Daring Young Men

“While most bridge-jumpers are attempting to commit suicide, and others fall accidentally, it should be noted that there are two further groups of voluntary jumpers, both gamblers in a sense. The first of these are those, usually young males, who jump on a bet. Strangely enough, we have only one case of a known ‘bettor’ who has been killed. But frustratingly enough, there are seldom records of such cases, and the individuals usually, presumably clutching their winnings, elude official searchers. In recent cases of this nature, a Rhode Island youth leaped 60 feet from a bridge while his companion stood by yelling encouragement, and another jumped 135 feet and was last seen swimming to a pier. In Ohio, a 17-year-old boy jumped 65 feet, and in New York a 32-year-old man jumped 107-feet — for the third time — from a bridge on which 67 other jumpers have been killed.”

from Survival of High-Velocity Free-Falls in Water by Richard G. Snyder, Ph.D., April 1965, Federal Aviation Agency, Office of Aviation Medicine