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New Zealand has attracted an international reputation as an adventure sport destination. Worldwide adventure tourism and adventure sports are important leisure activities, of growing popularity. In this context, commercial adventure tourism has become increasingly important to the New Zealand economy. Adventure sports encompass a number of outdoor activities including rock climbing, mountaineering, skydiving, white-water rafting, mountain biking, and BASE jumping.
Recent reports in the literature have highlighted significant risk of injury and death associated with mountaineering, skydiving, white-water rafting, and mountain biking.1-5
BASE jumping is a sport that developed out of skydiving and uses specially adapted parachutes to jump from fixed objects. "BASE" is an acronym that stands for the four categories of fixed objects that one can jump off. These are: B uilding, A ntenna, S pan (a bridge, arch, or dome) and E arth (a cliff or other natural formation).
BASE jumping is an "extreme sport" and is ranked as being amongst the most dangerous adventure sports in the world (Figure 1).6 As such, BASE jumping has been banned from many popular launch sites such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris and in Yosemite National Park (e.g. from El Capitan cliff where there has been fatalities) in California.
BASE jumping is considered to be significantly more dangerous than skydiving. As BASE jumps are made from lower altitudes than skydives (often less than 500 feet above ground level), BASE jumpers generally fall at lower speeds, have far less aerodynamic control, and may lose flying stability.
If the parachute is deployed while the jumper is unstable there is a high risk of entanglement or malfunction. The single canopy used may also be facing the wrong direction. Such an off-heading opening is not problematic in skydiving, but off-heading opening that results in object strike is the leading cause of serious injury and death in BASE jumping. Also as BASE jumping takes place in close proximity to a cliff or tower which provides the jump platform, the BASE jumper may collide with the object.
Figure 1. BASE jumping examples
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The only published study on morbidity and mortality associated with this sport examined the frequency of injuries and death associated with BASE jumping from a cliff in Norway and determined that BASE jumping is...