"Darlene and I BASE- jumped off a 20-story housing project as it was being brought down with explosive charges."
© Jay Kinney & Paul Mavrides |
A GORP Interview with Liam E. Suzuki, Founder and CEO of Extreme Disasters Unlimited.
GORP: GORP.com is here on the bridge of what is surely the most
controversial ship in New York Harbor, hoping to have a few words with—here he comes now! Mr Suzuki, surely you know that a lot of people disapprove of your
company's practices and policies, particularly this latest enterprise.
Suzuki: It's Captain Suzuki. But seriously, you can just call me Liam. And of course I know we're controversial. Extreme sports, adventure travel, risk-taking in general has always been controversial. Ever since the first
primate tried to see how far he could crawl out on a limb before it broke.
It's a love-hate thing with danger.
GORP: But don't you think this is going a little too far?
Suzuki: That's a familiar refrain, too. Look, extreme means extreme. The first BASE jumpers were considered crazy. Hell, maybe they were. That's what I liked about them, anyway.
GORP: BASE jumping? Is that how you got started?
Suzuki: No, I worked up to it. I started back in high school in Orange
County. We used to crash cars to set off the air bags. It sort of grew.
We figured if you packed enough kids into a Volvo with front and side air
bags, nobody could get seriously hurt. We were wrong about that, but still,
we had fun.
GORP: No outdoor sports?
Suzuki: That came later. I got a bungee jump for a graduation present. I
started sky diving after that. Did a little knife-edge snowboarding,
avalanche racing, stuff like that. Then I met my wife, Darlene-she turned me on to BASE jumping. We were part of the crowd that rollerbladed off
Century Tower in downtown L.A. on the millennial New Year's Eve.
GORP: That one had a pretty grim casualty rate.
“A few fatalities could add to an event . . . . ”
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Suzuki: Well it was midnight. And the drinking, you know. Which reminds me . . . (Here Suzuki makes a quick cell-phone call to make sure the champagne has been loaded onto the ship.) But we learned from that. We learned that a few fatalities could add to rather than detract from an event.
GORP: So you went from adventure to disaster.
Suzuki: Not right away. It was a process. You might say it began when
Darlene and I BASE jumped off a twenty- story housing project just as it was
being brought down with explosive charges. That gave us the idea of
staying in the building to see if we could survive.
GORP: And you did. Survive, I mean.
Suzuki: Pretty much. I lost these two fingers. Darlene lost a leg and a
foot. We were in the news after that, and people started contacting us.
It was a short step to taking groups, packaging the tour as an earthquake
survival experience. We called it Rocking Richter. That led straight into
the Towering Inferno.
GORP: So it became a business.
“The Towering Inferno was an awesome money maker.”
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Suzuki: We weren't incorporated yet, but yes, somebody had to handle the
permits, the logistics. Darlene and I started hiring staff, mostly thrill
hounds like ourselves. The Towering Inferno was an awesome money maker.
We ran six in the first two years. Booked solid, months in advance.
GORP: Thrill hounds, as they call them.
Suzuki: Not strictly. Corporations too. Corporate accounts were our bread and butter. AT&T, Microsoft. They used it for team building. I guess you learn a lot about your co-workers when you are trapped on the top floor of a burning building.
GORP: If you make it.
Suzuki: Oh, you mostly make it. In fact, we guaranteed a casualty rate of
not less than and not more than five, out of a group of twenty five.
GORP: So what made you decide to go historical?
Suzuki: It was Darlene's idea. She always was a sort of a history buff. We did the Shackleton Trek (only we lost a couple) and
then the Medusa Disaster the nineteenth century French shipwreck thing. A hundred naked people adrift on a raft. No food, no water.
GORP: That's when Extreme Disasters became controversial.
Suzuki: You're talking about the cannibalism. But you have to understand,
controversy draws as many people as it repels. We don't do the Medusa anymore, but we do a Donner Pass every winter. We have to turn people away. The Medusa was our only flop.
GORP: What about the Hindenburg?
“It's hard to get people on a disaster tour with NO survivors.”
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Suzuki: All right, that too. It's hard to get people on a disaster tour with NO survivors. But the Hindenburg did push us into aviation. As a matter of fact, our most popular event today is"Flight 13."
GORP: How can you make that one affordable?
Suzuki: Well, for one thing, you don't need a new plane. We build in a
failure but it's always different. Engine, hydraulic, cabin pressure, you
name it. Sometimes it's ten minutes into the flight, sometimes an hour or
so. The first year we used an off-lease DC-9. Now we use a 747 twice a
year, and we're booked at 100 percent capacity.
GORP: You don't have to be athletic for that one.
Suzuki: That's right! That's one key to its popularity. Plus since there's a survival rate of almost 70 percent, people can bring kids.
It's great for bonding. Say the power goes out at 39,000-it can be a good 10-12 minutes before you ditch. You can get real close to your wife, your
kids, and yourself in that time. It's an unforgettable experience. Have
you ever tried it?
GORP: No. My fiancie tried the Amtrak Experience once.
Suzuki: How'd she do?
GORP: Fine. A scar on her chin she likes to show off.
Suzuki: See! That's what we provide bragging rights. A little excitement. Something for everybody in this case a controlled derailment on a dirt embankment, with no fire. That keeps fatalities way down. In fact, they say it's safer than regular Amtrak. But that's a whole other story.
