Do you -or did you used to - regularly engage in dangerous or wreckless behavior?

I, myself, am pretty much a sissy do-gooder. But I do engage in wreckless activities in my mind…

If you include recreational skydiving in those categories, then yes, I did in 1967, but not since.

September 2, 2008, 11:38 AM EDT

Skydiving counts.

I’ve gone Bungee Jumping, but I really don’t consider that wreckless or dangerous. I plan on going skydiving sometime next year too…but I have to admit I don’t consider that as wreckless behavior either. To answer your Qs w/ respect to bungee jumping: No, No, No, and I would love to go Bungee Jumping again!

Oh, PnL, you’re far braver than I. But then again, most everybody is. :-)

Sky Diving! (ok…I can’t say that I’ll never do it again…now my husband wants to try to jump!)

McBean – I think people are just different kinds of brave. I for one, have low physical pain tolerance.

cak, how was that experience for you?

Bungee Jumping is something I would strongly advise against anyone doing, because there are some very real dangers associated with it. Allow me to quote from the Wikipedia:

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. In most cases this is a result of human error in the form of mishandled harness preparation. Another major injury is if the jumper experiences cord entanglement with his/her own body. Other injuries include eye trauma, rope burn, uterine prolapse, dislocations, bruises, pinched fingers and back injury.

Age, equipment, experience, location and weight are some of the factors, and nervousness can exacerbate eye traumas.

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. She was practicing for an exhibition intended to be performed during the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXI. The bungee jumping portion of the show was removed from the program and a commemoration of Patterson was added.

In August 1998, Jerome Charron died in a 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.

The full article is here

Of particular concern to me, is the potential for serious eye damage, because during the “snap-back” portion of the stunt, ones eyes “bug out,” as sometimes happens when a hamster is gently squeezed, during routine handling.

The Good Lord gave each of us two eyes, and it’s my understanding that He didn’t issue a “replacement procedure” for them, once they are “gone.”

September 2, 2008, 12:22 PM EDT

@JA – all these kind of sports have some risk (including skydiving). Hell, even drugs have crazy side effects. My opinion is, if it is your time, you’ll die regardless of whether you are sitting at home and get a heart attack or if you are bungee jumping. Might as well die while doing something fun….

PnL – I loved it – I was happy to land, safely and the poor man I jumped with (tandem) probably has hearing damage, but I loved it. I didn’t ever think I’d have the serious urge to do it again, but I’ve been thinking about it and if my husband really wants to jump – once I’m cleared for something like that, I think I will.

Once the chute is open and you are drifting down, it’s so amazing. It’s a wonderful view.

I’ve always been taken with flight, though. I am that person that would get on the shuttle (or the next program) and go, in a heartbeat.

@PnL: I only mentioned my resevations about it, because I happen to care about your safety and well-being.

There are recreational activities that carry risks, of course, but some are much more risky than others, and bungee jumping has been universally condemned by many experienced skydivers, as, quoting the consensus, “foolish.”

Skydivers have a back-up (reserve) parachute when they jump, yet sometimes, both chutes fail, or some other mishap occurs, causing the death of a jumper.

I repeat my recommendation that you avoid bungee jumping, and hope/pray that you will reconsider your decision.

Respectfully,

Jack

September 2, 2008, 12:33 PM EDT

cak – that sounds amazing! now i really want to do it haha. and i would go for tandem too. I think my dearest mother might have a heart attack if I tell her about it though. She was very opposed to the bungee jumping too (and I didn’t tell her till after I had done it). But I think the feeling of “flying” would be well worth it.

JA – Well in that case, I thank you for your concern. I will keep the information you provided in mind :)

For those interested in skydiving, without any of the dangers associated with it, you might wish to try Indoor Skydiving.

September 2, 2008, 12:42 PM EDT

My insurance carrier considers my rock climbing dangerous, but not a hazard to others (unless they’re below me). Sky diving is on my list, but expensive, so I’ve put it off.

Most of my friends and family will not ride in a car with me if I’m driving…I guess that counts.

Spelling alert.

I can’t get over how funny I thought it was that the question asked about “wreckless” behavior.
I indulge in wreckless behavior pretty much all day long every day, if it means what it actually means, which is behavior that doesn’t result in wrecks. The word you want here is
“reckless”, which means “without thinking”, or “ill-considered” or “foolhardy”, taking the word root “reck” as in “reckoning”, i.e. “thinking through” or “considering consequences”.

thanks for the laughter and pleeeeze don’t jump off any high places

I was going to note that also, but I didn’t, because now, only a moderator could make that spelling change.

September 2, 2008, 12:55 PM EDT

eeek! reckless it is. * is ashamed of self *

PnL: You’re a moderator.

Can you change the spelling of that word in the question?

September 2, 2008, 1:06 PM EDT

We don’t change spellings ourselves because we want to keep Qs/quips as original as possible.

I’ve gone skydiving, bungee jumping, and last year, I ran with the bulls in Spain. Oh yeah, does drift racing, and cagefighting count? I’m kind of an adrenaline junky.

Not to be a total hater, but one of the bigger dangers of doing stuff like bungee jumping or driving without a seatbelt, or whatever, isn’t the danger of death. It’s the danger of not dying, but being injured so badly that you can’t work for an extended period of time, and being unable to pay for your own hospital stay. Since the risk of being injured so badly that you could never walk again, or even that you’d need to live in an external breathing apparatus, you’re making the choice for other people to need to pay for you, instead of simply making the choice to make that jump for yourself. It’s not just your time that you’re risking.

@Fieryspoon: I wish I had written what you wrote. Your points are excellently made.

I knew of a skydiver who impacted the ground at 120 MPH (“terminal velocity”) and survived.

He ended up inside an iron lung, for the rest of his life.

September 2, 2008, 1:51 PM EDT

@cak
How did your ears do skydiving? I always thought I’d love it but I have trouble in small planes sometimes when descending with my ears, and I have to spend a lot of time equalizing the pressure in my ears when scuba diving.

@Judi – I didn’t have a terrible problem, but one of my friends that went with me, his ears were killing him, the rapid change bothered him, a lot. However, when I scuba dive, I have major issues!

Of course, I could have been screaming just enough to help with the pressure! :)

I’ve done some pretty stupid stuff that’s probably not that safe. My friends seem to bring out the bravery in me. I’m usually with them when we all decide to do something stupid then the next morning we’re like “Wow, that was dumb.”
One of the worst things we’ve done is driven drunk and driven high. Yeah, not the smartest or safest thing in the world. We haven’t done that again. I just remember turning to my friend when we were high in the car and asking her ”How are you driving right now?” and her response was “I don’t even know.”
We hang out at pretty shady places at night. Put ourselves in situations that we shouldn’t be in. We get nervous, but still do it.
Sometimes we just take off somewhere and don’t tell anyone where we’re going. If anything ever happened, no one would know.. until it’s too late.
I used to date a guy who was abusive and it was pretty dangerous to be around him when he was pissed off. That was really stupid of me. One of my best friends used to call me in the evening sometimes to see if I was still alive or see if she needed to send one of our guy friends over to get me. It wasn’t good. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about him anymore.
My friends and I also drink a lot. Over the summer there’s been a party or a kickback almost every weekend. And more than once we’ve been drunk way beyond our limits, but kept on drinking. Alcohol is definitely our vice.
Crap, my friends and I really need to stop doing some of these things. But we really like drinking…

My teen years were full of a lot of risky stuff. It wasn’t until I had teenage daughters that I realized that no one is more vulnerable than a young girl who is someplace she shouldn’t be. If she is attacked she is less likely to report it because she is afraid of getting in trouble with her parents. I know it happened to me. I found out that it had happened to my daughter when she snuck out while at a youth gathering in a strange city. She didn’t tell me until years later.

ATTENTION FLUTHERITES: sorry for spelling reckless incorrectly.

@Judi:
Like you, I was completely reckless when I was a teenager. I had very, very strict parents, who rarely let me go out with friends. When I did get to go (or was able to sneak out) I would really cram my social moments full of “fun”.

I must have had a personal angel with me every step of the way. I still have a scar on my throat from tearing a tree branch off a tree with my neck while on the back of a motorcycle driven in the desert hills (Arizona) at night by a very drunk 18 year-old. That’s the only physical scar I still have from my teenage-hood, but when I think back I’m surprised I survived so many things.

And yes, bad things happened to me and I wouldn’t have dreamed of telling my parents – for fear of getting in trouble. I can’t imagine how you must have felt when you heard what had happened to your daughter. I suspect that I will be a suspicious parent when my son reaches his teens.

I’m not surprised at all the sky-divers and bungee-jumpers. The thrill of finding yourself safe after such a fall would, in itself, be exhilerating. Not for me, though. I’m in the camp with the cautioners.