2 Midwives from the Island’s Maternity Unit recently completed a 10,000ft Skydive to raise money for the Hampshire and IOW Air Ambulance (HIOWAA).
Samantha Bail and Shari Connolly, who work for the Isle of Wight NHS Trust, have always wanted to do a Skydive and HIOWAA was the perfect charity so they seized the moment and signed up.
HIOWAA dedicated a weekend to the event which ran over the 2nd and 3rd September and was held at GoSkydive at Salisbury.
Samantha said:
“Running up to the day we were both extremely excited about doing this. The instructors were so kind and put us at ease. When it came to sitting on the edge of the plane, there was no time to be nervous and before we knew it we were freefalling from 10,000 feet-5,000 feet at 125 MPH, this took 30 seconds, and then the parachute came out.
“The strangest thing was freefalling at such speed yet you feel 100% safe. We could see views from the Isle of Wight through to Bristol, as it was an extremely clear day, and the rest of this took approx. 5 minutes. Back on land, both of us could not stop smiling. It was the most amazing experience we have ever done, and knowing that we had done it for such a good cause was even better.”
Shari said:
“We feel it is important to help raise money for this service as it is very much needed for the Isle of Wight and a service that as midwives we have used in the past and will continue to use in the future, in order to get those across to a mainland hospital as quickly as possible when needed”.
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So far they have raised around £2,000 with money still coming in. It’s not too late to sponsor them and can congratulate Samantha & Shari by donating to https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/samantha-bail or https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/shari-connolly.
