How Safe are Extreme Obstacle Competitions?

 Posted on December 00, 0000 in Cook County personal injury lawyer

More and more people are participating in extreme obstacle race competitions. Many of these events include climbing walls, ropes, obstacle courses, mud pits and long-distance running. It is an ever-growing industry that produces hundreds of millions of dollars for the companies that sponsor these events.

And as the popularity of these events increase, so do the reports of serious injuries and fatalities.

One company has had four at least four participants during competitions they have sponsored in the past three years. The most recent death occurred in April 2013 during a race in West Virginia when a 28 year-old man drowned during the “Walk the Plank” portion of the race. Participants are required to stand on a 15-foot platform and plunge into a 13 foot pool of freezing, muddy water. Then they have to swim forty feet to a cargo net and exit the pool.

The family of the man has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the company, charging the company with “gross negligent conduct, including failure to follow basic safety precautions and false and misleading representations regarding the safety of the event.” The company is accused of failing to install lane dividers in order to prevent jumpers from hitting each other as they land into the pool. They also reportedly failed to have people on the platform regulating the timing of the jumps, which would mean that no one tracked jumpers from the time they hit the water to ensure they were able to safely get out of the pool.

Other companies who sponsor these racing competitions have also been named as defendants in other lawsuits where participants suffered injuries that included paralysis, hypothermia, electric shocks, heart attacks or other serious injuries because of allegations of failing to provide safe environments for participants.