A man who has first-hand experience with the glories and the dangers of snowboard tricks and jumping has developed a landing pad he hopes will prevent others from ending up in a wheelchair like him.

Aaron Coret is in his last year of engineering at the University of B.C. and is using his training to make the sport that was once his passion as safe as possible.

The idea for a giant, cushioned landing pad for freestyle snowboarding came to him during his month in hospital and developed while he endured six months of rehabilitation.

Coret, 25, was at the Blackcomb, B.C., terrain park in 2005 and was attempting a switchback 540 when he landed hard on his neck. It left him paralyzed from the neck down.

Now, amateur snowboarders are watching the Olympics and will soon be attempting to copy those very same jumps on their local mountains.

"The tricks are getting harder and harder and more dangerous and more dangerous," Coret said in an interview. "There's a lot of glory involved in it if you can actually land the trick and get into contests."

Coret and his friend, also a UBC engineering student, developed the landing pad as their final project in an engineering course.

The giant, white, air-filled pad is built by the same company that makes bouncy castles, except this pad has a special high-density top sheet that protects its from sharp objects.

The idea is the boarder goes off the jump, attempts an acrobatic twist and lands safely with nothing but a poof on the other side.

Their only landing pad is currently in Vail, Colorado, being used privately by Vail's ski and snowboard club.

"It's incredible. We've had the best athletes in the world come to train on it and they just keep saying great things about it," Coret said.

He said most boarders have never had the opportunity to learn their tricks in a safe environment, but now they can make the jump, do their trick and land safely on the giant pad.

"You see these young kids training with the club that would normally take years to develop some of these tricks and learn them in a week, " he said. "The kids are happy, the coaches are happy, it's all done safely."

Coret and his partner have started their own company and hope to soon sell their landing pad to mountains around the world, but the company is so new he couldn't yet put a price tag on the landing pad.

Even if one boarder gets saved from a horrible injury with their invention, their effort would be worth it, Coret said.