MAYBE WE COULD all learn something from this guy.
Michael Sheahan, a 78-year-old grandfather of ten from Limerick, did his first skydive at the weekend, jumping 10,000 feet from a plane.
(Just in case you need a point of reference, that’s the equivalent of eight Empire State Buildings stacked on top of each other. Gulp).
Michael did the jump in aid of brain aneurysm research after his wife Evelyn died in July from a cerebral aneurysm. The couple had been together for decades and had five sons.
You’d think with all that behind him, there’d have been nerves. Not a bit of it.
“I wasn’t scared at all; it was super,” he said. “I was so relaxed on the way up to 10,000ft, I could have dozed off”.
He also has the best description of a parachute jump that we’ve ever heard:
It was the most gorgeous day and the scenery was just beautiful. The patterns of the fields and the colours were like an artist’s painting.
The wind on the way down was unbelievable. It was like getting a facelift, but I really enjoyed it.
Michael raised some €12,000 for the University of Limerick’s Adrienne Hussey Scholarship, which supports research into cranial aneurysms. The scholarship was set up by the charity Friends of A in memory of the 2010 Texas Rose who died in January 2012 at the age of 26 from a ruptured aneurysm.
Michael and his five sons have been organising fundraising events since Evelyn died in July – and he says this is just the start.
“We want to do more. People have been very good so far. One thing I’ve been amazed by is the amount of people who have been affected by aneurysms”.
John Byrnes of Skydive Ireland, where Michael did the jump, said his dedication and bravery was an “exceptional and huge inspiration to people who have suffered tragic loss of loved ones”.
We second that. What a guy.
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