‘People are dying doing this’: TikTok’s boat challenge is already claiming lives

Every now and then, something dumb and unsafe starts trending and people start trying it with not-so-great results. A few examples: the fire challenge (it’s exactly what you think), eating Tide pods, the cinnamon challenge, and the hot stove coil challenge. A new one is just as dangerous: the TikTok boat challenge, and people have already died doing it.

This one involves people jumping off a boat into the water at high speeds. They don’t really dive they just.. jump and hope for the best. At least four people have died in Alabama over the last six months, per WVIT.

The main issue at play here is physics. If you jump into the water off a dock, you’re not moving at a high rate of speed and you’ll be fine. If you’re jumping off a boat moving 30 mph, your body is moving that speed and when you hit the water, it can be like hitting a hard surface.

Gail Kulp, the executive director of the Sea Tow Foundation, put it this way:

“You can wind up with broken bones, a broken neck, or you could end up running into the propeller of your own boat or another boat could run over you and that would cause lots of damage if not death. Hitting the water from a moving boat is like hitting concrete from jumping multiple stories stories up.”

The challenge appears heavily on the social media site TikTok and in a statement to NBC, it said that it’s added a note to some of the videos featuring the boat jumping that “participating in this activity could result in you or others getting hurt.”

The company also took umbrage with the fact that it’s being called a TikTok challenge. “It’s not accurate to characterize or report this as a TikTok challenge,” TikTok said, adding that it “can’t comment on something that isn’t a trend on our platform.”

Not a trend on your platform? Where else is it going to be a trend?
We must point out here that TikTok is certainly not responsible for any deaths or injuries that have occurred as a result of this challenge.

Here’s an example:

This one says “the propellor almost gave me a haircut.”

Capt. Jim Dennis of the Childersburg Rescue Squad told NBC that “the four that we responded to when they jumped out of the boat, they literally broke their neck and, you know, basically an instant death.”

Another victim of the trend died in February after he threw himself into the Coosa River while his wife and kids were watching, Dennis shared. “Unfortunately, [his wife] recorded his death.”

He had one last word of advice for people considering doing it.

“Do not do it,” he said. “It’s not worth your life.”