In January, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) launched an investigation of Orlando’s Sky Trail Ropes Course at the Artegon Marketplace following a fatal accident on Christmas Eve. Investigators said a 52-year-old man fell 30 feet when his harness detached from a Sky Rail zip line that utilized metal rails instead of cables. An attorney for the victim’s family, which has filed a lawsuit, alleges that the harness, which glides in a slot in the rail, slipped out of the slot.
Jim Liggett of Ropes Courses Inc., which manufactures and sells Sky Rail zip lines and operates the Sky Trail Ropes Course where the accident occurred, told reporters, “We’ve been building ropes courses for 26 years, and this is the first accident we’ve ever had like this. It affected our company from the ground up.” The company has manufactured approximately 600 courses worldwide that Liggett says attract 10 million visitors a year.
