On her birthday, Deepa Devkota stepped off a platform 160 meters above the Bhote Kosi River in Nepal. She was strapped into a wheelchair, tethered to a rope, and about to become the first Nepali woman living with a disability to complete a bungee jump.
The jump happened on December 16, 2025, at Nepal's only bungee site. It was a moment Devkota, a disability rights activist living with spina bifida, had decided would mean something beyond the adrenaline rush.
"Disability isn't a hindrance," she said afterward. "If we have self-confidence and are provided with opportunity, we can make headway in any given field."
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Start Your News DetoxDevkota dedicated the jump to her parents. Growing up in Sindhuli District, they'd faced social stigma for raising a child with a disability—the kind of quiet, grinding judgment that shapes how families see themselves. But they raised her to believe she could do hard things. That belief carried her off that platform.
She wasn't the first person with a disability to make this jump. Alexe Mayuko completed the first-ever wheelchair bungee jump in Russia back in October 2015. Two other Nepali men, Dilip Sapkota and Shishir Dahal, had also jumped from the same spot earlier that December. But in Nepal, where disability often means invisibility, Devkota's jump carried a particular weight.
Sugam Bhattarai, secretary general of the National Federation of the Disabled – Nepal, saw it that way too. "People living with disability can equally contribute to society," he said, "in all fields, be it tourism or adventure sports." The jump wasn't just personal. It was a visible argument against a narrative that had probably been told about her since birth.
Devkota has since become vocal about what the achievement means. She's not framing it as inspiration porn—the kind of feel-good story that lets society off the hook. She's saying something sharper: given the chance and the confidence, disabled people don't need to be inspired. They need opportunity. They need to be believed in. The rest follows.
