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Chapter 1: What life-changing event did Carol Murray experience?
This is Women Road Warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Takaro from the corporate office to the cab of a truck. They're here to inspire and empower women in all professions. So gear down, sit back and enjoy. Welcome. We're an award-winning show dedicated to empowering women in every profession through inspiring stories and expert insights. No topics off limits on our show.
We power women on the road to success with expert and celebrity interviews and information you need. I'm Shelley.
And I'm Kathy.
Carol Murray survived a catastrophic skydiving accident falling over a half a mile from the sky. After both her main and backup parachutes failed, the impact left her with devastating injuries and years of painful recovery. But what's remarkable isn't just that she survived. It's who she chose to become afterward.
Today, Carol is known as the resilience architect, a keynote speaker who helps people and organizations navigate adversity, lead under pressure, and perform at their best when it matters most. Her three pillars of resilience are community, values, and perspective. With a career that spans leadership, fundraising, and mission-driven work, she's raised millions for important causes.
And she now shares hard-earned lessons on resilience perspective and the power of facing life's toughest moments head-on. She went on to build a career raising over $50 million for medical research, social services, and community organizations. She works closely with teams, leaders, and frontline staff across North America. Carol doesn't just talk about resilience. She lives it.
From life-threatening trauma to becoming a voice of strength and transformation, her story is going to challenge how you think about fear, survival, and what it truly means to rise. Kathy and I can't wait to talk to her. Welcome, Carol. Thank you so much for being on our show.
Thank you very much for having me. I'm very excited to be here.
Yes, welcome. Oh, my gosh. Wow. What a story. You're amazing, Carol. This, oh, wow. I can't even imagine. And I know that our listeners are going to be, we want to learn more. You've got so much to share. And you're so blessed to be alive after this experience. No, I'm kidding.
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Chapter 2: How did Carol's skydiving accident impact her life?
In this instance, and so we decided to go for it. And on a Saturday morning, we headed about an hour north of Toronto to go skydiving. We actually didn't jump and I'd actually didn't jump until Sunday. But there were several things that happened before the jump that led me to wanting to back out. But I didn't have the confidence to do so.
I was 24 years old, and when the owner and instructor said, no, this stuff happens all the time, I didn't have the confidence within myself to say no. But some of the things that made me nervous, my friend fell asleep three times during training and was told, if you fall asleep one more time, you're not going to get to go. And they said this to him three times.
I felt that the training wasn't very comprehensive to jump out of a plane. Our test jump was once from a wooden structure that was maybe the height of my hip. The 12-year-old was packing parachutes.
A 12-year-old was packing parachutes?
Their son was packing parachutes. They said that he was certified. And then I learned there was no certificate. Afterwards, I learned there was no certification to pack parachutes. And certainly, you know, 12-year-olds shouldn't. Wow. The first day, well, it rained all weekend. But the first day on the Saturday, by the time it was our turn to go, we go to the plane and it's too dark.
And the owner instructor, she tried to encourage the pilot to go up for one more time. But he was very firm that, no, we're not going. It's too late. And before I continue, I want to say that I don't think that the people that own the skydiving school wanted anything bad to happen.
I think there were really good people running a business and that these things happen and that we got to learn from them and grow on. But I have no problem pointing out the concerns that I have because we can all learn from them. And I bet you they have too. Yeah.
Yeah.
And then the second day, so we went home and we come back the next day and we went up with him playing in the morning and we were trying to get to 3,200 feet and we were at 2,200 ish. And the pilot said, we can't go any further.
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Chapter 3: What are the three pillars of resilience according to Carol?
It's too cloudy. And she was kind of pushing the pilot to go higher because she really wanted to drop us. So then we had to land in the plane. So the skydiving drop zone, the plane place, the airport, was about, I don't know, a few miles from the skydiving school. And we had to take a van to get there. And on the way back in the van, I said, I'm not going to do this. Like, these are signs.
I'm not supposed to do this. And she convinced me to go. And I always wondered what was involved in her saying that. Was it the fact that if they gave me a chance to go and I backed out, I do not get my money back? But since I didn't have a chance to jump, I would have been eligible for my $220. Did that $220 play a role in that decision?
And I don't know for certain, but I have to wonder, especially when I learned afterwards that they were having some financial difficulties. They'd also told me that they were in business for 20 years. I mean, this was 1997. I found them in the yellow pages. The internet wasn't really a thing so much then. And it turned out afterwards, I was asking how long they were in business.
They answered how long they were doing this. But their business was only open for a year. Oof. Oh, wow. These are some valuable lessons. And that's why perspective is one of my pieces, one of the pillars in what I speak about. Because we had different point of view. We had different perspectives on what that question meant. And there was a few other things.
It turned out risk and consequences is a big piece of it, too. And certainly, Kathy, you're working in the oil fields. You know all about this. I speak about workplace safety. And one of the things I talk about is risks and consequences. We look at risks. Oh, this is a one in X, Y, Z chance that this isn't going to happen. So let's save the money or let's do this and let's get home for the game.
But do you think about the mother that's going to get a phone call to say your daughter's parachute didn't open or your son was hurt like on the oil field and they have 12 hours if you're going to live or die? Do they think about, you know, the years of rehabilitation that comes afterward? Yeah. During the training, there was one thing that I got wrong.
We would, they would say, okay, we would stand there and they would say, what happens when you jump out of the plane? You look over your parachutes. You make sure it's good and you grab your toggles, which is the controllers to help you navigate where you're going. And I would say, look over your parachute, grab your toggles. And they said, no, you have to make sure it's safe first.
that it's good. And I was like, okay, fine. They never told me that if I touch those toggles and then need the reserve backup chute, there's a strong chance that I'm going to be in trouble and all the straps are going to tangle and collapse. And that's exactly what happened. My peer chute was malfunctioned. I pulled the toggles and then they tangled and collapsed with the reserve chute.
But they never told me the consequences of my error in training. Wow. Wow.
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Chapter 4: How did Carol navigate her recovery and rehabilitation journey?
Lots of little lessons, I think, that are valuable in life that I'm honored to share with people.
And we want to get back to that, exactly what happened when you were a half a mile above the ground after you jumped out of that plane. But unfortunately, we do have to go to break. We will be back. Stay tuned for more. Stay tuned for more of Women Road Warriors coming up.
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Welcome back to Women Road Warriors with Shelley Johnson and Kathy Takaro. If you're enjoying this informative episode of Women Road Warriors, I wanted to mention Kathy and I explore all kinds of topics that will power you on the road to success. We feature a lot of expert interviews. Plus, we feature celebrities and women who've been trailblazers.
Please check out our podcast at womenroadwarriors.com and click on our episodes page. We're also available wherever you listen to podcasts on all the major podcast channels like Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon Music, Audible, you name it. Check us out and bookmark our podcast. Also, don't forget to follow us on social media.
We're on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other sites. And tell others about us. We want to help as many women as possible. If you're just joining us, you picked a powerful moment to tune in. We're here with Carol Murray. She's someone whose story quite literally redefined survival.
Imagine falling over a half a mile from the sky out of an airplane, both parachutes failing, and somehow, against all odds, living to tell that story and to survive multiple surgeries and a very difficult comeback. But what's even more compelling is what Carol did after that moment.
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Chapter 5: What role did community play in Carol's resilience?
So about that size. And the wind picks that up and the drag from the wind opens the parachute. I don't remember that. I just remembered that I was falling and that something was wrong. Like it just didn't feel right. The wind was everywhere. And I remember feeling panicked. And I wore one way radio so I could hear my instructor on the ground, but they couldn't hear me.
And the sign for pull your reserve chute is look, thumb, pull. So you look to your left and your shoulder and you grab the strap with your thumb and you pull it. So he said, look, thumb, pull. And I was pulling it and nothing happened. And he was screaming louder, look, thumb, pull, look, thumb, pull. And I have a video of the accident.
I think it was the same 12-year-old boy that was packing parachute that used my sister's camcorder to video it. And he was screaming it more on the ground. So when I watch it, I remember hearing that from above. And I just remember feeling my body relaxing and fainting. And I thought to myself, oh, God, I'm going to die.
But the reports have people reporting they could hear me screaming to the ground. I landed in an elderly woman's front yard about a kilometer up from the base of the skydiving school or maybe half a kilometer. So I fell about 3,200 feet, which is a kilometer. For our reference, that's two CN towers. So the height of two CN towers, the top of the CN tower.
I hit the ground at 90 kilometers an hour. Part of my body went three and a half. Oh, my God. Sorry. I had a visual there. Oh, my God. That's horrible.
So part of your body went three and a half feet into the ground. Wow.
Yeah, that's a fair reaction.
But I'd like to, you know, I'm a pretty positive thinker. An elderly woman was sitting on her step having tea, so I say I dropped in for tea.
Oh, geez. Oh, my gosh.
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Chapter 6: How can values influence personal and professional resilience?
I firmly believe there's a reason for everything. And you're right about all the lessons learned along the way for everyone involved. But still, that's an awful way.
Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness. I mean, I'm reading here you had a broken pelvis, multiple broken ribs. Both of your legs were severely fractured. One common fracture, punctured lung and a concussion. And you had to have 26 surgeries. I mean, oh, my goodness.
And I probably need another one soon. I need a new hip, but I have to lose a little weight. If I lose some weight, I can delay the hip, which is great. I have been losing, but I have more to lose. So the biggest problem was my right femur, my thigh bone. So that was a compound fracture, and that means it came right out of the leg and it dug right into the ground.
So there was a little bit of dirt in there, and it was a raging infection. So every second day, I would go to the O.R., for something called irrigation to clean it. And I didn't know right away because my family wanted me to remain positive. And they're really positive. The support network I had is really unreal. But toxic amputation were happening.
And it would have been the amputation at the hip. So I wouldn't have even really had much of a stump. So it sounds really bizarre, but I had 16 centimeters of What's that? That's about five inches maybe. I don't know. I don't know the math as well as I should. I had 16 centimeters, like a small half of a small ruler, of a ruler.
I had 16 centimeters of my right femur removed and I grew back 14 centimeters.
Oh, okay.
Wow. Yeah.
So it was really painful. I had external fixators, which are like huge, big rings on the outside of my legs and pins, big, huge pins as thick as my index finger. And I had to move the contraption to support the bone growth and pins are slicing through my leg. And I had to do this every day.
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Chapter 7: What perspective shifts did Carol experience during her recovery?
Well, you said you had that from September. The accident happened in September and you didn't have your external fixator removed till June. That's a long time.
It is a long time. And what happened by about February or March-ish, I was experiencing, I was in the rehab by then, almost ready to go home, like the physical rehab. And so I had to be brought into the hospital. And what happened was, so new bone was supposed to grow as I moved the bone down that space. But the big empty space that I was moving down towards, new bone was growing there too.
And they hadn't seen it before because no one had ever done such a big space of bone to try to regrow again. So when I was moving it down for a couple of weeks while I was having that pain is because I was crushing the new bone that was being developed. Wow.
Mm-hmm.
Stay tuned for more of Women Road Warriors coming up. Industry movement Trucking Moves America Forward is telling the story of the industry, our safety champions, the women of trucking, independent contractors, the next generation of truckers, and more. Help us promote the best of our industry. Share your story and what you love about trucking.
Share images of a moment you're proud of and join us on social media. Learn more at TruckingMovesAmerica.com. Welcome back to Women Road Warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Takaro. Today's conversation is one you're not likely to forget.
We're talking with Carol Murray, who survived a catastrophic skydiving accident after both her main and backup parachutes failed, falling over a half a mile to the ground next to someone's house who was having tea on her porch. And while that moment could have defined the end of her story, it actually became the beginning of something extraordinary.
Carol went on to become the resilience architect, building a career rooted in leadership, impact, and raising over $50 million for causes that matter. She talks about her three pillars of resilience, community, values, and perspective. Carol, you're a perfect example of resilience. What you went through was absolutely amazing, from the fall through your recovery with 26 surgeries.
Your tenacity is remarkable. You had to have, well, obviously there was bravery. You had absolute terror when you jumped out of that plane. You had to have absolute fear going through the rehabilitation process because you had setbacks with MRSA infections and everything else and constant pain. It took so much courage for you to just go on from day to day.
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Chapter 8: How does Carol inspire others to overcome adversity?
The next one is values, like our own foundational values and figuring out what they are in our life. And that also is a big part of teamwork as well, to have aligned values. But if we don't know what we stand for, how are we going to get through the storm? Right? Like we have to be grounded in something. And the third one is perspective and how we look at things.
I spent the first 20 years like immediately after my accident and then all the years just being positive. And while it served me well at the time, I never took the time to go through the emotions and think about, look at the perspective of the girl that was lost.
So at the 20-year point, I had a bit of a crash emotionally, and I took the time to grieve who I might have lost and celebrate the woman that I've become. And I realized that perspective was really better than just being positive, but to find true narratives and focus on those. So I know perspective is powerful for a lot of people. people.
But for me, I use the as a very simple example, I wasn't able to have children because of this. And that was really hard. So I could either focus on, oh, poor me, I can't have children. Or I could find the perspective that, you know what, I can be the best auntie that I can be not just to my siblings, children, but to as many children as possible.
So I'll go to the mall, and there'll be like a 30 year old man saying, Hey, Auntie Carol, And like when their niece, they were in elementary school with my niece. So the three pillars, and that's where the resilience come from.
Because when I look back at those days in the hospital and getting through it all, and all these years afterwards and chronic pain and, you know, raising money for charity sometimes isn't easy, but it's always rewarding. Those are the things that ground it for me for resilience.
That's important. Do you think that if this accident had not happened, you would have not gone in the direction you have?
I think I would have found philanthropy as a career choice. I loved business, but I wanted to help people. So I think I would have found it. I really do. So I'm lucky. I mean, I'm living my dream now and doing public speaking and sharing my story and sharing the lessons that I learned along the way. But I'm also lucky.
And I think I'm able to do that because I've spent my career the last 25 years in my passion, fundraising and nonprofit leadership and management. It's in my soul. It's what I love. And I do think I would have found that.
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