The president of a Utah bungee-jumping company appealed to Florida regulators this week to ease a statewide ban on the sport, saying jumping off his airbag-equipped towers is safer than jumping off cranes.
Tom Woodard, president of Air Boingo Inc. of Park City, Utah, agreed that bungee-jumping off cranes is unsafe.But he said his operations, where bungee-jumpers leap from specially built towers, are safe and should be allowed to do business in Florida.
"We've got over 110,000 jumps without incident - not even a minor injury," Woodard said.
Agriculture Commissioner Bob Crawford, whose department has jurisdiction over consumer affairs and amusement park rides, banned all bungee-jumping in Florida on Friday, calling the sport "a life-threatening practice."
The move came after one Michigan jumper was injured and another was killed while bungee-jumping from a crane.
"Cranes were not intended to be used in bungee-jumping and the practice should be stopped," Woodard said. "But it's incorrect to say the accidents in Michigan were bungee-jumping accidents. The accidents were the fault of the crane."
Bungee-jumping is a sport in which thrill-seekers harnessed to rubber ropes leap off towers, cranes, hot-air balloons and bridges.
Air Boingo operates 17 bungee-jumping towers nationally, Woodard said.
The company opened its first Florida operation in Destin on Memorial Day and had planned to open a second one this week in Panama City Beach and a third in August in Orlando.
Since Memorial Day, more than 6,000 people have jumped safely from the 70-foot Destin tower, paying an averge of $17 apiece, he said.
Woodard said Air Boingo has "a perfect safety record and that's because our towers are designed specifically for the sport of bungee-jumping.
"It's not mobile like a crane or a hot air balloon," he said, noting that the company also maintains liability insurance.
He said the company's towers feature 10-foot fan-inflated safety cushions on the ground.
"We were the first to use airbags. The cushion can safely land a person falling from a 10-story building," Woodard said.
Air Boingo's Destin operation was one of 18 in Florida shut down under Crawford's ban. Woodard said each cost about $250,000 to build and employs about 30 people.
He was optimistic after his meeting with Don Farmer, director of the Agriculture Department's Division of Consumer Affairs, and Lowell Parrish, Bureau Chief of Fairs and Expositions.
"I'm hoping we keep talking without resorting to legal measures. We'll absolutely take the state to court if need be," he said.
But Michele McLawhorn, a spokeswoman for the agriculture commissioner, said Crawford would not only continue enforcing his ban, he plans to ask the Legislature to enact a law banning bungee-jumping permanently because there is no way to measure safety compliance for the equipment.
Florida is the first state to ban bungee-jumping altogether, though Wisconsin, Maryland and Virginia have either banned or restricted bungee-jumping from cranes, Woodard said.