The Alabama man who was reported to have told a news agency that four people recently died in his state after jumping off speeding boats because of a TikTok social media challenge, is now saying that his comments were exaggerated.
Captain Jim Dennis of the Childersburg Rescue Squad reportedly told an Alabama news organization 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.”
The story was widely reported by other media outlets, including Soundings, but Alabama authorities question the legitimacy and accuracy of the story.
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) released a statement that there are no recorded deaths in the state that can be directly related to the TikTok trend of boat jumping. “One individual was fatally (sic) injured after jumping from a moving vessel in 2020 and a similar marine-related fatality occurred in 2021, however, both fatalities cannot be linked to TikTok,” the agency reported.
Meanwhile, after NBC’s Today Show reported the story of the four recent deaths in Alabama, Dennis told AL.com that the comments attributed to him had been blown “way out of proportion.”
Dennis was quoted last week by a local Alabama news outlet that the challenge had led to four “easily avoidable” drowning deaths in the state. “That is a very big concern because we have seen this pattern emerge over the last two years and it’s sporadic, but it’s something that needs to go away and stay away,” Dennis was reported to have said.
According to Gail Kulp, executive director of the Sea Tow Foundation, jumping off a moving boat is like “hitting concrete from jumping multiple stories up.”
