Carl Dixon is a journeyman of Canadian rock music, an author and powerful keynote speaker. Carl’s miracle survival after a horrifying car accident forms his keynote address to your event about teamwork, safety and resilience.
Carl’s presentation is a unique mixture of story and live music. His safety message is powerful, useful and has long lasting impact on attendees.
While fronting one of Canada’s greatest rock bands THE GUESS WHO Canada’s rising rock star Carl Dixon’s life took a crushing turn. On April 14 in 2008 , Carl’s future was blind-sided by a horrific car accident in rural Australia. Trapped in a rental car with 50 injuries Carl suffered a crushed right eye, arm, legs and head trauma. The first people on the scene thought there was no hope – yet they aided him.
The initial prognosis by hospital emergency teams was bleak: brain damage, complete blindness, amputation of an arm and a leg, quadriplegia. Two years after his miracle survival Carl was presented a paramedics badge by his rescuers.
Carl retains titanium replacements in his legs, arm, head, a glass eye…the list is long. Carl’s comeback from the brink forms his powerful keynote address about teamwork and worker safety.
Carl Dixon’s unique presentation of story and song carves a raw, inspiring hour. Carl Dixon’s miraculous survival came about through teamwork; emergency teams both on-the-ground and airborne, the volunteers who aided Carl at the scene, specialist surgeons who experimented in rebuilding his smashed limbs, physiotherapists, friends and family across the globe.
CARL DIXON: “But… what happens if the game changes? When there’s a shift in your environment or you enter a new environment? Habit can then be a problem. Unthinking rote behaviours can lead you into danger because conditions have changed and you aren’t responding with new behaviours.
I’m a survivor of exactly that scenario. ”
Carl analyses the lessons learned and applies them to your event. He recounts life as a young rock star to the shocking personal truths that came to light after the accident. It’s a compelling, inspiring hour.
Carl’s book, his autobiography “Strange Way to Live”, published by Dundurn Press is available across North America, the UK, Australasia and on-line globally.