Two teenage boys died after falling from a bungee jumping ride in front of shocked relatives and onlookers, following a catastrophic choice by the attraction's operators. The tragic incident occurred on 10 August 1993 at the Beach Bungee site in Atlantic Beach, South Carolina, USA.
Victims and Ride Details
Zachary Steinke, 17, visited the Beach Bungee site with his parents. The venue featured a 175-foot steel arch designed to hoist participants inside an elevator-style cage. On that evening, Zachary entered the cage with 19-year-old Michael Nash, an employee serving as the ride's "bungee jump master."
As the duo were raised to roughly 150 to 160 feet within the steel structure, neither was aware that the original chain-driven hoist mechanism was broken. Instead of a proper replacement, the owners had installed a makeshift commercial shrimping winch with a wire rope that was not fit for purpose.
Fatal Malfunction
That day was wet and rainy, reducing visibility. As the cage rose, the wire rope could not handle the load and snapped after being strained. The cage plummeted 150 feet to the ground, leaving both teens with catastrophic impact injuries they did not survive.
In a devastating twist, Zachary’s parents were watching from the ground and witnessed their son’s fall. They attempted CPR before emergency services arrived.
Legal Aftermath
Attorney John Kassel, representing the families, explained in a post on the Kassel McVey site how the cable snapped: "Without relieving the tension the cable would eventually fail and break. The scenario is well understood and actually has a name: two-blocking. Unfortunately, the bungee jump winch system had no safety devices of any kind. The system two-blocked. The cable ripped apart. The cage fell to the ground. Both boys were killed in front of a crowd of people, including the parents of one of the boys."
Kassel continued: "I was a young lawyer. I tried the case against the owners and the shrimper in federal court. One issue was to find individual liability and not simply get a verdict against a defunct corporation."
Court Rulings
In 1995, the families won a $12 million judgment against the individual owners of Beach Bungee. The court ruled the owners could be held personally liable because they bypassed safety systems by installing the faulty shrimping winch to avoid losing summer tourist business.
Kassel also tried a second case in state court against the South Carolina Department of Labor, the responsible regulatory agency. He said: "There, a major hurdle was overcoming multiple immunities enjoyed by the state. We received a $2 million verdict. The verdict was affirmed on appeal to the South Carolina Supreme Court. I became close to the families of both boys."
