Bungee Jumping Accidents and Deaths: How Often, Why, and Is It Safe?

By Dylan Rooney · Published March 18, 2026 · Updated October 26, 2026

Bungee jumping accidents are rare at established, regulated sites, but bungee jump deaths do happen, and they are very unevenly spread. Almost every fatal accident in the record traces back to a short list of process failures: a cord that was not attached, a cord too long for the drop, a harness fitted wrong, or worn gear left in service. Those failures cluster at unlicensed or improvised operations and one-off stunts. This guide covers what is actually known about how many people die bungee jumping, how accidents happen, the notable cases, the injuries that occur even when everything goes to plan, and how to tell a well-run site from a risky one.

How many people die bungee jumping each year?

Nobody knows, and any site that gives a precise global figure is guessing. No country or international body publishes a count of bungee deaths. A 2018 literature review noted that the UK does not even record bungee injuries, so reliable statistics do not exist ^[1], and a 2012 review of injury epidemiology found bungee risk reported only sporadically, mostly as eye injuries and occasional serious or fatal cases ^[2]. Even in New Zealand, where bungy operators must be registered and pass independent safety audits, one aim of the code-of-practice revision now under way is to strengthen incident reporting ^[3].

What the record does show:

• Deaths are counted one at a time, in the news. The Associated Press reported in 1992 that a 1991 death was the first in the United States, and that two experienced jumpers died within a month in summer 1992: Joel Gentry, 28, who fell 180 ft when a jump platform crashed at a festival in Auburn, Michigan, and Troy Hurtibese, 19, who jumped without securing his cord at a fairground in Peterborough, Canada ^[4].
• A bad year can change the rules. After those deaths Florida shut 18 bungee operations, New Jersey and Pennsylvania halted jumping, and Florida later reopened under new rules including a 100 ft height limit ^[4].
• Recent years still produce deaths. In 2024 alone, news reports covered a bungee death in Chile, one in Kyrgyzstan and a rope-jump death in Brazil (see the table below) ^[5][6][7]. Counting news reports undercounts deaths in countries with less coverage and can overcount by mixing in rope jumps and stunts.
• The number of jumps is large. A 1995 review estimated that over 2 million bungee jumps had been made worldwide by then ^[8]. Current figures from New Zealand operators are below.

Put together: deaths are rare compared with the millions of jumps made, but they have not stopped, and recent ones cluster at operators working without the permits their countries require. Any “deaths per year” number you see is an inference from incomplete news reports, not a statistic.

What is the bungee jumping death rate?

The number repeated almost everywhere is one death per 500,000 jumps. In 2016 the American Council on Science and Health traced it to a comparison chart on a health-degrees website that credited the US National Center for Health Statistics, and the same article noted how thin the underlying data were: one reference site claimed fewer than 100 deaths worldwide by 2009, another reported 18 between 1986 and 2002 ^[9]. Neither figure can be traced to a register, and the 500,000 number cannot be traced to a published study. It also turns up in official mouths: in January 2012 Zambia’s tourism minister used it to describe the odds of an incident on the Victoria Falls Bridge jump, days after a cord broke there ^[10].

The medical reviews cited above are blunter: with no injury records kept even in the UK, there is no denominator to build a rate from ^[1][2].

What can be said with confidence is the scale of safe operation at the best-documented sites. AJ Hackett Bungy, which opened the first commercial site at Kawarau Bridge in Queenstown in 1988 ^[3], says it has run more than 2 million jumps over nearly 40 years ^[11], and Standards New Zealand puts the country's bungy market at more than 150,000 jumpers a year ^[3]. Treat "1 in 500,000" as a rough order of magnitude for regulated commercial jumping, not a measured rate, and remember that it says nothing about a pop-up operator with no licence.

How bungee accidents happen

A 1995 review in Sports Medicine grouped the causes of bungee injuries and deaths into natural forces, impact, technician error, equipment failure and repetitive stress ^[8]. The case record since then fits those categories closely. In practice they come down to five failure modes, summarised below; how bungee jumping goes wrong takes each one in more depth, with more cases and the specific rules that address it.

1. The jumper is not connected, or is connected wrong

This is the deadliest and most preventable failure. In June 2026 a woman died in São Paulo state, Brazil, after instructors let her go from a disused bridge without attaching her rope; she fell 40 m and three men were arrested ^[12]. That was a rope jump, a related pendulum activity, but the failure is identical to a missed bungee attachment. Michael Lush died in 1986 rehearsing a BBC television stunt when a carabiner came loose from its eyebolt during a jump from a crane about 37 m (120 ft) up ^[13]; the full story is in the Michael Lush accident and what changed afterwards.

Two checks of every connection, by two people, exist to stop this. AJ Hackett describes the cord, ropes, knots and connections being "visually and verbally double checked by both operators" before each jump, with jumpers attached at two points through a main harness rather than relying on ankle ties alone ^[14].

2. Too much cord for the drop

A bungee system only works if the cord's free length and stretch match the jumper's weight and the clearance below. Get that wrong and the jumper reaches the ground or water at speed. In January 1997 aerialist Laura Patterson, 43, died rehearsing a bungee routine for that month's Super Bowl halftime show in the Louisiana Superdome. A preliminary police finding blamed a volunteer who let out too much cord; the show's organisers said they had found nothing wrong with the equipment ^[15]. Matching cord to weight is the reason every reputable site weighs jumpers on the day and enforces both a minimum and a maximum; see bungee weight and age limits by operator.

3. Cord or hardware failure

Cord breaks are rare but not unheard of. On New Year's Eve 2011, Australian backpacker Erin Langworthy, 22, fell into the Zambezi when her cord snapped on the 111 m Victoria Falls Bridge jump; with her feet still tied, she swam to the bank and spent a week in hospital ^[10]. The operator’s investigation blamed rubber that was weaker than it should have been (full story: the Erin Langworthy Victoria Falls bungee accident). In January 2023 a 39-year-old tourist from Hong Kong survived after his cord snapped near the bottom of a jump into water at Pattaya, Thailand; the park's founder confirmed the incident ^[16]. In July 2024 a 39-year-old man died in Kyrgyzstan's Chunkurchak gorge when the rope broke on a 25 m jump at the Fly Jump complex; the owner was detained and a criminal case opened for creating danger to consumers ^[6].

Good operators prevent this by retiring cords early. AJ Hackett says each cord has a rated life measured in jumps, hours of use and UV exposure, that cords are pulled from service "only a fraction of the way through" that life, and that a cord has never snapped at its New Zealand sites ^[14]. Some regulators write inspection into law: Illinois, for example, sets rules for daily inspection of bungee equipment and emergency procedures ^[17]. More detail on how cords are rated is in how bungee cords are made and tested.

4. Harness fit and slow recovery

The time after the jump matters as much as the fall. In February 2024 Diego Albornoz, 23, died at an adventure centre in Cajón del Maipo, near Santiago, Chile. Prosecutors said his harness had been fitted incorrectly and that he hung for about half an hour calling for help before dying of positional asphyxia; the operator was charged with homicide by omission and remanded in custody ^[5]. Local reporting found the company's municipal licence had lapsed and that it was not registered with Chile's national tourism service ^[18]. A well-run site has a rehearsed lowering or recovery plan and can reach a jumper within minutes.

5. Rushed, unlicensed operations

Fatigue and pressure show up repeatedly in investigations. After a young woman on a day trip from Joinville died at Lagoa Azul in Campo Magro, Brazil, in November 2024, the local council said the site had been closed and lacked environmental, operating and fire-service licences ^[19]. Police later charged the owner and an instructor; a forensic expert listed three errors (a safety line about four metres too long, a faulty knot and a line that was never released), and witnesses described tired instructors repeatedly refitting equipment late in a long day ^[7]. This, too, was a rope jump rather than a bungee, but the lesson transfers directly.

Notable bungee jumping accidents and deaths

This table lists the incidents covered above, oldest first. The 1986 death of Michael Lush has its own page: the Michael Lush bungee accident. It is not a complete record, which does not exist. Several of the most recent cases are rope jumps, a pendulum-style activity (called pêndulo humano in Brazil) rather than a true bungee ^[7]; they are included because the failures are the same ones that kill bungee jumpers.

In both the Cajón del Maipo and Campo Magro deaths, local authorities reported that the operators were trading without permits that were already required ^[18][19].

Injuries that happen even when nothing fails

The forces of a normal jump are survivable for healthy people, but they are not trivial, and the published case reports show where the body is vulnerable.

• Eyes. Being inverted and decelerated sharply raises pressure in the head. A 2008 prospective study of 120 jumpers at Bloukrans Bridge in South Africa found small subconjunctival haemorrhages (red spots on the white of the eye) in 84.2% of them; 83.3% had no change in visual acuity, and one jumper developed a posterior vitreous detachment in both eyes ^[20]. Bleeding inside the eye was being reported in ophthalmology journals by 1994 ^[21], and one later case describes a 48-year-old woman who still had blind spots in her vision five months after a jump ^[22].
• Neck and spine. One of the earliest case reports, from Phoenix in 1993, described a 28-year-old man left quadriplegic by a locked facet joint in the neck and a 19-year-old woman with a non-fatal hanging injury ^[23].
• Legs and nerves. The 1995 review lists peroneal nerve palsy among the serious outcomes ^[8], and the 2018 report describes a 31-year-old woman who fractured her femur on a 200 ft jump ^[1].

These are reasons to be honest on the medical form. Operators screen for the conditions most likely to turn a normal jump into an emergency: AJ Hackett asks jumpers to disclose heart conditions, epilepsy, pregnancy and recent surgery, and does not allow anyone who has been drinking to jump ^[11]. A side-by-side table of what five operators exclude is in bungee weight, age and medical limits.

How regulation changes the odds

Commercial bungee was largely invented and codified in New Zealand. AJ Hackett instigated a Code of Practice in 1990, which became the joint Australian/New Zealand standard AS/NZS 5848:2000 ^[11][3]. New Zealand operators must be registered under the Health and Safety at Work (Adventure Activities) Regulations 2016 and pass periodic independent safety audits ^[3]. The standard is now being fully revised for the first time in more than 25 years, with a focus on recovery systems, harness and cord technology, digital records, training, fatigue management and incident reporting; publication is scheduled for May 2027 ^[3].

Many countries have nothing comparable, and in some the activity sits under general tourism or consumer law. The Chilean and Brazilian cases above both involved operators who were trading without the permits that did exist. When booking abroad, the most useful single question is which body licenses or audits the site. More on what the standards cover is in what safety standards actually protect you.

How to judge whether a site is safe

A jumper cannot audit a cord log, but a few things are visible from the queue:

• Registration or audit. The operator can name its regulator, licence or audit body without hesitating.
• Weighing. Everyone is weighed on the day, and the weight is written on the jumper or ticket. Sites that accept a guessed weight are skipping the step that sets cord length.
• Two-person checks. Two staff check every connection, out loud, before anyone steps to the edge ^[14].
• Two points of attachment. A body or waist harness in addition to ankle cuffs, or a backup line ^[14].
• Weather calls. Staff are willing to pause for wind, lightning or poor visibility ^[14].
• A visible recovery plan. Someone is ready to lower or retrieve the jumper as soon as the bounce settles.
• No pressure. A crew that hurries people off the platform to keep the queue moving is showing exactly the conditions that preceded the Campo Magro death.

For a printable version, see red flags at a bungee site and how to choose a reputable operator.

Is bungee jumping safer than skydiving?

There is no like-for-like dataset. Skydiving has national associations that publish annual fatality counts; bungee has nothing equivalent, so any comparison rests on the unverified 1 in 500,000 figure. The 2012 epidemiology review noted that skydiving risk has been studied for decades while bungee risk is reported only sporadically ^[2]. The two activities also fail differently: skydiving relies partly on the jumper's own skills under canopy, while a bungee jumper's safety depends almost entirely on the operator's setup. A longer comparison is in bungee jumping vs skydiving.

FAQ

Is bungee jumping safe?

At a registered, audited commercial site it is low risk for healthy people who meet the weight and medical requirements. The serious accidents on record mostly happened at unlicensed or improvised operations, or during one-off stunts.

How many people die bungee jumping each year?

No official count exists anywhere, and medical reviewers say there are no reliable statistics ^[1][2]. News reports in 2024 covered at least two bungee deaths (Chile and Kyrgyzstan) and a rope-jump death in Brazil ^[5][6][7], but news coverage is incomplete, so no reliable yearly figure can be given.

Has anyone died bungee jumping?

Yes. Examples include Michael Lush during a 1986 BBC stunt rehearsal, two jumpers in Michigan and Ontario in 1992, Laura Patterson at the Superdome in 1997, and deaths in Chile and Kyrgyzstan in 2024 ^{[13][4][15][5][6]}.

What is the death rate for bungee jumping?

The widely quoted figure is about one death per 500,000 jumps, but it cannot be traced to a published study or official register, and medical reviewers say no reliable statistics exist ^[9][1]. Treat it as an order of magnitude.

How many people have died bungee jumping in total?

Nobody keeps a global count. Older secondary sources claimed 18 deaths between 1986 and 2002 or fewer than 100 by 2009, but neither is verifiable ^[9].

What is the most common cause of bungee accidents?

Human error in setup: a connection that was never made or not checked, a cord too long for the jumper's weight and the drop, or a harness fitted wrong. Equipment failure, including a snapped cord, is rarer.

Has a bungee cord ever snapped?

Yes, rarely. Erin Langworthy's cord snapped at Victoria Falls in 2011 and a tourist's cord snapped in Pattaya, Thailand, in 2023; both survived ^[10][16]. AJ Hackett says a cord has never snapped at its New Zealand sites ^[14].

Can bungee jumping damage your eyes?

Small red spots on the whites of the eyes are common; a study of 120 jumpers found them in 84.2%. Retinal bleeding that affects vision is rare but documented, which is why some operators ask about eye conditions ^[20][21].

Is bungee jumping safe for your back?

Case reports describe neck and spine injuries, including a quadriplegia case from 1993 ^[23]. Operators commonly exclude people with back or neck problems and recent surgery; disclose any history and ask before booking.

Is bungee jumping or skydiving safer?

There is no reliable comparison because bungee deaths are not systematically recorded. Both are low risk with reputable operators; bungee safety depends more on the operator and less on the participant's own skill.

---

Sources

1. Bulletin of Emergency and Trauma (2018): Femoral shaft fracture during bungee jump, case report and literature review
2. Søreide K. The epidemiology of injury in bungee jumping, BASE jumping, and skydiving. Med Sport Sci 2012;58:112-29
3. Standards New Zealand (Mar 31, 2026): Bungy jumping standard to take a leap forward with new revision
4. Associated Press via Los Angeles Times (Nov 22, 1992): Bungee jumpers in stretch run for their rights (1991 and 1992 deaths, state bans)
5. The Clinic (Feb 23, 2024): Fiscalía acusa por homicidio a dueño de empresa de bungee (Cajón del Maipo), in Spanish
6. 24.kg (Jul 8, 2024): Deadly Fly Jump, police detain owner of sports complex
7. Banda B (Dec 19, 2024): owner and instructor charged after Campo Magro rope-jump death, in Portuguese
8. Vanderford L, Meyers M. Injuries and bungee jumping. Sports Medicine 1995;20(6):369-74
9. American Council on Science and Health (2016): Bungee jumping and the art of risk assessment
10. The Guardian (Jan 8, 2012): Victoria Falls bungee jumper survives after cord snaps
11. AJ Hackett Bungy New Zealand: FAQs (safety record, regulation, medical conditions)
12. BBC News (Jun 15, 2026): Brazil woman dies after rope-jumping instructors fail to attach cord
13. Wikipedia: The Late, Late Breakfast Show (death of Michael Lush, 1986)
14. AJ Hackett Bungy New Zealand: Is bungy jumping safe? (gear checks, cord retirement, weather)
15. UPI (Jan 26, 1997): Human error cited in bungee death
16. CNN via KPLC (Mar 27, 2023): Man's bungee cord snaps, hurling him into water below
17. Illinois Administrative Code tit. 56 § 6000.340: bungee jumping operation rules
18. La Tercera (Feb 21, 2024): operator's licence had lapsed and it was not registered with Sernatur, in Spanish
19. g1 (Nov 4, 2024): Campo Magro park was closed by the council and unlicensed, in Portuguese
20. Prospective study of ocular findings in 120 jumpers at Bloukrans Bridge (German Medical Science, 2008)
21. Jain BK, Talbot EM. Bungee jumping and intraocular haemorrhage. Br J Ophthalmol 1994;78(3):236-7
22. Diniz JR et al. Ocular alterations associated with bungee jumping: case report. Arq Bras Oftalmol 2005;68(6):853-6
23. Hite PR et al. Injuries resulting from bungee-cord jumping. Ann Emerg Med 1993;22(6):1060-3

---

Image credits

• Photo: Diego Delso / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
• Photo: Jaggery / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
• Photo: Fouad Ashtari / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)