The activity of jumping from a high point to which the jumper is attached by a strong rubber cable fastened to the ankles. The length and tension of the cable is calculated to ensure that the jumper bounces up before reaching the ground. The activity became popular in the early 1990s, and is now practised as a sport in several countries.
Bungee jumping (or bungy jumping) is an activity in which a person jumps off from a high place (generally of several hundred meters/feet) with one end of an elastic cord attached to his/her body or ankles and the other end tied to the jumping-off point. When the person jumps, the cord will stretch to take up the energy of the fall, then the jumper will fly upwards as the cord snaps back. The word bungy, as used by A J Hackett, is said to be "Kiwi slang for Elastic Strap"
In the 1950s David Attenborough and a BBC film crew had brought back footage of the "land divers" of Pentecost Island in Vanuatu, young men who jumped from tall wooden platforms with vines tied to their ankles as a test of courage. The first modern bungee jump was made on 1 April 1979 from the 250ft Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, and was made by four members of the Dangerous Sports Club. The jumpers, led by David Kirke, were arrested shortly after, but continued with jumps in the US from the Golden Gate and Royal Gorge bridges, spreading the concept worldwide.
The first operator of a commercial bungee jumping concern was New Zealander, A J Hackett, who made his first jump from Auckland's Greenhithe Bridge in 1986. During the following years Hackett performed a number of jumps from bridges and other structures (including the Eiffel Tower), building public interest in the sport.
Despite the inherent danger of jumping from a great height, several million successful jumps have taken place since 1980. This is attributable to bungee operators rigorously conforming to standards and guidelines governing jumps, such as double checking calculations and fittings for every jump. The cord should be substantially shorter than the height of the jumping platform to allow it room to stretch. To illustrate how easy it is to overestimate the permissible length of cord, consider the following question:
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When the cord reaches its natural length, does the jumper: (a) stop?EquipmentThe elastic rope first used in bungee jumping, and still used by many commercial operators, is factory-produced braided shock cord. Although there is a certain elegance in using only a simple ankle attachment, the many accidents in which participants have become detached led many commercial operators to use a body harness, if only as a backup for an ankle attachment. 
The Guinness Book of World Records states the highest commercial bungee jump is off of the Bloukrans River Bridge, 40km east of Plettenberg Bay in South Africa. This jump takes place from a platform below the roadway of the bridge, and the height from the platform to the valley floor is a terrifying 216m (709 feet). There is another commercial bungee jump currently in operation which claims to be slightly higher at 220m (722 feet). This jump is located near Locarno, Switzerland and takes place from the top of the Verzasca Dam. One commercial jump higher than either took place from Colorado's Royal Gorge Bridge, in conjunction with the 2005 Go Fast Games. CompetitionFor the many participants who make jumps as a one-off thrill, the idea of competing is irrelevant, but regular jumpers have gone to great lengths to devise criteria for competition, mostly based on acrobatics. Bungee jumping was featured in the early days of the ESPN X Games but the lack of an objective measure of skill detracted from the event compared to other extreme sports. Bungee jumping in the mass mediaSeveral major movies have featured bungee jumps, most famously the opening sequence of the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye in which Bond makes a jump over the edge of a dam in Russia (in reality the dam is in Switzerland: Verzasca Dam, and the jump was genuine, not an animated special effect). In the television program The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the secondary character Trevor was killed while proposing to Hilary Banks during a bungee jump aired live on his television news program. In 1986, the BBC TV programme The Late, Late Breakfast Show, presented by Noel Edmonds, was taken off the air after a volunteer for its 'Whirly Wheel' live stunt section, Michael Lush, was killed in a tragic accident while rehearsing a bungee jump. The episode ends with her encouraging him to bungee jump and the two leap from a bridge in a tandem style. In 1997, Laura Patterson, one of a 16-member professional bungee jumping team, died of massive cranial trauma when she jumped from the top level of the Louisiana Superdome with improperly handled bungee cords and smashed head-first into the concrete-based playing field. The bungee jumping portion of the show was removed from the program and a commemoration of Patterson was added. VariationsIn "Catapult" (Reverse Bungee or Bungee Rocket) the 'jumper' starts on the ground. "Twin Tower" is similar with two oblique cords. Bungy Trampoline uses, as its name suggests, elements from bungy and trampolining. As they begin to jump, the bungy cords are tightened, allowing higher than could normally be obtained from a trampoline alone. Possible Injury There is a wide spectrum of possible injuries during a jump. One can be injured during a jump if the safety harness fails, the cord elasticity is miscalculated, or the cord is not properly connected to the jump platform. |
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