What began as a lighthearted joke on a postcard turned into a harrowing experience that nearly cost one woman her life. In 2012, 22-year-old Erin Langworthy from Australia was visiting the breathtaking Victoria Falls, which straddles the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, when she decided to take on a thrilling 360-foot bungee jump over the Zambezi River.
Just before her jump, Erin playfully wrote to her mother, “I’m doing a bungee jump tomorrow, so I’ll say goodbye… only joking!” The words were meant in jest — but would soon carry an eerie weight.
As the 105th jumper that day, Erin recalled feeling the usual nerves, but nothing out of the ordinary. Her leap, like those of the jumpers before her, was recorded. The footage shows her soaring through the air, arms outstretched, until, in a moment that would change everything, the bungee cord snapped.
Instead of rebounding, Erin plummeted into the fast-moving waters of the Zambezi River, infamous for its crocodiles and strong currents. The cord, still attached to her ankles, dragged behind her.
“At first, it felt amazing,” she told The Guardian. “But then I felt this jolt across my chest, and the next thing I knew, I was hitting the water.” That was when she realized the cord had failed.
The force of the fall knocked her unconscious briefly. When she came to, she was submerged, gasping for air, her lungs burning. Disoriented and unsure which way was up, she said it was the cold of the deeper water that shocked her back into awareness.
Still bound by the broken cord and tossed around by the river’s powerful rapids, Erin faced a terrifying battle to survive. The rope tangled in rocks and debris, threatening to drag her under, but she managed to free herself more than once. With extraordinary effort, she swam toward the Zimbabwean side, where a staff member helped pull her to shore.
Even in the moment, the danger was far from over. “I’d seen crocodiles that morning,” Erin later recalled, “but I couldn’t even think about that. I was coughing up blood, my lungs were burning — all I could do was focus on staying alive.”
She believes her initial arm position during the fall may have saved her life. Had she hit the water head-first, unconsciousness or worse would have been almost certain.
Erin was rushed to a local hospital in Victoria Falls where she was treated for partially collapsed lungs, internal bruising, and potential infections from the river water. “They put me on a ventilator and gave me strong antibiotics,” she explained. “I’d swallowed a lot of water. But somehow, I didn’t break a single bone.”
Despite the trauma, she remained remarkably calm in recounting her story. The bungee staff, she said, were deeply apologetic and in shock themselves. “I think it’s a miracle I survived.”
The incident sparked concern internationally and drew responses from Zambian officials. Then-tourism minister Given Lubinda attempted to reassure the public, emphasizing that the bungee operation had a longstanding safety record, with over 50,000 jumpers a year and no previous incidents of this kind. To further prove its safety, he even offered to jump again himself — alongside Erin.
“It’s my responsibility to take the risk,” he said, “and show the world that Zambia is still safe and worth visiting.”
Erin’s mother made her feelings on bungee jumping clear: never again. Erin, though? She hasn’t completely ruled it out.
