Molly Carlson on the 'insane moment' she dove off an iceberg

Canadian cliff diver Molly Carlson is back home tonight after making history as the first woman to dive off an iceberg. Her preparation for the stunt is featured in the 30-minute documentary Red Bull Iceberg Dive on YouTube. Six months of training led to the moment off the coast of Newfoundland in June. The iceberg is estimated to be 14 meters tall. Joining me now is Canadian diver Molly Carlson. Molly, welcome to the program. Thank you so much. lots to celebrate. I just have to know, first woman to dive off an iceberg, what was going through your mind as you made that leap? Well, that was an insane moment for sure. I'm so used to competing and performing on very stable platforms around the world, but to be standing on a moving iceberg floating in the middle of Newfoundland was never something I thought I'd be doing, but I'm so happy I did. I mean, can you talk to me about being on that, on top of that iceberg? You could feel it moving. I don't know anyone who's ever been on an iceberg before. What is it like? Well, definitely recommend to stay off of icebergs, but I did have the honor to stand on one. And it's just something you, you're on this huge chunk of just melted ice or very strong ice and you're up there and you're thinking it's going to be stable but it's very very moving and not stable and so to stand up there and to think you're going to go on your tippy toes on the edge of something moving was definitely scary but I'm super proud that I did it. Why did you want to do it? Just because it's there? No this was definitely something that meant a lot to me deep down. I am someone that struggles a lot with anxiety. And for me to show people that I can be scared and still do things anyways was special. And the metaphor of an iceberg is showing that we see only 10% of what's on the surface and 90% is what makes us human. That's the part that makes us special. And I think only seeing highlight reels was definitely something that I was getting tired up so i wanted to show the whole scary process i feel like you've gotten a lot of attention for this uh well incredibly dangerous stunt talk to me about how you prepare for this because as you said not everyone should just get on an iceberg right i definitely prepared very very strongly i was making sure that i knew how to ice climb with legend Will Gadd who's literally climbed Niagara falls I wouldn't want anyone else beside me but him I also had training in the wetsuit getting used to having really thick fabric on my body so that I could do whatever dive felt safest while I was up there because we couldn't know the height until we got there we didn't know exactly what we would jump off until we really saw it in person so training for everything and also having a safety team ready if anything did go sideways so we had everything in place and I'm so glad it went really just quickly I know that you uh you didn't you hoped to go at a certain time but the conditions had to be right correct like you weren't able to just go that's the iceberg this is the time we're going to do it talk to me about the process of selecting the berg that you would jump off of so the day I actually dove was the fifth day that we were in Newfoundland scouting going on boats going on helicopters getting to them up close and then four days in a row they collapsed right in front of our eyes and so we had to basically say okay these are way more dangerous than we were ready for and we have to be prepared for everything and we might not be jumping and we might not be making history and we can only jump if it's as safe as we can possibly make it and when that unicorn iceberg flipped over the next day and provided a beautiful floating 15 meter natural platform you could say we all knew it was possible to to make some magic and it really was Molly I don't have much time but I do want to ask you just about being a woman in this line of work if you will doing these kinds of dangerous daredevil stunts I don't know how many other women are engaged in this with you and what is that like for other young women who are watching who might want to follow in your footsteps to be the first woman to do something ever is the craziest feeling I feel like I've just had so many beautiful inspiring stories in my comment sections in my DMs of other women doing brave things too and I think I'm just so proud of this brave gang that we've created and I just can't wait to see what women do next