Jumping out of a plane for Ellenor

After a successful few months of voting and donations the final votes were counted and at our team Christmas party I was told that I’d be the one to jump.

A skydive has always been on my list of things I’ve wanted to do, so to have the opportunity to tick this off and raise money for an incredible charity seemed like a win win!

We successfully raised £586, which will go directly to helping terminally ill children receive the care and the treatment they need. Emma from the charity sent me a breakdown of where the fundraising money goes, and told me that the money came in at just the right time ahead of the difficulties the charity has faced during the Covid-19 outbreak.

£26.68

Provides a child with a personalised, unique play therapy session;
reducing stress levels and anxiety.

£77.32

Provides one hour of chemotherapy for a child in the
sanctuary of their own home.

£667.00

Could pay for one day of specialist care for a
patient on our Inpatient Ward

Emma mentioned that our fundraising has helped by providing at least 2 children with 2 sessions of chemotherapy, which is amazing to hear. So a huge thank you to everyone who donated.

If you’d like to find out more about the charity then please check out their website: http://www.ellenor.org/

So, all that was left was for me to keep my side of the bargain and jump from 12,000ft!

The charity orgainsed the whole event and told me I’d be doing a tandem jump at Headcorn Aerodrome on the 6^th September 2020, I just needed to turn up with my hand sanitizer and a pen.

Upon arrival I signed in, went through the appropriate training with the instructor and kitted up. We then made our way into a small airplane along with a few other jumpers – at this stage I wasn’t feeling nervous, more excited that I’d finally be doing a skydive!

I was the third person to jump, which gave me the opportunity to see two people do it first. This was a really strange thing to witness; all survival-based logic [literally] went out of the window as we edged closer to the open door of the plane.

My time came and before I knew it I was freefalling at 120mph. The air was freezing and all I could hear was the rush of wind as the instructor levelled us out and pulled the guide shoot; I had nothing to gauge my bearing by but the tops of the clouds – it was absolutely stunning!

Just after we fell through the clouds the instructor pulled the main parachute, slowing us down from 120mph to 17mph. The G-Force was intense but as we stabilised I looked up and couldn’t believe my eyes - the views were incredible! I could see the coastline from Camber through to Dungeness and in the opposite direction the skyline of London; I was so fortunate to jump on such a clear day!

We started to glide down from approximately 6,000ft which was a very surreal feeling. It didn’t seem as if we were going anywhere, but the G-Force was flipping my stomach in all directions and for a part of it I got a little bit of motion sickness – which, if you know me, is pretty standard… (facepalm).

After a couple of minutes of flying through the air we finally landed. I was so happy that I’d completed the jump and was back on solid ground. This was an experience I will never forget and I urge anyone who’s considering something like this to do so!

I’d like to thank Emma from the charity for organising the jump and for keeping in touch throughout the campaign,

Finally here are some important links to the charity Ellenor, please take a look, as the work they do is simply incredible:

How they help
https://ellenor.org/how-we-help

How to fundraise
https://ellenor.org/fundraise-for-us

How to donate
https://ellenor.org/donate