Ramblings' Journal

Teen tries Matrix-like jump from garage and misses

There's a new teenaged trend playing itself out in Orlando, FL, called "garage jumping."

You heard that right - the idea is to go to the top of a high-rise garage and launch one's self across an alley or some other void to another garage, not unlike a sequence from The Matrix. Safely, one might presume.

One teen, Tim Bargfrede, tried in his "infinite wisdom," but missed the other side.

Bargfrede fell six stories and was knocked out cold on impact.

"I just didn't make it," Bargfrede said.

Bargfrede survived the 80-foot fall but was injured.

"The first time I came to the garage after my son's accident, I looked over and I just about broke out in tears," the boy's father Tim Bargfrede said. "I can't believe he actually survived. He looked like he was near death."

The family has employed -- get this -- a lawyer (or is that ambulance chaser?) to sue the city of Orlando for making too little effort to prevent something like this.

"There was a very, very short length of fence that was completely ineffective in preventing this from happening," (family attorney Vincent) D'Assaro said.

Since Bargfrede's leap, the city has erected a fence, but apparently there is still enough room for someone else to do their own Matrix impression.

Which I guess is supposed to be the city's fault, huh? Yeah. Right.

Posted by mhking at March 1, 2005 01:11 PM