Just like any sport, our activity carries inherent risks, with a few unfortunate cases resulting in fatalities. Since the 1970s, the slackline variations have diversified, which prompts us to categorize them based on associated risks.

The following table gives an overview on the risk of death while slacklining:

How does this work?
Such death rates are calculated as the number of deaths in a given period (one year) divided by the average population number exposed to risk of death in that period (e.g. all highliners). This allows to calculate a death rate without knowing who highlines how often, and allows comparing the risk of dying while highlining to other sports activities, since this is a common approach of calculating risk.

For comparison we provide you with a list of death rates from other sports:

• Mountain Biking: 0.0035 [Source]
• Skydiving 0.009 [Source]
• Watersports (Drowning) 0.013 [Source]
• Mountain hiking: 0.02 [Source]
• Mountaineering (Mountain, Rock and Ice climbing): 0.068 [Source]
• Paragliding: 0.46 [Source]
• Base Jumping 4.3 [Source]
• Mount Everest accent: 15.6 [Source]

 

* How are the population numbers estimated?

The slackline populations are hard to estimate. They are currently estimated by the ISA by adding up slackliners from individual countries, mostly collected by interviewing community leaders and comparing to our demographic surveys. Further we know the ISA registered slackliners (approx. 3000), from which approx 600 have also registered as athletes. Further from the social media page sizes (Slackchat, etc) and estimated sales of kits around the world from talking to manufacturers. The populations further are averaged over the timescale of 15 years since the sport steadily grew during this period. For tricklining specifically we chose to estimate individuals who rig their starter kits for the major purpose of performing tricks (two out of three deaths in tricklining occurred with such setups), we therefore statistically are not talking about competitive trickline setups, hence the population for tricklining in our calculation could seem rather high. Even if these slackline population numbers are off by a factor 2-3, the final numbers don’t change significantly.

Self-inflicted or third party involvement?

All known deaths in highlining and waterlining were primarily self-inflicted. There have been no known highline deaths of uninvolved third parties.

Two out of three people killed in tricklining were uninvolved bystanders and the sole longline death was a slacklining person, but not on the line at the time of the accident. The child killed due to a starter kit was a user, but did not install the slackline to the fatal tree himself.

Reasons why the highline death rate is not higher:

Here some reasons we know have saved lives in the past:

• Highline systems are overdimensioned (usually with safety factor 4-10 on the material) 
• Highline systems are redundant
• Highline systems are monitored, in minimum with four-eyes principle
• Highliners are therefore in most cases not practicing their sport alone
• Exposure to height makes one overcautious
• The forces in highline systems are known and relatively low
• More and more Highline material is independently tested and standardized and education on safe highline practices are spread widely on the internet

This count does not include 5 known deaths (see below), which occurred during scouting, approach/access to highlines or due to standing and/tripping near a highline anchor. Also excluded is one death due to a rope swing, which was anchored to a highline. The person did not jump far enough and hit the cliff.

These deaths are not considered highline deaths, they fall into the risks associated to mountain hiking, mountaineering and rope-swinging and associated risk statistics of these activities.

The following 3 trickline deaths are recorded in our database. They occured since the sport started in 2006.

The following longline death is recorded in our database. They occured since the sport started in approx. 1980.

The following waterline death is recorded in our database. Strictly speaking this has to be classified as a death from drowning and not slacklining. 

The following starter kit death is recorded in our database. Strictly speaking this was not a slackliner balancing, but a user of a so called “ninja-set” built from a slackline.