A woman who survived falling 14,000 feet when a skydiving trip went wrong has described the moment she thought she was 'in heaven'.
It was 2013 when Emma Carey, otherwise known as 'the girl who fell from the sky', set out to achieve her 'massive dream' of skydiving over the Swiss Alps.
She stepped foot out of the helicopter and began freefalling, but has described how her 'daydream soon turned into [her] worst nightmare'.
Advert
Emma's parachute didn't work as intended; she could see it 'scrunched up' in front of her, and rather than slowing her and the instructor down, they hurtled towards the ground too fast before slamming into the surface.
She reflected on the experience during an appearance on the Darling, Shine podcast, where she said she somehow 'wasn't knocked unconscious at all' by the impact.
"I was completely awake the entire time," she told the presenters.
Advert
When asked if she thought she was 'in heaven', Emma responded: "Yeah, I was like, 'surely I've died. Surely this is it'."
The next thing Emma felt was 'the most intense pain' throughout her entire body, at which point she was no longer convinced she was in heaven.
"I was like, 'I've gone to hell'," she said.
Emma, who has gone on to write a book about her experiences, has explained on her website that after hitting the ground she realised she 'couldn't move [her] legs at all'.
"My mind went from not having to think even an hour into the future, to thinking about the rest of my entire life in a matter of seconds," she wrote.
Advert
Emma was told after the accident that she would never walk again, but she persevered to try and take her first steps during her recovery.
She admitted she was scared of falling, but realised she'd fallen from a much greater height than standing, and survived.
It was actually a table of chocolate that helped motivate her forwards, as she told Darling, Shine: "I took two steps to get to the chocolate, and then like landed on this chocolate table.
"But I got it. I threw it to the bed, I somehow went back, and that was how I took my first steps."
Advert
Emma's story has captivated people from all over the world, with viewers commenting on her podcast appearance to describe her as an 'inspiration'.
"She genuinely seems like the most incredible human ever," one viewer wrote.
Topics: World News, Viral, TikTok