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LP Woman Skydives For 80th Birthday

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Jeri McDonald, bottom, and professional skydiver Nigel Milligan are in a freefall over Zephyrhills Sunday. McDonald wanted to skydive for her 80th birthday.

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By Douglas  Carman | Highlands Today

Published: February 20, 2008

LAKE PLACID — A year ago, Jeri McDonald said she saw her granddaughter skydive, and thought she wanted to try it as well.

Her daughters panicked about it at first, but for her 80th birthday, she leaped out of a plane 10,000 feet over Zephyrhills and landed to see her daughters more scared than she was, McDonald said.

After she landed, she declined a ride from a man who came to her with a golf cart. She said she wasn't aware her daughters sent the guy out for her because she was lying on the ground getting the equipment off for a couple of minutes.

So when McDonald jogged from the landing spot, "they said 'look she's running, she's OK!'" McDonald remembered, smiling.

Chris Noel, one of McDonald's daughters, said before Sunday's skydive that McDonald told her she wanted to go skydiving on her 80th birthday with her granddaughter, Kasey Silverman, after Silverman did it last year.

Noel said she told her she and the other daughters would set it up for her if she seriously wanted to try it, but the three sisters were fretting about it.

"I'm freaking out. I tried to talk her out of it," Noel said last week. "I told my mom, 'man, that gene skipped a generation.' None of us are real comfortable flying,"

McDonald joked about her daughters' attempted dissuasions, which came while they wished her "happy birthday."

"They would say, 'Mommy, you changed your mind?' and I said 'Noooo,'" she said. "They thought I was crazy."

According to McDonald and Silverman, McDonald never was that nervous about it. McDonald said the only time she felt uncomfortable was during the flight up, where she had to sit in an awkward position for 15 to 20 minutes bound to her instructor.

Silverman, who took the second skydive of her life Sunday, said she was more nervous than McDonald as they were flying over Skydive City in Zephyrhills.

"She was just ready. She was excited the whole time," she said.

She was part of group 13 on the plane that day. The group number was lucky for her since her birthday was Feb. 13, McDonald said.

After jumping through the door of the plane, McDonald said she felt like she was floating rather than falling during the first 60 seconds of the drop with her instructor, Nigel Milligan of Skydive City.

At one point, she fell through a cloud and described how it suddenly felt 20 degrees colder, and it got very moist at that moment.

Then the chute opened.

"He let me steer it for a second or two," she said, though it was tough pulling the cords.

McDonald said she is still hoping by her 90th birthday she can fly in a hot air balloon and have "an elegant meal" after the flight. She wouldn't mind jumping from a plane again though.

"I loved it, and I would go back in a heart beat," she said.

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