Teens Court Danger with Risky Behavior

March 14, 2005 — -- This report was originally published on December 9, 2005.

Today's American teenagers get a kick out of filming themselves doing crazy, dangerous stunts and posting them on the Internet. The fad was kick-started by a now-canceled MTV program, but the show wasn't called "Jackass" for nothing.

The days of cruising the local mall to kill boredom have given way to riskier activities, like riding on top of a moving car, known as "car-surfing," and "skitching," hanging onto a car while riding a skateboard or rollerblades.

But the dangerous pastimes may be not-so-innocent fun; many teens have been killed or injured searching for that elusive buzz of excitement.

"I do it for the rush," said BMX bicycle rider Kalin Law. "Just, there's no other feeling like it. I mean, just riding your bike really fast, jumping over things, doing whatever you want. It's just incredible."

But that high can come with a painful price. Brothers Chris and Kevin Sorichetti are legends in their suburban San Diego neighborhood. To teens, the Sorichettis are known for their extreme skills in freestyle BMX and trick bicycle riding. Local doctors know them more for the 37 bones the two have collectively broken.

But despite canceled medical insurance and nearly a half-million dollars in medical bills, they can't stop taking risks -- jumping higher and higher, and seemingly forgetting about the painful consequences with each new trick.

"It's the best feeling in the world, I think," Chris Sorichetti said. "As I'm, like, jumping, you don't think about anything. Like, all your problems are just, like, gone, and you're focusing on what you're doing."

Scientists Explore Teen Risk-Takers

So what causes this addiction to risky behavior? Doctors are mapping the teen brain and searching for answers. They're using magnetic resonance imaging tests to examine the issue more closely.

Scientists used to think the human brain stopped growing at age 12, but now they've found the teen cranium is actually incomplete -- sorely lacking in the frontal lobe area, where rational decisions are made and warnings are given. It is now believed that the brain doesn't totally develop until age 25.

"So the teen years are a time for risk-taking, of trying a lot of different things, of seeing what will work and what won't work, and it's the way that nature uses to optimize the brain in later years," said Dr. Jay Geidd, who is heading the study.

But that's only part of the story. Experts say some kids are just born to take risks. Some of those include dangerous risks like the new trend "free-running," jumping from rooftop to rooftop between buildings.

"Thrill-seekers are low in arousal in the nervous system. And they want to get their arousal up so they seek stimulation," said Dr. Frank Farley of Temple University.

Farley has studied risk behavior for 30 years and refers to risk-takers as "T-types," the "T" standing for thrill-seekers. He said that T-types had traditionally been males, but that more girls were becoming risk-takers as social barriers dropped. T-types often have symptoms parents can recognize as early as age 2.

"They're very exploratory. They're the kid who wanders off into the woods. They don't cling to you. They show fearlessness," Farley said.

Identifying the T-Type

Shawn Nipper was easily identifiable as a T-Type, according to his parents. The 16-year-old was renowned for outrageous behavior, pushing the envelope on his skateboard and yelling "Let's get naked" in campus hallways.

"He loved skateboarding. He loved the thrills, and he liked being … he just liked being a daredevil," said Gary Cox, Shawn's father.

Shawn's mother, Gaye Nipper, agreed.

"If you weren't having fun, you were gonna have fun around him," she said.

But in the back of his parents' minds, there was fear that Shawn would one day go too far. And on a November night, just three weeks ago, he did. Shawn went from skateboarder to car-surfer, climbing on top of a speeding vehicle driven by one of his buddies.

"They had the music loud and they said that they hard Shawn laughing and saying, 'Go faster.' They said that they did not hear Shawn fall off," Nipper said. "When they turned the music down, they did not hear Shawn on top of the car anymore."

Shawn had fallen from the car and was thrown into a roadside barrier. The first adult on the scene said he had no pulse.

"I hope he was killed immediately. I don't want him to suffer," his mother said.

Cox said he doubted that his son was capable of understanding the dangers of his risky behavior.

"They're 10-foot-tall and bulletproof when they're that age," he said.

Extreme Sports, With Supervision

Surprisingly, Temple University's Farley recommends getting T-types involved in extreme sports, where they can channel their need for danger into more organized, helmet-wearing, safety-scrutinized risk. And who knows where that may lead.

Champion snowboarder Shaun White was encouraged by his parents to take up the sport. His parents recognized his high-risk personality and steered him toward snowboarding.

"They were the ones that, like, bought me the board, got me all the stuff, got me to the mountain," said White, who appears in a new movie called "First Descent."

In fact, White's dad hit the slopes with him in the early days, something Farley highly recommends.

"I would always make my dad hit the jump first to see if he made it," White said.

Now he's channeled his risk-taking into something safer, and even profitable. He makes money and still fulfills his craving for that edgy experience that so many teenagers seek.

"That's a lot of the thrill -- that you never know what's going to happen until you get in the air," White said.

Reminding Other Parents of the Consequences

Of course, White's positive experience stands in stark contrast to Shawn Nipper's, whose T-type personality went unchanneled. Nipper's parents never knew how dangerous his thrill-seeking could be.

They urge parents who see their kids jumping off the garage, setting themselves on fire, or riding on top of cars, to sit down and talk to their kids, and help them find a new, safer way to get their thrills.

"You always think that it could happen to someone else. And it always does happen to somebody -- you know, I'm that somebody else," Cox said. "It hurts. It's real. It's realer than any TV show you'll ever see. And parents, if you don't think it could happen to you, just sit back and do nothing."