year in the late s to more than 3, in Researchers at Ohio State University found that almost 12 percent of zip-line injuries resulted in fractures or other injuries requiring hospitalization, making zip-lining mishaps at least as serious as rock climbing.
There is no central repository of fatalities, but more than a dozen news reports describe people dying on zip lines in the United States since The same year, an year-old man in Tennessee died after a gruesome fall when his neck became entangled in the safety harness.
Last May, a woman died at Sundance Mountain Resort after colliding with a falling tree. In August , a woman fell to her death after becoming disconnected from the safety wires at the Go Ape Tree Top Adventure in Delaware. By comparison, more than million people visit amusement parks each year, and only 3.
Consumer Product Safety Commission. In about half of all U. In most places, including Illinois and Georgia, the state labor department oversees zip lines.
In Florida, the task falls to the Department of Agriculture. And in states like Arizona or Virginia that lack state oversight, zip lines may be subject only to city or county regulations. In Shenandoah County, Virginia, for example, building inspectors are responsible for vetting zip-line platforms. According to a summary of regulations compiled by zip-line vendor Experiential Systems, officials often review only engineering plans and operation manuals for permit approval and licensing and simply require operators to undergo annual third-party engineering inspections.
Accidents in North Carolina and Hawaii have spurred calls for mandatory safety regulations in those states, but such measures are unlikely to include state inspectors on the ground. Several states have already begun to incorporate it into law. The ACCT does not vet zip-line courses directly, but it does provide training and certification for inspectors and maintains a list of accredited vendors that design and consult with zip-line parks. Flight of the Gibbon, with its stellar online reviews and polished English website, appears to be a safe, well-oiled operation.
Yet its complicated history is enough to engender concerns about nascent zip-line enterprises around the world. Flight of the Gibbon was the brainchild of New Zealander David Allardice, an adventurer with first descents on rivers in Myanmar and Tibet under his belt. In , he co-founded a luxury resort in Nepal that offered bungee jumping, canyoneering, and a high ropes course.
Chiang Mai, Allardice thought, would be the perfect place for a zip line. In that timeframe, the Consumer Product Safety Commission states that injuries and 37 deaths occurred from vending machines. Your chances of being fatally bitten by a shark are about one in million while death risks from a vending machine are one in million. Crazy, right?
Since the average vending machine is pounds, that much weight falling atop you can definitely be deadly. Since commercial zipline companies welcome riders as young as seven years old and amateur zip lines are almost exclusively for kids, we thought we had to put the rate of zipline injuries into perspective for the kiddos as well.
You see playgrounds at every park and school, but have you ever stopped to think about how safe they are? The answer, it turns out, is not very. According to the data, every year, more than , kids will have to go to the emergency room for injuries sustained while playing at a playground. Children can die from playground equipment too, with 15 deaths occurring every year. Most of the injuries are from falls, says BrainLine, 79 percent in all.
Of all the most severe playground injuries, 90 percent are fall-related. Another 58 percent of playground injuries occur from strangulation. Since playground injuries are in the six figures and we only have 3, zip line injuries reported from to , you might be better off building your kids a DIY zip line than taking them to the park to play. Mountain climbing is a popular activity that lets you enjoy breathtaking heights, sort of like ziplining. This report from the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health states that every year, between 3, and 3, people will hurt themselves when rock climbing.
Out of 1, climbers, the accident rate is 2. Even if we used the lower estimate of mountain-climbing injuries per year, which is 3,, over that same amount of time, that would be 45, mountain climbing injuries!
Yet once you take that first, all-important step and let gravity guide you down the zipline cable, you realize how exciting the experience can be. Is ziplining the safest sport out there? No, but no sport is completely safe. Then again, zip lining is a lot less injury-prone than sports like mountain climbing and skydiving. Even everyday activities like driving your car, buying food from a vending machine, or riding in an elevator are more dangerous than ziplining.
We hope this article puts your mind at ease so you and your family can enjoy an exciting, safe zipline ride together! I am a California native and I enjoy all the outdoors has to offer.
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