So you think you can do it too?

Relived to be back on land and behind the counter at the butcher’s counter in Newbuildings, brave fundraiser Paul Kayne, raised £1,300 for the Meningitis Trust with a skydive that took his breath away last Sunday at Garvagh with the Wild Geese.

Paul faced his greatest fear, heights, and raised money for the worthy charity for weeks before taking the plunge and hurtling 13,000 feet through the air to the ground. Falling at 120mph he admitted he would do it again despite the fear involved.

“Words cannot describe the feeling from you more or less panicking over the fear of it and the realisation you should not have been out in the air and should not be up that height. It was amazing. You are looking at the ground coming towards you and you just don’t think it is real,” he said of his skydive, continuing: “It is like being on a plane going on your holidays but you are not, you are jumpig out. I was scared of the jump, but not the guy that took me out, Stevie Kerr. I had a lot of trust in him and he talked me though it and was confident. The week before I went for training about what to do with my feet and arms, so when I jumped I was just thinking ‘look how fast I am going’. I would do it again 100 per cent.”

In the past Paul has fundraised for Action Cancer and the Romanian Trust, but this was something different: “It is not until you chose this kind of charity that you find out how many people are effected by it,” he said.

“I want to thank everybody that sponsored me, including Longs for letting me advertise the sponsored dive in the shop. The shop let me raffle a hamper in the shop and one of my colleagues, Judith Campbell, her mother knitted a baby jumper for another hamper. I also want to thank all the members of my family, who went out to fundraise,” he said.

To watch Paul’s skydive log on to www.londonderrysentinel.co.uk on Friday and look under the ‘Features’ tab.