[1] Corliss as a child, was diagnosed with counterphobia, a tendency where a person seeks out activities that they fear, rather than avoiding them.
[7][8] In October 2003, Corliss was teamed to jump with his best friend, Australian BASE jumper Dwain Weston, at the inaugural Go Fast Games.
As a result, Corliss received three years' probation and 100 hours' community service,[2] which was at one point overturned by Justice Michael R. Ambrecht of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, on the basis that Corliss "was experienced and careful enough to jump off a building without endangering his own life or anyone else's".
[16] On January 16, 2012, in an accident while proximity flying off Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa, Corliss broke both ankles, three toes, and a fibula, tore his left Anterior cruciate ligament, and sustained a gash in his skin that required skin grafts to close.
He struck his legs approximately halfway between the hip and knee on a rock ledge he was attempting to skim over while aiming at a target balloon.
The impact caused him to tumble forward one revolution before he regained some control, cleared some additional ledges and then deployed his parachute.
After safely completing the jump, Corliss was quoted saying that it was "...the single gnarliest thing I've ever done..." and "I have never experienced anything so hardcore.
I started crying..."[19] Corliss was the technical adviser for the wingsuit flying stunts featured in the 2015 release Point Break, an action thriller film remake, in which he briefly appears.