After falling 14,000ft in a skydiving accident, Emma Carey had to learn to walk again. But don't call her inspiring.

Emma Carey still finds it strange how normal she felt on the morning of June 9, 2013. She’d always assumed that the mind or the gut would ping before life-altering event, that there would be some kind of foreboding sensation or creeping thought.

But as the then 20-year-old stepped aboard the skydiving helicopter during a holiday in Portugal, she felt only excitement. A short time later, that was replaced by "all-encompassing" terror as the parachute tangled on opening, the instructor strapped to her back fell silent, and the mountains rushed towards her.

Emma Carey free-fell 14,000ft that day. Yet somehow, she survived. The accident left her with incomplete spinal injury, the consequences of which she will live with for the rest of her life.

The following is an excerpt from Emma's memoir, The Girl Who Fell From The Sky, an extraordinary true story of resilience, courage, hope and finding lightness after the heaviest of landings.

To hear more from Emma, listen to her chat with Mia Freedman on Mamamia's No Filter podcast below or via your favourite podcast app.

***

Going from a wheelchair to walking (twice) has given me a very unique insight into what it’s like to live with both a disability that is outwardly obvious as well as one that is predominantly invisible. The first time I left the hospital in my wheelchair, I was terrified. People stared at me brazenly. Others came rushing to help. My line of sight was at a lower level to what I was used to and it made the world look entirely different. I felt self-conscious in a way I’d never experienced before, like I was naked in a crowd with a spotlight bearing down on me.

I ventured out slowly, only going a street away from the hospital, and decided my first outside-world encounter would be something simple like ordering food from a cafe. When I got to the front counter, I realised the bench was taller than me. The waitress didn’t even know I was there. I timidly called out to get her attention and when she eventually saw me, she looked at me with an odd expression that somehow mixed shock, pity, compassion and intrigue. A surprising combination that I would soon become very familiar with.

After months of going about the world in my wheelchair, I noticed a lot of differences in the way I was treated. Some people became more reserved because they didn’t know what to say, others asked unsolicited personal questions in the produce aisle at the supermarket, others would come up behind me and push my wheelchair forwards, assuming I needed help rather than asking if I did.

By far the biggest shift I noticed was that people became inherently kinder. Strangers suddenly granted me an unearned patience and generosity that I’d never received on my feet. At first this relieved me because I desperately needed warmth in a time where I felt like my path was made up entirely of eggshells, but over time it started to irritate me.

Initially I had assumed that people could somehow sense I was living the hardest days of my life and that’s why they were offering me compassion, but once I was confident and thriving again I realised that people weren’t being kind because they could sense I was going through something difficult, they just assumed I was. They were being kind because they thought no one else would be. They expected my life to be awful just because I was sitting down.

I quickly realised that despite the disabled community making up about 20 per cent of our population, there were still a whole lot of people who associated 'disability' with something negative or less than. Who believed that just because one body functioned differently to another it automatically meant one was 'worse'.

When in reality, a body simply works how it does or doesn’t, and there is no value attached to it. It just is. I constantly got comments from people that, whether conscious or internalised, were deeply rooted in ableism. Strangers would say things like, 'You’re too pretty to be in a wheelchair,' as though having a disability made me less attractive to them.

As though it was such a shame that I was now a wasted commodity. I also often heard, 'But you don’t look like you have a disability,' as if that was a compliment. People’s attempts to comfort me very rarely included trying to learn more about my differences, and instead involved them convincing me that I didn’t match their precon-ceived idea of what a disabled person should look like, therefore they could still like me in spite of it.

One night recently, I was out at a bar with my good friend Sam from hospital (who uses a wheelchair) when a stranger came up to him and handed him a hundred dollar note. He didn’t speak to Sam, didn’t explain why he was giving him the money — he actually didn’t even acknowledge him at all. Even though I knew the answer, I asked the man what it was for. He told me it was because he thought Sam was inspiring. I could feel my hands clenching inside my pockets. Sam is inspiring, he’s brilliant, but this stranger didn’t know that. In fact, he didn’t know a single thing about him. For all he knew, Sam could be the sh*ttiest person on the planet.

We passed the note back to him, but the man persevered, again insisting that Sam’s presence alone was somehow something to be marvelled.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a whole number of reasons why Sam is admirable, but being a 30-year-old guy out at a bar with his friends sure as hell wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t brave, it was ordinary. No more impressive or noteworthy than this man being at the very same bar.

The gesture wasn’t saying, 'Take this money, you’re an incredible person and you deserve it,' it was saying, 'I’m sorry your life sucks, this is the only thing I can think of to make it better.'

What irked me most was knowing how the man would remember the encounter. That he likely would have walked away genuinely believing he had done a good deed. When in reality all he had done was create an entire identity for one of the most interesting people I know in a matter of seconds, and completely missed the privilege of actually knowing him.

                                                                               ***

Once I reached the stage in my recovery where I could alternate between using my wheelchair and crutches, I noticed that something very interesting happened. I realised I could stand up out of my wheelchair and in five seconds flat transform myself from someone who received automatic kindness to someone who wasn’t even acknowledged. I was exactly the same me, still living with the same disability, still facing the same challenges, yet my experience in the world was completely different. I was still going through a tricky time, yet because I looked 'fine', nobody knew. I found the difference in people’s treatment of me to be infuriating, not because I wanted involuntary warmth, but because it highlighted the societally ingrained belief that disabled people are a variation from the 'norm', and therefore must be unhappy and treated softly. In saying that, I could easily tell the difference between someone being ignorant and showing me pity, versus someone offering me compassion and genuine care. Oftentimes the way people treated me was completely well-intentioned and actually quite heart-warming.

Humans are beautiful in the sense that when we see someone in trouble, instinctively we want to help. Being in a wheelchair was like having a sign on my head that said, 'Life hasn’t always been kind to me,' and so naturally people became more inclined to tread gently. This benevolence is touching and would be a wonderful thing, if only it was how everyone was treated. If only compassion and grace became our automatic attitude towards each other.

In any given room, I imagine people are often going through their own version of hardship, even if we can’t see it from the outside. It seems like such a waste that our humanity, the very best version of ourselves, is usually only reserved for people who we know are struggling, or who physically look like they need it. Why couldn’t we extend this kindness and generosity to everyone we crossed paths with? I wondered what would happen if we collectively moved through the world tenderly, with the knowledge that even though we might not be able to see someone’s pain, everyone is dealing with something we know nothing about.

                                                                               ***

Once I no longer needed my crutches and walked on my own two feet, I learned that prejudice wasn’t only reserved for visible disabilities. I was now subject to an entirely new set of judgements and opinions that I was not at all expecting. Unfortunately, our society has the tendency to form assumptions about people based solely on their physical appearance. Based on what we see, we might conclude whether or not a person is sick or healthy, capable or incapable, and way too often these projected identities are completely false. This is where the struggle of an invisible condition comes in: 'They look healthy, so obviously they can’t be too sick, right?'

From the moment I looked like I was 'healed', I started fielding comments like, 'You’re so lucky you don’t have to work,' or 'It must be nice to sleep all day.' It occurred to me that in a culture that idolises hustle and hard work, we hold some very dangerous and inaccurate views on what it means to live with a disability.

Until I experienced this judgement myself, it never occurred to me that chronic health conditions could be viewed as an 'easy' option. That being potentially unable to work and earn your own living would be the desired choice. I didn’t realise living in a body that doesn’t function with ease might ever be considered lazy or weak.

I also learned that the more I got 'better', the more respect I gained. Suddenly I wasn’t inspiring for my resilience, I was inspiring for 'doing the impossible and proving doctors wrong'. As though my biggest accomplishment while having a disability was 'beating' it.

When people tell me they admire me, I never know how to graciously accept the compliment, but I always hope that whatever it is they look up to me for is something within my control. I am proud of myself for a lot of things, such as my strength, my sunny disposition and my adventurous spirit, so if someone was inspired by any of those, I would feel immensely honoured. What I can’t take responsibility for, and what doesn’t sit quite right with me, is being praised for something that is ultimately out of my control. Something like leaving my wheelchair and learning to walk again. Something that wasn’t even a negative in the first place.

Almost every day, well-meaning people will comment on my ability to walk. More often than not, they note that I must have regained movement due to my positive attitude. That my gratitude, determination and sheer belief that I would heal meant that I eventually did. I truly believe these words are said with the best of intentions, but there’s a huge problem with this kind of dialogue. It completely belittles and undermines the entire community of people living in wheelchairs.

Believing that my healing came from anything other than pure luck is indirectly believing that other people just mustn’t be trying hard enough. That if they could just be a little more upbeat, or dedicate more time to rehab, or manifest a teensy bit harder, then they too could one day walk again.

Throughout the years of sharing my story, I have made a very conscious effort to ensure I never insinuate that I hold a secret cure to healing. I deliberately brush over the specifics of rehab and timelines because I know how it feels to be lying in a hospital bed the day you’re told you’ll never walk again, scouring the internet for any semblance of hope, and holding onto that promise for dear life. Yes, I put a lot of work into my physical therapy, but no amount of sheer willpower can force a nerve to work when it is severed. I will never pretend to have answers I don’t.

One thing I know for sure is this — if positivity, resilience and determination were all it took to heal a damaged spinal cord, not a single person I’ve encountered in a wheelchair would still be sitting down.

Image: Booktopia. 

The Girl Who Fell From The Sky is now available for purchase.

Feature Image: Instagram @em_carey.

TAKE SURVEY ➤