Langworthy's ill-fated jump at Victoria Falls.
A 22-year-old Australian woman escaped with just a broken collarbone, cuts and bruises, and one hell of a story after her bungee cord snapped during a New Year’s Eve plunge off Africa’s Victoria Falls Bridge.
Erin Lagnworthy, a backpacker from Perth on holiday, told Australian media she felt like she’d been “slapped all over” when she hit the crocodile-infested rapids of the Zambezi River, bordering Zambia and Zimbabwe. Still bound at the ankles, she nevertheless managed to swim to the Zimbabwe side of the river – having to swim down and untangle the bungee cord from rocks it was caught on at least once – and await rescue. She was treated at a local clinic before being evacuated to South Africa.
The original video:
Video footage of her 111-meter fall went viral over the last weekend, as media outlets picked up the news of her miraculous survival. Following the incident, the Zambian tourist minster, Given Lubinda, moved to reassure tourists that bungee jumping at the Falls, a major tourist a attraction, was still safe: “The bungee has proven to be a very viable operation considering that more than 50,000 tourists jump on it every year. It has been in operation for 10 years. This is the first time I am hearing of an incident. The probability of an incident is one in 500,000 jumps,” he said, according to the Lusaka Times. Even so, Lubinda said that he would be “engaging” the operator of the bungee company, Bungee Extreme, to make the operation and equipment even safer.
Langworthy speaks
