September 11, 2025 ā¢ 18 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
My Heart podcasts, Hear More Kids podcasts, playlists, and listen
live on the Free I heard app.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Well, what do you hope you having a wonderful drive home? Woodrow.
We in the midst of what is becoming an absolute
favorite segment of ours. Someone who shouldn't be alive. We're
surprised by by the producers with a story we don't know,
and this person knows that we don't know, so hopefully
we don't seem completely ignorant. But Emma Carey is in
(00:40):
the studio with us now, and Emma, you shouldn't be alive?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yeah, definitely should not. And I love that you don't
know this. This is going to be great to get
your reaction. Okay, So this all happened twelve years ago
and I went skard diving, and have you guys done it?
First of all, I have yes. Did you like it?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Loved it?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Love? Yeah, loved it? And as did I. I absolutely
loved it. This was in Switzerland, so we're in the
middle of the Swiss Alps, jumped out of helicopter. All
was going great until I had never done it before,
so I had nothing to compare it to. But I
was waiting. I'd seen videos, and I in the videos,
you see the instructor high fiving you or sometimes giving
you the ropes to steer it around and all that
(01:19):
kind of thing. But none of that was happening. And
we also weren't slowing down, and I imagined you would
slow down after the first thirty seconds or something, and
I thought, Okay, maybe time's just warped while you're free falling.
Maybe it hasn't been that long. Maybe he's not talking
to me because he's shy. Maybe he can't hear me
over the wind. I thought all of these things, so
I didn't immediately know something was wrong.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
So sorry, so sorry, sorry, sorry. You're you're free falling
and we're free fall. No parachute has popped up, no.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
But I think we're still just in the free fall.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Sure, because you've got nothing to compare it to. Okay, yeah, exactly, so.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I think we're still just in freefall. And then the
closer when you're when you're really high up. I'm not
sure if you remember the ground, it all just looks
the same. Everything's just tiny little dots on the ground,
and it's not until you start to get closer and
everything becomes clear out that you realize just how fast
you're falling because it's in view, and the closer we got,
I thought, okay, we definitely, we definitely should be slowing
(02:14):
down by now. And then the next thing I saw
was something red flashed before my eyes and I realized
that it was the material of the parachute wrapped up
all in a ball. So it was in front of us,
it wasn't above us and open, so the parachute didn't open,
and we just free fell to the ground.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
What So he didn't say anything to you, Emma at
that stage. He didn't know whisper in your ear like
we're going to.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Die, No, just letting you know. Yeah, no, no, no,
I didn't know this at the time, but he was
actually unconscious for the whole four So. Yeah, So what
happened is there's two parachutes inside the instructor's backpack. There's
the main parachute which comes out when they pull it, hopefully,
(03:04):
and then there's also an emergency parachute, which you shouldn't need,
but it's set to come out at an altitude if
for some reason the other parachute isn't out yet. Okay, yeah,
and so my instructor pulled our parachute too late, which
meant it started coming out at the exact same time
that the emergency chute was coming out on its own.
And so because of that, they got all tangled. The
(03:25):
cords got tangled, and they wrapped around the parachute so
they couldn't open. But not only that, they actually wrapped
around the instructor's neck and strangled him. Oh yeah, and
so he was unconscious for the whole fall, which is
why he couldn't cut one away or untangle it or
whatever you would normally do in that situation, not that
that normally happens, So it was, Yeah, he wasn't able
(03:47):
to do anything.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
So then you're falling towards the ground.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
You've seen an unopened parachute in front of you, so
you obviously at this point realize something's very wrong.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah, And I was just one hundred percent convinced we
were going to die, because if you could feel how
fast we were going and how close the ground was,
I just did not think it was possible to survive.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
How are we talking to you right now, Emma?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah, I have no idea, no idea how we survived.
And people always ask me that how it's physically possible,
and I have absolutely no idea. So you hit but yeah, yeah,
we hit the ground. We hit the ground. When what
before you go on?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I'm very interested to know, because I've often thought about this.
I'm sure everyone who's ever been on a plane has
thought about this. I always thought that you would naturally
pass out before you hit the ground from like, I
don't know, being overwhelmed or something.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah, yeah, well I don't know if that tends to happen,
But yeah, I didn't get knocked unconscious at all, either
during the fall or the landing, so I can remember.
You can remember the whole thing perfectly, And even though
that was a pretty traumatic thing to be awake for
and not a great memory to have, I feel like,
in hindsight, I'm actually really, really thankful that I can
(04:59):
remember it, because it means that I will forever know
exactly how it feels to think for certain that I'm
about to die, and I can remember how scared I felt.
But even more than that, I can remember the strength
and the urgency of yearning that I felt to live,
and what a waste it was to think I only
had ten seconds left, and that seems like a really
(05:20):
obvious thing to know. But it was until that moment
I didn't realize just how much I wanted to live,
just how much I didn't want to die, and how
much more there was I wanted to do.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Until that moment, I hope we can go there and
this isn't too traumatic. But so, no, it's fine.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
It's so long ago.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Now it's fun, you say, you can remember everything. So
was a chest first on the ground face.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
I landed, Yeah, I landed just on my belly because
my instructor is strapped to my back. He then landed
on top of me, which was quite rude of him,
not his father, but then we're in the middle of
the Swiss Alps. I assumed the instructor was dead because
he still wasn't responding, but thankfully, thankfully he survived. He
(06:04):
was still just unconscious at this stage, but I thought
it's up to me to go and find help, and
so I tried to roll over to get him off me,
and I tried to stand up, and in that moment
I realized I was completely paralyzed from the waist down.
I yeah, my abs weren't working to roll over. I
(06:25):
couldn't bend my knees to stand, and then I thought, okay,
I thought, just let's just try the simplest thing I
can think of. I would just try to wriggle my toes.
But nothing happened. Oh terrifying, Yeah, very yeah, very terrible.
It was so confusing and terrifying because I didn't immediately think, oh, okay,
I'm paralyzed because I broke my back. I better keep still.
(06:47):
I just didn't know what was happening. It just felt
so unlike any kind of pain I'd experienced before that
it felt so all consuming. I remember thinking, I wonder
if it's possible to die from pain?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
What did you land on?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Just grass? Just to get grass? Yeah? Oh, but do
you want to hear the funniest part. Five years later,
I went back to Switzerland and I wanted to go
and visit this random field that we landed in. And
I went back to the little town where we did
this and walked into the skydive shop. They immediately were like,
oh my god, Emma. They recognized me straight away. They
(07:24):
were really lovely, and the owner said to me, there's
something you don't know about that day. So we went.
He drove us to the field and then we're standing there.
He looked really nervous, really visibly nervous to tell me
this thing. I was like, oh my gosh, what is it?
And then he said, you nearly died that day. And
I was like, yeah, this doesn't seem like I was like,
(07:49):
don't worry. I kind of already knew that. And he's like, no, no, no, no,
you really nearly died. And I was like, what do
you mean and he said, well, that the field that
you landed in is normally filled with cows, but that morning,
for some reason, the farmer decided to move the cows
to another field, which apparently he never did. And I
was like, okay, cool, I still don't know where we're
(08:10):
going with this. And then he said, in Switzerland, apparently
the cows are so large and territorial that if anyone
was to enter their fields via foot or plummet, they
would trample you.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
And oh.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
And he looked at me like so nervous to have
told me this, and I just burst out laughing. I
was like, that's the funniest thing I've ever heard. Can
you imagine? Can you imagine surviving a free fall from
the sky and it's a cow that takes you out
what a way to go?
Speaker 1 (08:41):
At least then there would have been a benefit of
the instructor on your back, because I feel like he
would have coughed.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Most of the true.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
True, that's that's true. But yeah, so we're we're double lucky.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
We wouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Doing this chat if you had to survive to cow trampling.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
He doesn't have the same ring to it, doesn't know.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
So how many injuries did you actually get them?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
We kind of didn't finish so that the helicopter picks
you up, takes you to hospital. What injuries did you
end up with after falling from a helicopter?
Speaker 2 (09:08):
So?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I broke my spine, which was the main thing, and
they told me I had an l one spinal cord injury,
so I was now a paraplegic. And then they told
me what else. I broke my pelvis, my sternum, my sacrum,
and a lot of my teeth. But that's I was
weirdly unscathed in terms of like scratches and limbs. It
(09:31):
was just the the main Yeah, the spine really was
the main thing.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
So you still paralyzed?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Now?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Am I?
Speaker 3 (09:40):
No? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Did you see me?
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I wish did we bring this up. No, yes, so
I am so lucky. I have no idea how again
got so lucky and somehow regained the ability to walk,
which they didn't think would happen. And when people ask
me why that is, I I truly don't know. And
(10:05):
I think some people who maybe don't know too much
about spinal cord injuries have the view of like, well,
it's because you were so determined or so positive, or
you worked really hard that you learned to walk again,
and that's a really lovely idea, and I know people
mean well by that, but it's just simply not the case.
There's so many people with spinal cord injuries that you
know are the most positive, determined people, and they haven't
(10:25):
had that same chance. So for me, I think I
just got really, really lucky with the way my spinal
cord was damaged. And yeah, I still I didn't heal completely,
so a lot of the muscles in my legs are
still a lot weaker than they used to be, and
my calves are still completely paralyzed, which is random. So
that means I can't go up on my toes, which
(10:47):
means I can't run or jump or do car phrases
for fun. I still also can't feel from the waist down,
which is strange. So yeah, so I didn't realize it
was possible to have one without the other, but apparently
it is so good.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
The motor neural pathway, but not the sensory.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Not the sensory Yeah and yeah, and that that is
again fine most of the time, but it really affects
balance because without that appropriate reception, you don't know where
your legs are in relation to your body and the
rest of the world, so I can be a little
bit wobbly. And it also means that I can't feel pain,
which sounds like a great thing, but it wasn't until
I lost that that I realized how valuable feeling pain
(11:28):
is because it tells you when something's wrong. And so
I've had situations. I have a really big scar on
my bum because I burnt it on something that I
sat on and had no idea it was really hot,
so I was just sat there sizzling away. And there's
been a few situations like that. Yeah, And I also
(11:51):
what else. The other main things that were affected were
loss of bladder and bower control, so I'm now completely
incontinent in both of those and have to use catheters
and enemas to go to the bathroom, that kind of thing.
So it really was only the not only it's amazing,
but the motor that came back. The rest of the
symptoms all haven't changed since day one.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Okay, I'm interested to ask you as well, and yes,
it's so such an extraordinary story. I'm insure to ask
you because you did make the point of being glad
that you stayed conscious for the entire fall and landing
on the ground, because.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
You know, you've got this gratitude for life. Now.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
I know you were only twenty at the time, but
how did your ways of thinking about life change from
pre the fall to post the fall?
Speaker 3 (12:41):
In so many ways, but I think it was mainly
just I had an appreciation that I never had before.
I used to just take things for granted and was
just kind of going through the motions in I was
very now grateful to be alive, for one thing, but
also really really appreciative of my body and all it
was able to do. Being twenty at that stage, I'd
(13:04):
just kind of seen my body as an object and
focused on how it looked, esthetically, critiqued it on all
of that, But as I was laying there in the
field paralyzed, I could not have cared less what my
body looked like. All I wanted was the ability to
stand up and run over to my best friend and
say that was fun, and just get on with the
rest of our trip. But so it really changed my
(13:28):
perspective in that way, and I just have a lot
more value and appreciation for all of the functions that
our body has. And when I was in hospital, even
before I knew that I would regain the function of
my legs, I just I was living in the spinal
ward and in the spinal ward, the majority of people
had neck injuries, so they were quadriplegics, not paraplegics, and
(13:51):
so they didn't have the use of their hands, and
I had just I found it so amazing that I
had never stopped to take a moment to realize how
lucky I was to have the use of my hands
until I witnessed that first hand. There's a lot of
hand Yeah. So I just developed this whole new appreciations.
So it changed, It changed my life in so many ways.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
I am can I take you to we want to
ask more about the about Emma Emma's Marathon walk very
shortly and people can donate and head to Mcarey dot com.
I'm trying to reach go one hundred thousand dollars for
the Peri Cross Spinal Research Foundation.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
But before we.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Get there, I know that when you were in hospital
on the spinal ward, you wrote yourself a letter which
which had five words.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
A few days after the accident, and I just found
out that I was never going to walk again. And
before my accident, I loved running. Running was my favorite
thing to do. And the morning of the accident, I
had told myself that I was going to get up
that morning and go for a run because I loved
it and I thought there'd never be a more beautiful
place to do it. I was just feeling lazy and
(14:57):
couldn't be bothered, so I told myself I would go
the next day. Flash forward to the next day, and
there I am instead laying paralyzed in a hospital bed,
and I was so angry and felt so much wh regret,
and so I got out the notes up in my
phone and wrote those five words to myself, and I wrote,
if you can, you must, And what I meant specifically
(15:18):
was if you can ever run again. You must you
must remember this feeling of wanting to do something so
badly and being physically unable to do it, and you
must do it for this version of you that would
do anything to have the opportunity. I completely forgot about
that note when I found it again, and when I
read it, I thought past young Emma was so wise
because even though to this day I still can't run,
(15:41):
I think those words can apply to so many other things.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
So you can get EM's book, The Girl Who Fell
from the Sky by Emma Carey. But let's talk about
this Emma's marathon walk.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, so earlier this year, I just had this random
moment where I thought, you don't have to run a marathon.
You could walk a marathon, I suppose. And I can't run,
but I can walk, so why can't I still do
this dream that I've always had. But I just really
wanted to do it as a challenge to myself to
see how hard I can push myself mentally, to see
(16:12):
how strong I can get my body. But mainly I
wanted to do it. I wanted it to be bigger
than me, because I'm so lucky to have healed and
to have the chance to even walk a marathon, and
I know that so many people with spinal cord injuries
do not have that chance, And more than anything, I
want other people to have that moment that I did
(16:34):
of taking their first steps again. So I wanted to
do it as a fundraising effort to raise money for
the Peri Cross Foundation, who were working towards a cure
for spinal cord injuries. So my mission is basically to
walk for those who can't.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
What's the main hurdle with walking forty two kilometers for you? M?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
So you know how your muscles start to get fatigued
or they start to burn. I don't feel the burn,
they just kind of stop. Oh wow, So you never
really know when that moment's coming. Oh yeah. It's really
really strange. Like I could be in the gym doing
I don't know, squats and I don't have that thing
(17:13):
where I'm like, oh, it's really starting to get hard. Now.
It's just suddenly I get I guess we're I guess
we're done.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
And so I think the biggest thing for me will
just be endurance because my muscles, even though I can't
feel it, but they fatigue a lot quicker than they
used to. And because I walk with a limp, I
get really I'm like quite one lopsided when I walk,
and so I get really sore muscles, like in my
back and in my hip and everything because it's always
(17:43):
it's a bit off balance. So I think just general
endurance and strength over with just my partner. So he's
gonna walk it with me.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Great, well, he.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Says, Imagine he just runs off. I got a personal
best to meet. Gotta go.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Wow MC dot com. It was going to walk a marathon,
the New York Marathon, last goals for the Perry Cross
f Search Foundation. Emma, thank you so much for coming
on with a Woody and sharing your story.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
It's been awesome.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Thank you,
My Heart podcasts, Hear More Kids podcasts, playlists, and listen
live on the Free I heard app.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Well, what do you hope you having a wonderful drive home? Woodrow.
We in the midst of what is becoming an absolute
favorite segment of ours. Someone who shouldn't be alive. We're
surprised by by the producers with a story we don't know,
and this person knows that we don't know, so hopefully
we don't seem completely ignorant. But Emma Carey is in
(00:40):
the studio with us now, and Emma, you shouldn't be alive?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yeah, definitely should not. And I love that you don't
know this. This is going to be great to get
your reaction. Okay, So this all happened twelve years ago
and I went skard diving, and have you guys done it?
First of all, I have yes. Did you like it?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Loved it?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Love? Yeah, loved it? And as did I. I absolutely
loved it. This was in Switzerland, so we're in the
middle of the Swiss Alps, jumped out of helicopter. All
was going great until I had never done it before,
so I had nothing to compare it to. But I
was waiting. I'd seen videos, and I in the videos,
you see the instructor high fiving you or sometimes giving
you the ropes to steer it around and all that
(01:19):
kind of thing. But none of that was happening. And
we also weren't slowing down, and I imagined you would
slow down after the first thirty seconds or something, and
I thought, Okay, maybe time's just warped while you're free falling.
Maybe it hasn't been that long. Maybe he's not talking
to me because he's shy. Maybe he can't hear me
over the wind. I thought all of these things, so
I didn't immediately know something was wrong.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
So sorry, so sorry, sorry, sorry. You're you're free falling
and we're free fall. No parachute has popped up, no.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
But I think we're still just in the free fall.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Sure, because you've got nothing to compare it to. Okay, yeah, exactly, so.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I think we're still just in freefall. And then the
closer when you're when you're really high up. I'm not
sure if you remember the ground, it all just looks
the same. Everything's just tiny little dots on the ground,
and it's not until you start to get closer and
everything becomes clear out that you realize just how fast
you're falling because it's in view, and the closer we got,
I thought, okay, we definitely, we definitely should be slowing
(02:14):
down by now. And then the next thing I saw
was something red flashed before my eyes and I realized
that it was the material of the parachute wrapped up
all in a ball. So it was in front of us,
it wasn't above us and open, so the parachute didn't open,
and we just free fell to the ground.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
What So he didn't say anything to you, Emma at
that stage. He didn't know whisper in your ear like
we're going to.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Die, No, just letting you know. Yeah, no, no, no,
I didn't know this at the time, but he was
actually unconscious for the whole four So. Yeah, So what
happened is there's two parachutes inside the instructor's backpack. There's
the main parachute which comes out when they pull it, hopefully,
(03:04):
and then there's also an emergency parachute, which you shouldn't need,
but it's set to come out at an altitude if
for some reason the other parachute isn't out yet. Okay, yeah,
and so my instructor pulled our parachute too late, which
meant it started coming out at the exact same time
that the emergency chute was coming out on its own.
And so because of that, they got all tangled. The
(03:25):
cords got tangled, and they wrapped around the parachute so
they couldn't open. But not only that, they actually wrapped
around the instructor's neck and strangled him. Oh yeah, and
so he was unconscious for the whole fall, which is
why he couldn't cut one away or untangle it or
whatever you would normally do in that situation, not that
that normally happens, So it was, Yeah, he wasn't able
(03:47):
to do anything.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
So then you're falling towards the ground.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
You've seen an unopened parachute in front of you, so
you obviously at this point realize something's very wrong.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah, And I was just one hundred percent convinced we
were going to die, because if you could feel how
fast we were going and how close the ground was,
I just did not think it was possible to survive.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
How are we talking to you right now, Emma?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah, I have no idea, no idea how we survived.
And people always ask me that how it's physically possible,
and I have absolutely no idea. So you hit but yeah, yeah,
we hit the ground. We hit the ground. When what
before you go on?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I'm very interested to know, because I've often thought about this.
I'm sure everyone who's ever been on a plane has
thought about this. I always thought that you would naturally
pass out before you hit the ground from like, I
don't know, being overwhelmed or something.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah, yeah, well I don't know if that tends to happen,
But yeah, I didn't get knocked unconscious at all, either
during the fall or the landing, so I can remember.
You can remember the whole thing perfectly, And even though
that was a pretty traumatic thing to be awake for
and not a great memory to have, I feel like,
in hindsight, I'm actually really, really thankful that I can
(04:59):
remember it, because it means that I will forever know
exactly how it feels to think for certain that I'm
about to die, and I can remember how scared I felt.
But even more than that, I can remember the strength
and the urgency of yearning that I felt to live,
and what a waste it was to think I only
had ten seconds left, and that seems like a really
(05:20):
obvious thing to know. But it was until that moment
I didn't realize just how much I wanted to live,
just how much I didn't want to die, and how
much more there was I wanted to do.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Until that moment, I hope we can go there and
this isn't too traumatic. But so, no, it's fine.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
It's so long ago.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Now it's fun, you say, you can remember everything. So
was a chest first on the ground face.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
I landed, Yeah, I landed just on my belly because
my instructor is strapped to my back. He then landed
on top of me, which was quite rude of him,
not his father, but then we're in the middle of
the Swiss Alps. I assumed the instructor was dead because
he still wasn't responding, but thankfully, thankfully he survived. He
(06:04):
was still just unconscious at this stage, but I thought
it's up to me to go and find help, and
so I tried to roll over to get him off me,
and I tried to stand up, and in that moment
I realized I was completely paralyzed from the waist down.
I yeah, my abs weren't working to roll over. I
(06:25):
couldn't bend my knees to stand, and then I thought, okay,
I thought, just let's just try the simplest thing I
can think of. I would just try to wriggle my toes.
But nothing happened. Oh terrifying, Yeah, very yeah, very terrible.
It was so confusing and terrifying because I didn't immediately think, oh, okay,
I'm paralyzed because I broke my back. I better keep still.
(06:47):
I just didn't know what was happening. It just felt
so unlike any kind of pain I'd experienced before that
it felt so all consuming. I remember thinking, I wonder
if it's possible to die from pain?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
What did you land on?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Just grass? Just to get grass? Yeah? Oh, but do
you want to hear the funniest part. Five years later,
I went back to Switzerland and I wanted to go
and visit this random field that we landed in. And
I went back to the little town where we did
this and walked into the skydive shop. They immediately were like,
oh my god, Emma. They recognized me straight away. They
(07:24):
were really lovely, and the owner said to me, there's
something you don't know about that day. So we went.
He drove us to the field and then we're standing there.
He looked really nervous, really visibly nervous to tell me
this thing. I was like, oh my gosh, what is it?
And then he said, you nearly died that day. And
I was like, yeah, this doesn't seem like I was like,
(07:49):
don't worry. I kind of already knew that. And he's like, no, no, no, no,
you really nearly died. And I was like, what do
you mean and he said, well, that the field that
you landed in is normally filled with cows, but that morning,
for some reason, the farmer decided to move the cows
to another field, which apparently he never did. And I
was like, okay, cool, I still don't know where we're
(08:10):
going with this. And then he said, in Switzerland, apparently
the cows are so large and territorial that if anyone
was to enter their fields via foot or plummet, they
would trample you.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
And oh.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
And he looked at me like so nervous to have
told me this, and I just burst out laughing. I
was like, that's the funniest thing I've ever heard. Can
you imagine? Can you imagine surviving a free fall from
the sky and it's a cow that takes you out
what a way to go?
Speaker 1 (08:41):
At least then there would have been a benefit of
the instructor on your back, because I feel like he
would have coughed.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Most of the true.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
True, that's that's true. But yeah, so we're we're double lucky.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
We wouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Doing this chat if you had to survive to cow trampling.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
He doesn't have the same ring to it, doesn't know.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
So how many injuries did you actually get them?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
We kind of didn't finish so that the helicopter picks
you up, takes you to hospital. What injuries did you
end up with after falling from a helicopter?
Speaker 2 (09:08):
So?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I broke my spine, which was the main thing, and
they told me I had an l one spinal cord injury,
so I was now a paraplegic. And then they told
me what else. I broke my pelvis, my sternum, my sacrum,
and a lot of my teeth. But that's I was
weirdly unscathed in terms of like scratches and limbs. It
(09:31):
was just the the main Yeah, the spine really was
the main thing.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
So you still paralyzed?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Now?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Am I?
Speaker 3 (09:40):
No? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Did you see me?
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I wish did we bring this up. No, yes, so
I am so lucky. I have no idea how again
got so lucky and somehow regained the ability to walk,
which they didn't think would happen. And when people ask
me why that is, I I truly don't know. And
(10:05):
I think some people who maybe don't know too much
about spinal cord injuries have the view of like, well,
it's because you were so determined or so positive, or
you worked really hard that you learned to walk again,
and that's a really lovely idea, and I know people
mean well by that, but it's just simply not the case.
There's so many people with spinal cord injuries that you
know are the most positive, determined people, and they haven't
(10:25):
had that same chance. So for me, I think I
just got really, really lucky with the way my spinal
cord was damaged. And yeah, I still I didn't heal completely,
so a lot of the muscles in my legs are
still a lot weaker than they used to be, and
my calves are still completely paralyzed, which is random. So
that means I can't go up on my toes, which
(10:47):
means I can't run or jump or do car phrases
for fun. I still also can't feel from the waist down,
which is strange. So yeah, so I didn't realize it
was possible to have one without the other, but apparently
it is so good.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
The motor neural pathway, but not the sensory.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Not the sensory Yeah and yeah, and that that is
again fine most of the time, but it really affects
balance because without that appropriate reception, you don't know where
your legs are in relation to your body and the
rest of the world, so I can be a little
bit wobbly. And it also means that I can't feel pain,
which sounds like a great thing, but it wasn't until
I lost that that I realized how valuable feeling pain
(11:28):
is because it tells you when something's wrong. And so
I've had situations. I have a really big scar on
my bum because I burnt it on something that I
sat on and had no idea it was really hot,
so I was just sat there sizzling away. And there's
been a few situations like that. Yeah, And I also
(11:51):
what else. The other main things that were affected were
loss of bladder and bower control, so I'm now completely
incontinent in both of those and have to use catheters
and enemas to go to the bathroom, that kind of thing.
So it really was only the not only it's amazing,
but the motor that came back. The rest of the
symptoms all haven't changed since day one.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Okay, I'm interested to ask you as well, and yes,
it's so such an extraordinary story. I'm insure to ask
you because you did make the point of being glad
that you stayed conscious for the entire fall and landing
on the ground, because.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
You know, you've got this gratitude for life. Now.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
I know you were only twenty at the time, but
how did your ways of thinking about life change from
pre the fall to post the fall?
Speaker 3 (12:41):
In so many ways, but I think it was mainly
just I had an appreciation that I never had before.
I used to just take things for granted and was
just kind of going through the motions in I was
very now grateful to be alive, for one thing, but
also really really appreciative of my body and all it
was able to do. Being twenty at that stage, I'd
(13:04):
just kind of seen my body as an object and
focused on how it looked, esthetically, critiqued it on all
of that, But as I was laying there in the
field paralyzed, I could not have cared less what my
body looked like. All I wanted was the ability to
stand up and run over to my best friend and
say that was fun, and just get on with the
rest of our trip. But so it really changed my
(13:28):
perspective in that way, and I just have a lot
more value and appreciation for all of the functions that
our body has. And when I was in hospital, even
before I knew that I would regain the function of
my legs, I just I was living in the spinal
ward and in the spinal ward, the majority of people
had neck injuries, so they were quadriplegics, not paraplegics, and
(13:51):
so they didn't have the use of their hands, and
I had just I found it so amazing that I
had never stopped to take a moment to realize how
lucky I was to have the use of my hands
until I witnessed that first hand. There's a lot of
hand Yeah. So I just developed this whole new appreciations.
So it changed, It changed my life in so many ways.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
I am can I take you to we want to
ask more about the about Emma Emma's Marathon walk very
shortly and people can donate and head to Mcarey dot com.
I'm trying to reach go one hundred thousand dollars for
the Peri Cross Spinal Research Foundation.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
But before we.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Get there, I know that when you were in hospital
on the spinal ward, you wrote yourself a letter which
which had five words.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
A few days after the accident, and I just found
out that I was never going to walk again. And
before my accident, I loved running. Running was my favorite
thing to do. And the morning of the accident, I
had told myself that I was going to get up
that morning and go for a run because I loved
it and I thought there'd never be a more beautiful
place to do it. I was just feeling lazy and
(14:57):
couldn't be bothered, so I told myself I would go
the next day. Flash forward to the next day, and
there I am instead laying paralyzed in a hospital bed,
and I was so angry and felt so much wh regret,
and so I got out the notes up in my
phone and wrote those five words to myself, and I wrote,
if you can, you must, And what I meant specifically
(15:18):
was if you can ever run again. You must you
must remember this feeling of wanting to do something so
badly and being physically unable to do it, and you
must do it for this version of you that would
do anything to have the opportunity. I completely forgot about
that note when I found it again, and when I
read it, I thought past young Emma was so wise
because even though to this day I still can't run,
(15:41):
I think those words can apply to so many other things.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
So you can get EM's book, The Girl Who Fell
from the Sky by Emma Carey. But let's talk about
this Emma's marathon walk.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, so earlier this year, I just had this random
moment where I thought, you don't have to run a marathon.
You could walk a marathon, I suppose. And I can't run,
but I can walk, so why can't I still do
this dream that I've always had. But I just really
wanted to do it as a challenge to myself to
see how hard I can push myself mentally, to see
(16:12):
how strong I can get my body. But mainly I
wanted to do it. I wanted it to be bigger
than me, because I'm so lucky to have healed and
to have the chance to even walk a marathon, and
I know that so many people with spinal cord injuries
do not have that chance, And more than anything, I
want other people to have that moment that I did
(16:34):
of taking their first steps again. So I wanted to
do it as a fundraising effort to raise money for
the Peri Cross Foundation, who were working towards a cure
for spinal cord injuries. So my mission is basically to
walk for those who can't.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
What's the main hurdle with walking forty two kilometers for you? M?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
So you know how your muscles start to get fatigued
or they start to burn. I don't feel the burn,
they just kind of stop. Oh wow, So you never
really know when that moment's coming. Oh yeah. It's really
really strange. Like I could be in the gym doing
I don't know, squats and I don't have that thing
(17:13):
where I'm like, oh, it's really starting to get hard. Now.
It's just suddenly I get I guess we're I guess
we're done.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
And so I think the biggest thing for me will
just be endurance because my muscles, even though I can't
feel it, but they fatigue a lot quicker than they
used to. And because I walk with a limp, I
get really I'm like quite one lopsided when I walk,
and so I get really sore muscles, like in my
back and in my hip and everything because it's always
(17:43):
it's a bit off balance. So I think just general
endurance and strength over with just my partner. So he's
gonna walk it with me.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Great, well, he.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Says, Imagine he just runs off. I got a personal
best to meet. Gotta go.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Wow MC dot com. It was going to walk a marathon,
the New York Marathon, last goals for the Perry Cross
f Search Foundation. Emma, thank you so much for coming
on with a Woody and sharing your story.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
It's been awesome.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Thank you,
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