It takes a special kind of person to be a platform diver, jumping from a ledge nearly 33 feet above the water in a carefully choreographed routine.

So, by that logic, it must take an extra special kind of person to be a competitive cliff diver, jumping from heights of 65-90 feet with life and limb on the line.

After completing an All-American platform diving career at Purdue earlier this year, Sylvania native and St. John's Jesuit graduate David Colturi began pursuing his new interest of international extreme cliff diving, which he discovered while working as a stunt performer at Indiana Beach amusement park in Monticello, Ind.

In extreme cliff diving, a platform is set up high above a body of water if no actual cliff is available.

Divers are in the air for about three seconds before hitting the water feet first at upwards of 65 miles per hour.

"Cliff diving is an extreme sport," Colturi said. "It takes regular competition platform diving and just ups the ante a little bit. You can be as good as you want on the lower levels, but to take big dives up to the top and throw yourself off up that high, it adds a whole new element of poison control."

Only a few dozen divers in the world compete in cliff diving, so competitions are held across the globe.

Colturi recently returned from China, where he took first out of 20 divers in the Liuzhou International High Altitude Diving Match and earned $7,500.

Colturi, who lives in Ann Arbor and works at a research laboratory at the University of Michigan, hopes to further his career in cliff diving while he awaits replies to his applications for medical school.

The Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series runs from March to October, and Colturi hopes to participate in the full circuit next year by qualifying through a tryout competition in February in Australia.

Colturi competed in the series' American stop last August in Boston, which saw divers jumping from the cantilever roof of the Institute of Contemporary Art building into the Boston Harbor at a height of about 80 feet.

"It was pretty crazy," Colturi said.

As for the risks inherent in the competition, Colturi is well-versed.

"It is a very dangerous sport," Colturi said. "I forget what show I was watching, but they did a calculation of what's the shortest height you could jump from to kill yourself. People have committed suicide off of bridges that are like 65-70 feet tall. Well, we're jumping from heights greater than that, so there's a very big risk involved.

"People do sometimes get hurt, but the organizations that put on the events are very safe. They almost always have scuba divers in the water where you're landing and they have all kinds of medical staff standing by."

So what does mom and dad think about all this?

"They get a little worried, but I think they've always been worried," Colturi said with a laugh. "Diving is a dangerous sport in and of itself, but taking it to new heights is something to be nervous about.

"But they've always known this is what I love to do and they support me all the way."

Contact Zach Silka at: zsilka@theblade.com or 419-724-6084.

First Published October 26, 2011, 4:15 a.m.