Emma Carey and her best friend Jemma Mrdak had just embarked on what was meant to be a three-month trip of a lifetime in Europe.
Being an adrenaline junkie, Emma was keen to kickstart day five of their adventure in Switzerland with a skydive – something childhood friend Jemma was completely against.
But what should have been a thrilling experience for the then-20-year-old turned into a nightmare after complications with her parachute saw her plummet 14,000ft.
Miraculously, she lived to tell the tale.
“I just remember thinking, ‘There’s no way I’m going to survive this’ – you don’t imagine you can fall from that height without slowing down and surviv[ing],” Emma told A Current Affair on Tuesday.
Want to stream your news? Flash lets you stream 25+ news channels in 1 place. New to Flash? Try 1 month free. Offer ends 31 October, 2022 >
Emma, who has since released a book about her fall, The Girl Who Fell From The Sky, vividly recalls sitting in the helicopter back in 2013 waiting to jump – and the three words she uttered to Jemma before the horror accident.
“I jumped first, so me and Jemma were holding hands and I remember just looking at her and saying, ‘I love you,’ and then I turned to the window and we jumped out,” Emma said.
The feeling of the freefall is something she will never forget.
“I loved it. I just having this overwhelming feeling of like, ‘I’m exactly where I’m meant to be,’ and it just felt so calming,” she said
Emma’s instructor then tapped her on the shoulder to warn her the chute was about to be deployed.
But the instructor left it too late to open and when it eventually did deploy it got tangled with the safety chute which automatically opened.
The chutes strangled the instructor and he passed out.
“I felt the tap on my shoulder and then I felt my hair kind of being ripped backwards and I thought ‘that’s weird’, like they didn’t warn us about that,” she said.
Emma tried yelling out at her instructor, but he wasn’t responding.
“I thought maybe he just can’t hear me and then I remember seeing a tangled up red parachute in front of me, instead of above me.”
To her absolute horror, Emma realised her instructor had passed out and that she was in grave danger.
“I remember thinking, ‘Oh my god, Jemma’s going to have to find me on the ground.’ I remember thinking about my family and the main thing I remember feeling is just kind of regret for not embracing my life fully up until that point,” she told the program.
She took the brunt of the fall, landing facedown with the instructor on top of her.
Emma tried to roll the instructor off her and that was when she realised she was completely paralysed from the waist down.
Jemma landed safely from her skydive but was unaware about what had happened to her friend.
“The first thing I saw was just her lying on her stomach, blood all over her face, crying, in hysterics, screaming that she couldn’t feel her legs,” Jemma said.
Emma was rushed to hospital where surgeons operated on her back and pelvis. Her spine was broken in two places, paralysing her from the waist down.
Her instructor also survived.
“One day I just remember waking up and having this kind of epiphany where I thought, ‘OK this has happened, I’m paralysed and I can be paralysed and upset about it for the rest of my life, or I can be paralysed and hopefully live a fulfilling life regardless,’” Emma said.
After recovering from surgery, she flew back home to Australia where she was reunited with family and friends.
She went straight into rehab and miraculously, she slowly but surely began to get the feeling back in her legs and eventually learned to walk, albeit with a small limp.
“[I’m] really proud and it was what I’d prayed for … that she would learn to walk and she would be OK,” Jemma said.
It’s now nine years since the accident and while she can’t feel below her belly button, and has no control of her bladder or bowel, Emma is forever grateful to be alive to tell her story.
“I know how it feels. To think, I only have 10 seconds left to live, and now I get the rest of my life, whatever that is, so I think it’s actually really nice for me to have that memory because it helps to keep me grateful,” she said.
She has also released book about her horrifying ordeal and explains the reason behind calling it The Girl Who Fell From The Sky.
“I just always knew that would be the title. It’s very self-explanatory, but I like that it puts such a traumatic thing in such a poetic phrase,” she said.
In May, the now 29-year-old took part in what she described to be a “a wild, unexpected, scary, and absolute honour of an experience”.
She made her catwalk debut, walking the runway at Australian Fashion Week wearing a matching blue bralette and underwear.
”Fashion for people with disabilities is more than just hospital gowns and medical model clothing – it can be fun and expressive while also being accessible and inclusive. Australia’s first ever adaptive runway showed just that,” Emma wrote in an Instagram post at the time.
More Coverage
Emma now celebrates the day of the accident, referring to it as her “re-birthday”.
“It sounds cheesy but I feel like it was the day I was reborn,” she said.
“Life really changed from that moment on and I also feel like every day from that date is just extra time that I get to live, so I should celebrate that.”
