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ChicSunTimes

Companies selling high-rise chutes

November 4, 2001

BY ART GOLAB STAFF REPORTER

Working in a downtown Chicago high-rise made John Larkin nervous even before Sept. 11.

Now he has a plan: If he gets stuck in his office because of a fire or other disaster and there's no other way out, Larkin plans to open a window, strap on a parachute designed for tall buildings and take a leap.

Larkin knows it would be dangerous. The Chicago Fire Department flatly recommends against it. But, says Larkin, "If I were sitting on the 70th floor of a building with my head sticking out, trying to get my last gasp of breath, would I want something like this? You bet I would."

The chute that the Chicago businessman and father of two ordered sells for $795. It's the latest emergency offering in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Executivechute Corp., of Three Rivers, Mich., designed and tested the parachutes in the weeks after the attacks.

Larkin says that, even before the terrorists struck, he suggested the emergency chutes to John Rivers, a friend and business client who runs a company that makes ultralight aircraft and powered parachutes.

"I worked on it, developed it and then made probably the worst decision of my entire life: to not go any further because I didn't think people would buy it," Rivers says.

Then came Sept. 11 and the horrifying reports that some people jumped from the World Trade Center to their deaths, apparently fearful they would die even more terribly had they remained inside.

"It hit a little too close to home knowing that we could have had a product on the shelf or in some of those people's hands that would have saved some lives," Rivers says. "We've been working hard on it ever since."

Final testing has now been completed, Rivers says, using 200-pound dummies dropped from buildings and cranes, and he said he has orders for 100 chutes and has had calls asking about them from others, including former World Trade Center occupants.

The parachute is meant to be used by people who have never used one, to work close to a building and to work from as low as 10 stories high, Rivers says.

Not included with purchases: the hammer Rivers recommends customers keep handy to break windows in an emergency.

Though at least two other companies--Precision Aerodynamics and Vertigo Bast Outfitters--offer similar parachutes, Rivers acknowledges that his parachute has not been tested under emergency conditions and offers no guarantee, for instance, that air drafts feeding a fire wouldn't suck the chute back toward a building. Nor can Rivers, who says the chute should be used only as a last resort, offer any assurance that people might not get tangled in utility wires or land in front of a speeding bus.

Chicago Fire Department spokeswoman Molly Sullivan warns against the parachute:

"Jumping out of a window with a parachute is not a good idea," Sullivan says. "Under no circumstances does the Fire Department recommend this."

Novices have successfully used emergency chutes jumping from aircraft, says Cliff Schmucker, president of the Parachute Industry Association of America.

But, says Schmucker, "In the case of emergency egress from a building, there's all sorts of things that can go wrong. The wind could blow you into the building you're trying to get out of, it could blow you into another building, you could get killed on landing. That isn't to say it isn't a better option then certain death. Of course, it is. I suspect there's a lot of skydivers who work in high-rise buildings that have their parachute in their closet. I know I would."

-- Anonymous, November 04, 2001


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