Table 1.
Extreme sports and morbidity/mortality risk
| Type of extreme sport or study | Years | Morbidity/mortality rate |
|---|---|---|
| BASE jumping | 1981–2015 | More than 300 deaths worldwide1 Wingsuit mortality as high as 1/50 participants1–5 |
| Swedish BASE Jumping Study1 | 2002 | 1 fatality/60 participants; 1 death/2317 jumps1 |
| Mei-Dan et al2 (Israel) | 2013 | 72% witnessed death or serious injury, 43% of jumpers sustained a serious BASE jumping injury, 76% witnessed a “near miss” or narrowly avoided fatality Injury rate estimates of 0.2% to 0.4% per jump and fatality rates of 0.04% per jump or 1.7% per participant and year |
| Sky diving | 2000–2016 | 1 death/100,000 jumps6 |
| Scuba diving, Divers Alert Network7 | 1970–2017 | 16.7 deaths/100,000 divers per year |
| Rock climbing | 1998–2011 | 1 death/320,000 climbs8,9 |
| Skiing | 2011–2012 | 1 death/1,351,000 trips (5.5 deaths/million participants)10 |
| Free diving | 2006–2011 | 417 free diving accidents: 308 fatal, 109 nonfatal7 |
| Hang gliding, paragliding | 1993–2017 | In the US, 1 death/560 flights11 |
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