Bungee jumper Erin Langworthy must be thanking her stars for surviving a fall from the Victoria Falls Bridge which connects Zimbabwe and Zambia.

The 22-year-old Australian jumped using a 111metre (364-feet) cord above the Zambezi river, a known breeding ground for crocodiles, on New Year's eve. Suddenly her cord snapped and she plunged into the river. Miraculously, she escaped with just a few cuts and bruises.

"It felt like I had been slapped all over," the girl from Perth told Australia's Channel Nine television.

"I actually had to swim down and yank the bungee cord out of whatever it was caught on to make it to the surface," Langworthy said.

After removing the cord she swam to the bank on the Zimbabwean side of the river.

Over 50,000 bungee jumpers visit the Zambezi river every year and such incidents are rare.

Zimbabwe