Almost immediately O'Mahony tells the crew to stop. Something is wrong. Fuller's recovery line has twisted around the bungee cord. This is a problem, since the friction could break the softer bungee cord.
"Shit." O'Mahony thinks he might have to rappel down and untangle Fuller, something he dreads and has never had to do. Instead, since tonight's group is so large, O'Mahony moves Fuller from a double- to a single-pulley system. (A single-pulley recovery requires twice the strength of a double to retrieve the jumper; O'Mahony's usual group of three or four would not have enough power to reliably man a single-pulley line.) O'Mahony sends down the second line, which Fuller, dangling by his ankles, must attach before detaching the tangled original line.
"All right, Tommy," says O'Mahony. "I'm going to pull you up on the other line." Soon, Fuller is brought up to the platform and lowered down. A few nervous claps are heard.
"Who's my next victim?" inquires O'Mahony calmly. Bruce, a 28-year-old photographer, is ready, straps attached to his ankles, waiting for the cord. Once up, he has three minutes. If he's still standing after that, sweating the plunge, he loses his place. "If you leave your slot I absolutely understand," O'Mahony says. "We're not going to call you a wuss for not jumping off the fucking Manhattan Bridge in the middle of the night." Bruce jumps.
O'Mahony will oversee 12 more jumps without incident before the group packs up at 5:15 a.m.
Unbelieveably, O'Mahony is not New York's only regular bungee jumper. "Riley," 33, is the first known person to jump off the George Washington Bridge--upper level, midspan.
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