Posted on 12/30/2009 3:39:23 PM PST by Dan B Cooper
An Orangeburg grandmother recently got in touch with her daredevil side quicker than she could say "Geronimo."
Although the decision to participate in her first skydive Nov. 7 was made on the spur of the moment, the notion had been planted years ago.
Rita Fleming is no couch potato. She swims and has recently taken up golf again. But her husband thought she was crazy to take the plunge -- literally.
"After the jump, my husband said he was thinking I would just go splat," Fleming said, laughing. "But he is used my going off and doing things. I'm ready for action!"
A retired registered nurse who still volunteers at the Columbia Free Medical Clinic one day a week, Fleming was expecting to watch her daughter celebrate her 50th birthday with a skydive in Walterboro.
"I didn't go to (Lowcountry Regional) airport with the idea of doing it. They already had the slot filled out," Fleming said. "When I was leaving my daughter's house in Charleston, she said, 'Why don't you do it?' And I thought, 'They're serious!'"
"But in the back of my mind, I'm tickled pink," she said. "It never crossed my mind, but I have been parasailing in Freeport, the Bahamas, and that was wonderful."
Dawn Fleming, of Charleston, says her husband had been joking the night before the jump about getting Rita, who celebrated her 77th birthday Oct. 24, in the air.
"When my husband told her to get ready, she was taken aback but also kinda game," Fleming said. "I think the reason she was open to the idea is because I had told her I would be doing it. Plus, she watched an 'Oprah' show where Oprah had taken four women skydiving.
"She got excited about it because I was going to do it, but she also got excited because of the show."
Billy Carter, owner of Skydive Walterboro, says it's not unusual for seniors to skydive. His company has had people in their 80s jump, and two or three jump at Lowcountry Regional each year.
"The only criteria is to be in reasonably good physical condition," Carter said. "Skydiving is not so much dependent on age as it is on body condition. Some folks in their 80s are better off in that regard than some in their 50s."
We will see a lot more of this by seniors as Obamacare goes into effect.
I want to know how she keeps her teeth from falling out.
Good for her... she is really alive. Some folks think they are alive just because their heart is still beating... they couldn’t be more wrong.
Coincidence? I think not... ;-)
So is she jumping, or riding, I can’t tell from the picture.
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