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Skydiver gets sky high for charity
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| Caroline Allen prepares her kit to set off on her next skydiving challenge |
A WOMAN is preparing to fly to California to take part in a skydiving world record attempt for charity.
Caroline Allen, of Highams Park, will spend six days plummeting through the skies over Perris, southern California.
She will be part of a 165-strong international team under the banner Jump For The Cause hoping to set a new world record for women's formation skydiving, while raising at least £270,000 for Breast Cancer Research.
They will make around 20 jumps from eight aeroplanes at an altitude of 16,000ft, building up to beat the current record of 131 women diving in formation.
Each participant has pledged to raise a minimum of £1,300, and Mrs Allen is one of only 14 British women to be part of the attempt. They are on target to raise an additional £30,000.
She said: "It's just the best sport, I love it. I do seven or eight jumps in a day. It is a very tight group of people, but very inclusive, and fantastic from that perspective.
"This is not about being an adrenalin junkie, it is a mentally agile sport, and it's very tiring. You have to be very aware, and very precise."
Mrs Allen began skydiving after her husband died of cancer.
She said: "After that I started to do all sorts of things that would really push the envelope. I changed my career and ran a marathon and I first did skydiving as a one-off."
Six years after her first encounter with the sport, Mrs Allen now goes skydiving every weekend and is a veteran of more than 900 jumps.
She has fearlessly thrown herself out of hot air balloons, helicopters and Hercules aircraft, and says of her 120mph drops: "It's dangerous, but as long as you respect it, it can be a huge amount of fun."
She says her next goal is to be one of 400 people attempting to set a mixed skydiving world record, to take place next year in Thailand.
Anyone wishing to sponsor Mrs Allen can contact her by sending an email with "Jump For The Cause donation" in the title to caroline_allen@tiscali.
co.uk.
9:22am Saturday 24th September 2005
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