Woman who fell 14,000 feet after parachute failed to open recalls the moment she knew something had gone wrong
It sounds like a scenario out of your worst nightmare.
Jumping out of a plane with a parachute sounds stomach-churning enough.
But just imagine if that parachute failed to open...
I'm getting vertigo just thinking about it.
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Emma Carey not only fell from 14,000 feet without a parachute - she lived to tell the tale.
The nauseating incident took place during her holiday to Switzerland in 2013.
Carey and her friend Jemma Mrdak had initially been against the idea of skydiving, but found themselves drawn to the experience.
But complications with the parachute turned the experience into a terrifying tumble.
Talking in an interview, Carey said: "I was like surely I've died, like surely this is it. And then the next feeling that I had was just the most intense pain.
"When we jumped out, I was loving it. And so I felt my instructor's tap on my shoulder who asked me to cross my arms.
"That's when they were meant to pull the parachute. But it didn't happen. I was like 'Okay. Well, I'm sure he's doing everything he can'.
"But then the moment I really realised was when I saw a scrunched up parachute in front of us."
I think my lunch would be following after it if that were me.
"I thought 100 per cent like this is it. And then we hit the ground. Somehow, I wasn't knocked unconscious at all. I was completely awake the entire time," Carey revealed.
The pain was so bad that Carey thought she had 'gone to Hell'.
During the fall, the parachute had strangled her instructor and left him unconscious, leaving Carey to face the fall alone.
She said: "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."
Landing on the ground, she had to roll her instructor off from on top of her.
That's when she realised that she was now paralysed from the waist down.
When she was taken to hospital, doctors found that her spine had been broken in two places.
After recovering from surgery, she flew back home to Australia and entered rehab.
Astonishingly, she began to get the feeling back in her legs and managed to walk again - albeit with a limp.
A decade after the accident, she still can't feel below her belly button and can't control her bladder or bowel.
She released a book about her ordeal called 'The Girl Who Fell From The Sky'.
Topics: News
Ben Thompson