happening. i looked over at the camera guy, hey, i could use a hand here. we were able to get the leg pads down below the knees again. once her legs were harnessed, dennis pulls the rip cord thousands of feet sooner than anticipated. dennis and laverne grasp on to each other the entire ride down, locking hands for more than five grueling minutes. meanwhile back on the ground, everyone who s jumped after laverne has already landed. that s great. and then i look way over to the right, and i see somebody coming down really slow with their bottom hanging out and their feet almost touching their head. and i m freaking out. laverne and dennis land in a nearby field. and miraculously she ends up with only a few bruises and a scraped knee. well, i put my life in the lord s hands. that s how i did it.
friends including 84-year-old eileen sambesetti. she knew that i d been wanting to go. she called me up, gee, my sister wants to go. do you want to go? i said yeah. is this something you ve wanted to do? for years. life hasn t been easy for laverne. she s already lived through a broken neck and a heart attack. she s been a widow for more than 40 years, raising two children on her own. for laverne, this is one time she ll look death in the face on her own terms or so she thinks. a plane taking off from sky dive lodi parachute center holding a dozen sky divers soars up to 11s this feet. laverne and tandem master dennis mcglynn are the first pair scheduled to jump. two fellow instructors shoot the adventure using helmet cams, one from inside the plane and the other hanging on to the fuselage outside the plane s door.
just basically tried to pull the harness off of her. i didn t even conceive that happening. i ve been jumping a long time. you re a tough lady. there s no doubt about that. i was there those five minutes and nobody else was there. laverne is just thankful to walk away from her perilous plunge. and because it was caught on camera, future skydive instructors now have a visual to help prevent a situation like this from happening again. other people will learn from this. it s going to be indock rinated into the learning instructing. when you become a tandem instructor, you will see this video. and if dennis has his way, he d like to take laverne up again and do it right. that s a big void in my career now, that i wasn t able to deliver what i know i can deliver. i really think that you can put a stamp on your legacy if you were to go again. but is laverne still game? who knows? i may do it again. coming up a spanish tradition proves that the bigger they are, the harder they
one from inside the plane and the other, hanging on to the fuselage outside the plane s door. once they get to the door, laverne s entire body tenses up. yeah, it was spooky when you get to the door. i got to the edge and it was just hard for me. after a few moments of trying to pry her hands from the doorway, someone gives them a boost. laverne and dennis go tumbling through the sky. dennis tries to stabilize them, but something isn t right. i knew my top harness fell. i didn t know if it fell off, down, or what. but i knew it slipped. that s all i knew. her jacket covers her face shielding her vision. i don t know what would have happened if i could have seen the shape i was in. probably was a blessing, actually. mcglynn has made more than 8,000 jumps and has never experienced anything like this. a nearby instructor is shooting the action. a desperate mcglynn hails him
she rounds up some family friends including 84-year-old eileen sambesetti. she knew i d been wanting to go. she called me up and said i want to go. i said yeah. life hasn t been easy for laverne. she s already lived through a broken neck and a heart attack. she s been a widow for more than 40 years raising two children on her own. for laverne, this is one time she ll look death in the face on her own terms or so she thinks. a plane taking off from the parachute center holding a dozen or so sky divers soars up to 11,000 feet. laverne and tandem master dennis mcglynn are the first to jump. two fellow instructors shoot the adventure using helmet cams.