{"id":18313,"date":"2025-04-19T15:07:54","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T15:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/?p=18313"},"modified":"2025-04-19T15:07:54","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T15:07:54","slug":"womans-joke-before-bungee-jump-turns-chillingly-prophetic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/?p=18313","title":{"rendered":"Woman\u2019s joke before bungee jump turns chillingly prophetic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_8519-300x158.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"158\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-18314\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_8519-300x158.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_8519.jpeg 664w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><br \/>\nWhat started as a playful joke quickly turned into a nightmare for one woman, whose near-death experience during a bungee jump became a terrifying brush with fate.<\/p>\n<p>It goes to show that anything can happen, especially when you perhaps are not expecting it.<\/p>\n<p>Keep reading to learn more.<\/p>\n<p>Back in 2012, 22-year-old Erin Langworthy from Australia was on a trip to the iconic Victoria Falls \u2014 a natural wonder straddling the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe \u2014 when she decided to take on a 360-foot bungee jump from a bridge spanning the Zambezi River.<\/p>\n<p>Before the jump, Erin jokingly sent her mum a postcard, teasing: \u201cI\u2019m doing a bungee jump tomorrow, so I\u2019ll say goodbye\u2026 only joking!\u201d It was meant to be light-hearted, but her words would soon take on a haunting significance.<\/p>\n<p>Erin was the 105th person to jump that day, and she admitted she felt a few nerves, but never imagined anything could go wrong. As is customary for the jump, her leap was captured on camera. The footage shows her arms outstretched, falling gracefully \u2014 until, in a split second, the cord snaps.<\/p>\n<p>Plummeting into the Zambezi, notorious for its strong currents and crocodile population, Erin hit the water hard, and the broken cord still bound her feet together.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt felt amazing at first,\u201d Erin later said, per The Guardian. \u201cThen I felt a jolt across my chest, like I slowed down for a second\u2026 and suddenly I hit the water. That\u2019s when I realised something had gone seriously wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Knocked unconscious for a moment by the impact, Erin came to underwater, her lungs burning, disoriented and struggling to work out which way was up. \u201cAs I went deeper, the water got colder; I think that snapped me out of it,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n<p>To make matters worse, the bungee cord tangled in rocks and debris as she was swept through the rapids. With immense effort, she managed to dive under and free it more than once. Despite severe bruising and internal trauma, she swam through the fast-flowing river and made it to the Zimbabwean side, where a staff member helped her to safety.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Erin Langworthy survived horror injuries after her bungee cord snapped from 360ft in Zambia.<\/p>\n<p>She had joked about her death the day before it happened.<\/p>\n<p>The accident was considered a miracle after she fell into crocodile-infested waters. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bW1JVmCaiU\">pic.twitter.com\/bW1JVmCaiU<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; TrendMagnetHQ (@TrendMagnetHQ) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TrendMagnetHQ\/status\/1747275450215502073?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 16, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d seen crocodiles that morning,\u201d she later said, \u201cbut I couldn\u2019t even think about that. I was coughing up blood and struggling to breathe. My lungs were on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She credits her instinctive outstretched arms during the fall for saving her from a head-first impact and likely unconsciousness.<\/p>\n<p>Erin was taken to a nearby hospital in Victoria Falls where she was put on a ventilator, underwent scans and was treated for partially collapsed lungs and potential infections from the dirty river water. \u201cI had ingested a lot of water, so they gave me strong antibiotics,\u201d she said of her stay in the hospital. \u201cBut miraculously, there were no broken bones.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite the trauma, Erin was philosophical about the incident. \u201cThe bungee team were incredibly apologetic. I think it\u2019s a miracle I survived.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the wake of the accident, Zambia\u2019s then-tourism minister Given Lubinda addressed public fears, saying the bungee jump had a strong safety record with over 50,000 jumpers a year and just one known incident, according to The Lusaka Tmes.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Lubinda even offered to jump again, alongside Erin, to prove the safety of the operation. \u201cIt\u2019s my responsibility to take the risk,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd to show the world that Zambia is still a destination worth visiting and bungee jumping in.\u201d<br \/>\nAs for Erin? Her mum insists she\u2019ll never jump again. Erin, on the other hand, isn\u2019t so sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What started as a playful joke quickly turned into a nightmare for one woman, whose near-death experience during a bungee jump became a terrifying brush with fate&#8230;. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18315,"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18313\/revisions\/18315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}