87-year-old grandma takes leap out of plane
BY CASEY TONER ctoner@southtownstar.com July 19, 2011 7:46PM
Updated: November 2, 2011 1:11AM
Age is no obstacle for 87-year-old Tinley Park resident Terrie Lloyd.
On Sunday, the silver-haired grandma jumped out of an airplane at 13,500 feet and plummeted to Earth at 125 mph.
“The feeling was, ‘Oh wow,’ ” Lloyd said. “Awesome! Awesome! Awesome!”
Lloyd made the jump through Skydive Chicago in Ottawa. Her sons, Ray, Dave and Bill, and their wives provided the opportunity as their Christmas present. The gift certificate came with a note that said, “Hey Mom, take a flying leap.”
Lloyd arrived at Skydive about 9 a.m. even though the jump took place around 2:30 p.m. Instructors taught her and a group of other jumpers how to skydive and then she signed a sign-your-life-away waiver form.
“That made me scared,” she said. “They let you know the possibility that you will die, be injured or maimed.”
Before long, she removed her false teeth, hearing aids and a necklace, and she boarded the airplane that took her high above the farmland.
Lloyd was worried that her legs couldn’t make the leap out of the plane. But she was attached to one of the certified skydivers, who made the jump for her.
She described the view as “like looking through a big scope.”
While free falling, she spun around five times and outstretched her arms.
“There aren’t enough words to describe what a great feeling it was,” Lloyd said.
After a couple of minutes, the accompanying skydiver pulled the parachute string and they floated down to a runway below. Her family waited for her and cheered her return. An on-site doctor treated her for a cut on the arm she incurred while jumping.
“To have them waiting for me, I wanted to cry,” she said. “I have such a wonderful family. I’m so lucky.”
Lloyd and her family drove to an Aurelio’s Pizza restaurant to celebrate the achievement. While there, she gulped down a Manhattan cocktail.
On Monday, Lloyd nursed a sore back but beamed at her accomplishment.
She wore a white T-shirt that said, “Skydiving: if I have to explain it to you, you won’t understand.”
Lloyd said she got her first taste of danger when she was 19. The native of Chicago’s South Deering neighborhood would go cliff diving with friends at the Lemont quarry.
About 20 years ago, Lloyd took a hot air balloon ride over Bolingbrook. Eight years later, she went parasailing in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
“You’re floating in the air and you can see miles around,” she said. “People on the ground look like little animals.”
After parasailing, she decided she wanted to skydive.
“Before I die — and I’m 87, so that can happen at any time — I wanted to go skydiving,” she said.
It’s no surprise Lloyd also enjoys traveling and flying to foreign countries. She has visited Italy, France and Croatia and different parts of the United States.
“I love to travel, but at this age, it’s hard to find someone to go traveling with,” she said. “Most of traveling is walking. Fortunately, I can still walk.”
Lloyd, a retired bookkeeper at Frank Paxton Lumber Co. in Chicago, attends a water aerobics class three days a week and a seniors exercise program twice a week at Tinley Fitness in Tinley Park.
While Lloyd is an active senior, she is not invincible.
Six years ago, doctors removed a quarter of one of her lungs after discovering a peanut-sized clump of cancer. Her hip was replaced five years ago.
“She’s a spunky lady,” said Lloyd’s daughter-in-law, Sue Lloyd. “She never stops.”
Lloyd claimed to have walked out of the hospital with her new hip without a cane or walker.
Her speedy recovery she attributes to the years she spent in various local dancing clubs and her own determination.
It’s the same can-do spirit and physical fitness that led Lloyd to go parasailing in Mexico and to jump out of a plane in Ottawa. Even if her doctor didn’t exactly endorse her latter decision.
“He didn’t tell me I can’t and he didn’t say I should,” she said. “I’m healthy enough. The only thing that was holding me back is my age.”
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