Community / Lerwick couple skydive to fundraise for MS charity in honour of late mum
LOCAL couple Amy and Wayne Uren took on the “surreal” experience of skydiving at the weekend to raise money for the Shetland branch of the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society.
The couple travelled down to St Andrews to skydive in memory of Amy’s mother, Sharon Groat.
“We were actually going to do it in the year 2020,” Amy told Shetland News.
“We were officially booked in to do it in August, obviously Covid happened… my mum knew we were planning to do it.”
Sharon passed away from MS a year ago on Sunday, 4 June.
Amy said this year was a “perfect time” to do the fundraiser in Sharon’s name.
There was little they could do to train for the dive, aside from “a lot of mental preparation”, but the instructors at Skydive St Andrews put Amy and Wayne “totally at ease”.
“They take you in and you do a bit of training for half an hour, an hour, where they explain how the parachute works and how the jump works,” said Amy.
“When you turn up on the day, then there’s several people doing it on the day.
“They do it in order of who turns up at what point and we were last so we were last to jump on [Saturday].”
Amy and Wayne had to take a 20-minute plane ride to get up to the 10,000 feet that is required for the jump.
“I don’t think I would say I was scared because I felt safe in their hands… just anticipating it,” Amy continued.
“Once you do jump out the plane, it’s very surreal… my husband liked the free fall bit better, you’re free falling for about 25 seconds, 5,000 feet, and then the parachute opens.
“I preferred after the parachute opened and we were just floating and spinning around… it’s such a buzz.”
The JustGiving page is still accepting donations and the total currently stands at £2,810.
Amy also estimates that they have received around £1,000 in cash donations.
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