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07 May 2006
Charity Parachute Jump
Date: Sunday 7th May
Who: McCall Limited & Greycoat Placements
What: Charity Eventy - Helen and Douglas House Hospice
Where: Oxfordshire
Who’d have thought it – me jumping out of a plane at 12000ft! I (stupidly) made an off the cuff remark agreeing to doing the jump in aid of a children and young adults hospice in Oxfordshire www.helenanddouglas.org.uk. Before I knew it the day had arrived – I was up at the crack of dawn to be at the airfield for 8am. There were at least 60 people jumping for fun and several hardened skydiving teams.
We had our little demo on how to put on our lovely jumpsuits, helmets and harnesses and what to do once we were in mid air. Due to the cloud coverage and number of people there I ended up waiting around for most of the day – but at 4pm my time came. I was strapped to a (very handsome) RAF skydiver – I did have to say to him that I didn’t normally get that close to a man until the 3rd date…
We all had to pile in to a very rickety looking veteran of WW2 – someone did say it was a plane…but as I didn’t see ‘BOEING’ or, 747 written all over it I wasn’t convinced. We got on board and although I turned left there was no flight attendant to take my coat and offer me champagne, no flat bed seat and definitely no in-flight movie! To say the take off was a little bumpy was an understatement. By this point several jumpers and I were looking a little green and 5 minutes later we were at 12000ft and good to go. Lucky for me I was the last one to jump so I saw everyone else’s petrified faces…
One minute I was in a plane and the next I was looking face down into clouds before my (gorgeous) tandem instructor pushed us out into the open! We were freefalling for 45 seconds-talking and breathing was difficult - I was probably doing a fantastic impersonation of a goldfish out of water! I managed to avoid doing a Carol Thatcher and suddenly the chute was pulled and I was floating to the ground, doing little twirls in the air and taking in the spectacular views.
Before I knew it we were touching down – I’d like to be able to say that I landed gracefully…. It was definitely a day to remember and something I can cross off my list of things to do before I’m 40…
I am still collecting sponsorship so if you’d like to make a donation to this fantastic cause you can log onto http://www.justgiving.com/HeatherSpencer