![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/74\/2007\/08\/Diver-1.jpg\" "\\"Diver-1\\"")
Coffin attends The Church at Hemlock Farms, an Evangelical Covenant Church, and has been involved with several ministries there since 1990.<\/p>\nBy Stan Friedman<\/p>\n
LORDS VALLY, PA (August 31, 2007) \u2013 Helen Coffin boarded the small airplane, rode to 9,000 feet, and then the 80-year-old jumped out.<\/p>\n
At 6,000 feet, the skydiving instructor to whom she was attached pulled the rip cord. \u201cIt was such a rush!\u201d she says. \u201cIt was so wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coffin attends The Church at Hemlock Farms, an Evangelical Covenant Church, and has been involved with several ministries there since 1990.<\/p>\n
The recent jump was the first for Coffin, who decided it was the perfect way to celebrate her milestone birthday. She hatched the idea after watching one of her grandsons skydive last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe original plan was I was supposed to jump with another grandson,\u201d she says. He had turned 18 in the spring, so he finally was old enough to jump. He did go up the same day, but in another airplane because the aircraft were too small to carry everyone in the same plane.<\/p>\n
Coffin says she wasn\u2019t afraid. \u201cI didn\u2019t look down when I was sitting at the edge of the plane. I just looked straight ahead,\u201d she says. After her departure from the airplane, she didn\u2019t have time to be scared. \u201cIt all happened so fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coffin also had complete confidence in the instructor – a retired British paratrooper who goes by the name Simeon of Kent. He would have let her pull the ripcord, but she decided it would be best if he performed that critical step.<\/p>\n
Anyone who knows Coffin would not be surprised by her birthday celebration. \u201cI\u2019ve always been adventurous,\u201d she explains. Those adventures often involve heights or speed.<\/p>\n
She has ridden in a hot air balloon and has gone parasailing. Her activities closer to the earth\u2019s surface have included making the bobsled run at the former Olympics facility in Lake Placid, New York, and cycling down the side of a volcano in Hawaii.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the scariest,\u201d Coffin says of her volcano adventure. There was no lava flowing, but the narrow two-lane road had more than 40 hairpin turns, and the buses going up towards the volcano posed a threat.<\/p>\n
Coffin\u2019s husband, Don, was \u201cvery supportive\u201d of her birthday jump, she says. \u201cHe sat on a chair and watched.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some friends, however, questioned her judgment. \u201cPeople wonder why anyone would jump out of a perfectly good airplane,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Not a lot of people knew of her plans. \u201cI didn\u2019t make a big deal of it beforehand in case I went there and got cold feet,\u201d Coffin explains, laughing.<\/p>\n
She hopes other 80-year-olds also will take to the skies and wouldn\u2019t be surprised if that happens. Eighty isn\u2019t what it used to be, she observes and \u201cThere are so many more of us now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coffin says she would like to go again next year because this jump didn\u2019t last long enough due to the direct descent. \u201cI would love to do some swirls and spins,\u201d she says. \u201cIf I go up next year, I\u2019m going to fly around some more.\u201d<\/p>\n