Reverse bungee
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The Reverse Bungee (or catapult bungee, or Ejector Seat) is a modern type of fairground ride that was invented by Troy Griffin in 1995. His dream was to create a safer, yet more extreme bungee jumping experience.
The ride consists of two telescopic gantry towers mounted on a platform, feeding two elastic ropes down to a two person passenger car constructed from an open sphere of tubular steel. The passenger car is secured to the platform with an electro-magnetic latch as the elastic ropes are stretched. When the electromagnet is turned off, the passenger car is catapulted vertically with a g-force of 3-5, reaching an altitude of between 50 and 80 metres (180-260 ft).
The passenger sphere is free to rotate between the two ropes, giving the riders a chaotic and disorienting ride. After several bounces, the ropes are relaxed and the passengers are lowered back to the launch position.
In August 1998, 21-year-old Jerome Charron was killed on a reverse bungee ride at an exhibition in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, after the strap that was holding him in his seat failed near apogee and he free-fell to his death.
[edit] Safety and possible injury
In August 1998, Jérôme Charron died in a reverse bungee ride accident at the Ottawa Exhibition in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada when he was hurled 40 meters into the air before plummeting to his death as his harness had detached. In February 2000, the firm responsible for the ride, Anderson Ventures, was fined $145,000 for this incident. Provincial inspectors had inspected the ride just 4 days before the incident and approved it, but did not see the strap because it was in a nearby box. [addendum; The issue occurred when the ride operator used a lead between the carabiner and the bungee cord in order to modify the body weight (instead of changing the bungee cord according to the jumper's weight). Using a lead is a much faster process than changing the cord and therefore increases productivity and, subsequently, profit, albeit at the cost of safety. The problem occurs when the lead cord wraps around the caribiner, tightens and through friction undoes the twisting safety mechanism that keeps the caribiner locked. In this case, the operator was using dual caribiners. On the bounce back up, the lead cord tightened, friction did its work and opened them both. This fact was discovered by the Ottawa Police who investigated the death. A video of the incident depicts it.].
On 11 April 2009, Bhargava V, plunged to his death as the harness snapped while he was attempting reverse bungee jumping at Bangalore near Bannerghata National Park. The proprietors of the two private groups - Centre for Adventure and Rejuvenation of Environment (CARE) and Head Rush Bungee - which jointly organized the 3 day bungee jumping event, had been arrested on the charge of negligence. According to the police, the organizer had not obtained a license to conduct the sport nor were proper safety measures in place. There was no safety net or ambulance, nor even a first-aid kit available with the organizers[1].
[edit] References
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Reverse bungee |
- ^ Marine engineer falls to bungee death (2009), 12 Apr 2009.
