As of this August, there were 2,247 ACA-accredited camps. Of these camps
1,131 (50.3 percent) have challenge/ropes courses. A new study published
in the journal, Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, provides some interesting
facts about fatalities connected to challenge (ropes) courses. The study,
“Sudden Unexpected Death on Challenge Courses,” examined incidents resulting
in death (traumatic and non-traumatic) during or within thirty minutes
of the completion of ropes course events. The study utilized multiple
data sets and multiple analysis techniques including: review of accident
injury data available through Project Adventure; anecdotal reports from
presentations conducted by the Association of Challenge Course Technology
(ACCT); personal interviews with individuals involved in incidents; and
review of press releases and other print material related to the incidents.
According to the study, fifteen deaths between 1986 and 2000 can be attributed
to participation in a ropes course-related activity.
- Five of these deaths were traumatic due to a fall from height.
- Four of these five incidents involved the fall of a staff person.
- All falls were from a Zip Line element or a platform at the start
point for this element and can be clearly attributed to failure to observe
published installation or operational standards.
- The other ten deaths were the result of sudden cardiac death (SCD).
- All incidents involved men between the ages of thirty-three and sixty.
The study did not differentiate between staff and participant in SCD
incidents.
Some context for analysis was provided in the article. According to Project
Adventure, the known number of ropes courses in the United States is 7,750.
Combining this information with data from other Project Adventure reports
about mean hours of participation in ropes courses events, it was conservatively
estimated that the period of this review comprised 194,800,000 participant
hours. Therefore, the SCD rate according to this study was 1 per 19,480,000.
“Establishing denominators for such incidents rates is difficult,” the
study reports, “but this number [19,480,000] appears to be about 100-fold
below that reported for marathon running (1 per 215,000 hours), a sport
for which fairly accurate statistics are available.”
The level of SCD occurrence in connection with ropes course activities
is consistent with the same data when analyzed for serious injury. Serious
injury is defined as an injury resulting in one or more days lost from
school or work. For this data set, occurrence of serious injury was set
at 4.33 per one million participant hours.
Ropes course operators frequently screen for cardiac risk prior to participation.
This report noted that “medical literature is quite consistent in questioning
the usefulness of such screening.”
Originally published in the 2002 Fall issue
of The CampLine.
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