hand on wheelchair wheel
Jade Small
Jade Small
March 8, 2024 ·  5 min read

Suddenly quadriplegic, newlywed Carol asked her husband for a divorce. His answer changed her life

Newlyweds Carol and Robert Taylor went on a romantic getaway that resulted in a life-changing event for them both. After a horrific car crash, Carol was rendered a quadriplegic. She asked her husband for a divorce and he countered by offering his undying love and support instead. Since then, Carol has defied the doctor’s predictions and lived a full life as a wife and mother. 

Romantic Holiday Gone Wrong

Carol and her new husband had set off on a romantic getaway as newlyweds. The morning they drove home, their car suddenly encountered a patch of black ice. This sent the car rolling, and the second roll caused the roof of the car to cave in and smashed into the back of Carol’s neck. She was rendered a quadriplegic. In the hospital, she could not bear the idea of her husband feeling trapped, so she asked him for a divorce so he might live a life free of the constraints that people with her disability face. 

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A post shared by Carol Taylor Designs (@carol.taylor.designs)

Carol recalled the day of the accident: “I looked down at my legs and could see the way they were positioned. Then, I knew instantly I would never walk again. I could see all this chaos going on around me, my husband was flagging down a truck, and a helicopter was landing in the middle of the road. I wasn’t worried that I knew I wasn’t going to walk again. All I could think about was, will I be able to have [a] baby?”

From the scene of the accident, a helicopter came to airlift her safely to the nearest hospital. Her lungs collapsed from the injuries, and they had to perform an emergency tracheotomy. “I remember lying in the hospital bed blinking at letters of the alphabet,” she recalled. 

Read: ‘I was going crazy’: Woman’s mystery symptoms lead to startling diagnosis

She Asked For a Divorce

Carol was not able to communicate with her voice for quite some time. When she eventually regained her ability to speak, one of her first questions was asking whether or not she will be able to have kids of her own. The doctors advised her that along with the car crash injuries and her pre-existing fertility issues, she would most likely not be able to carry a child in her belly. 

In an interview with 7News, carol stated that she felt her relationship was over. “The first thing I told him was I wanted a divorce“. Her husband was still able-bodied, and she feared for his happiness. “I didn’t want my best friend to be trapped in the relationship,” she told the reporter. 

Rather than accepting the divorce option that Carol offered, Robert did something else. He decided to reaffirm that his love for her would never die. He waited till the day after she offered the divorce. Then, he got his wife into her wheelchair and rolled her out to the courtyard at the hospital. It was there that he confessed his undying love for Carol, and proposed to her all over again. 

“The very first day they put me in a wheelchair in the hospital, three months after the injury, he wheeled me into the courtyard in the hospital and as I came around the corner our music from our wedding day started to play and there was an altar and a priest, and my mum and dad. Rob got on his knees and proposed, and we renewed our wedding vows.”

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Read: Baby Girl With Down Syndrome Is Adopted by a Doting Dad After Being Rejected by 20 Families

Carol Defied the Doctor’s Predictions

Carol was thrilled that he chose not to divorce her. “Thankfully he said no to the divorce,” she said. Robert helped Carol come to terms with her disability, and he never wanted her dreams of having children to stop. 

They have been happily married for about 21 years now. And, since then, they have welcomed their baby girl into their lives. Carol had defied the odds and fell pregnant naturally. At first, they tried their luck with IVF, but unfortunately, they lost 15 embryos. Carol was about to start believing the doctor’s predictions that she will not be able to mother a child from her womb. But, then they managed to conceive a child naturally almost one decade later. Nine months later (five of which she was bed-ridden), they welcomed their baby boy, D’arcy into their lives. 

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A post shared by Carol Taylor Designs (@carol.taylor.designs)

A Brand New Life

Carol told 7News that she was very career-driven in her old life, before the accident. She could not help but imagine the mother she might have been, as opposed to the mother she is now.

“I think of the mother I might have been, I was so career-driven,” she said.

Regardless of her disability, their son behaved just like any young boy would. Carol thinks her misfortune made her into a better mother for D’arcy. She recalled: “He used my chair like monkey bars and used to sit books and dinosaurs on my tray.”

Carol added surprisingly: “I was jealous of every nappy I didn’t get to change.” And finished off with: “Honestly, in my personal experience I believe I am a better mom because of my disability.”

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Keep Reading: Tom Jones’ Former LA Mansion was Decorated by Wife of 59 Years – Her Last Wish Was to Move Out

Sources

  1. Aussie newlywed left quadriplegic after romantic Blue Mountains getaway on why first thing she asked for was divorce.7News. Jacqueline Mey. 10. May 2022
  2. Parenting with quadriplegia: Eight years of IVF and the gift of resilience.ABC Everyday. Eliza Hull.