Durban radio DJ takes a leap of faith for SA Legion
"There was a point while flying that my eyes just welled up with tears. I think I was just so happy to be alive, to be looking down on the city where I was born, to be flying like a bird."
EAST Coast Radio’s Keri Miller is still walking on air after taking up the challenge to do a tandem skydive on Sunday, to raise awareness for the SA Legion.
Speaking to Berea Mail, Keri said opting out of the jump had crossed her mind “just for a second, but I knew I’d never the end of it from my team if I chickened out.”
“There was a point where the Durban Skydive Centre team were talking about the cloud cover and whether or not the jump would happen, which did make me think maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t going to happen,” she said.
The scariest part of the tandem jump was the whole lead up to it. “The night before I was a bundle of nerves and in the morning I did all the yoga breathing I could think of to just stay ‘grounded’. It was the fear of the unknown, but once we were actually there, Vernon and the team were just such rockstars, and so professional I was completely at ease, or I was at the level of scared that you just feel calm,” she laughed.
Keri didn’t make a sound as she and Vernon Kloppers leapt out of the plane, and she said the most unexpected thing about the whole experience was how smooth it all felt.
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“I don’t know what I was expecting but the freefall was blissful, and when the parachute opened it felt like we slammed on brakes, that was pretty cool. And seeing Durban from that viewpoint was wow, wow, wow! I would definitely do it again, but only if Vernon Kloppers was attached to me,” she joked.
A big plus, she said was that she had got to experience the jump without the stress of having to do any work, except to lift her legs on landing.
Commenting on what the experience meant to her, Keri said she was very aware that not everyone would get to experience something like this and she thanked ECR, SA Legion, Durban Skydive Centre and Cricket South Africa for letting her be a part of the moment.
“There was a point while flying that my eyes just welled up with tears. I think I was just so happy to be alive, to be looking down on the city where I was born, to be flying like a bird. It’s really something. And if you have ever even thought that this is something you would want to do, do it. It is an incredible human feat that I wish everyone could do at least once,” she said.
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