Vali Graham was 21 years old and had one goal: to jump 42.5 meters from Minnehaha Falls in Australia’s Blue Mountains and take the world record for dødsing, or death diving, away from Swiss diver Lucien Charlon.
On June 11, 2025, he launched himself from a height equivalent to a 13-story building. In midair, he performed calculated rotations, but he hit the water in a bad position, in pike, and the impact left him unconscious for a few seconds. When he awoke, he had a fractured T11 vertebra, a broken sternum, a cracked skull, and a ruptured eardrum.
Even so, he managed to swim to shore and walk nearly 1.2 kilometers to his team’s vehicle, with the help of the spotters accompanying him. He underwent surgery at least twice and, according to his own account, was able to walk again two days after surgery. Charlon’s record of 41.7 meters remains intact.