A snowboard enthusiast

• 'He struggled to get out of his bindings'
• Snowboard-maker defends product's safety
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REDWOOD CITY, California (CNN) -- The family of a man who died in a snowboarding accident has sued the sport's largest equipment manufacturer, charging that the foot bindings on the board can lead to death by suffocation, if they can't be released in deep snow.

Attorney Joe Carcione Jr. is suing Burton Snowboards on behalf of the family of Isaac Goodkind, 22, who died at a Lake Tahoe, California, ski area nearly five years ago.

"On snowboards, people go over and become asphyxiated, or drown, in powdered snow, because they can't get their feet out of the snowboards. That accident doesn't happen in skis, because people are able to kick their skis off and get up," Carcione told CNN.

A snowboard boot

Goodkind's family said they believe the young man could have survived, if he'd been able to get his feet out of the snowboard bindings.

"He struggled to get out of his bindings, and he was unable to," said Goodkind's mother, Merle Pendell.

"You don't really think, 'I'm going to suffocate.' I had no idea. I bought him that snowboard," said Joel Goodkind, the snowboarder's father.

Carcione said that while it is difficult to obtain statistics on the new and quickly growing sport, figures provided by the Burton company show that 30 percent of snowboard deaths are suffocations.

Only one-half of 1 percent of skiing deaths are due to suffocation, the lawyer added.

No one from Burton Snowboards agreed to be interviewed, but a written statement from the company said, "Burton has significant experience with both releasable and non-releasable binding systems. This experience has demonstrated the non-releasable snowboard binding to be a critical component of safe snowboard equipment."

An estimated 2.5 million Americans clamped their feet into snowboards last year to try the increasingly popular winter sport.

Enthusiasts in California told CNN that releasable bindings would probably cause more injuries. The greater problem, according to a coach for the U.S. snowboard team, is that snowboarders often look for deep power, venturing into riskier locations in remote back-country areas.

When Issac Goodkind received the snowboard he later died on, he signed a release, as part of the sale, saying he was aware that the sport was risky.

But his father said the release said nothing about the risk of suffocating in the snow while trapped in the snowboard's foot bindings.

CNN Correspondent Don Knapp contributed to this report.