Sudbury, Ont., senior knocks skydiving from bucket list

An 85-year-old Sudbury grandmother, Carol Shyminsky, celebrated her birthday by checking skydiving off her bucket list with a tandem jump in Cookstown, Ont.

Carol Shyminsky is proof that you’re never too old to check off an item on your bucket list.

To mark her 85th birthday this month, Shyminsky added skydiving to her list of life accomplishments, jumping out of an airplane just north of Toronto.

While many people might find themselves screaming as they plunged earthward, she said she has no fear of heights and was calm and cool.

“It feels very slowly that you’re coming down and you’re looking around and you’re talking to the instructor,” she said.

“They’re there with you.”

Shyminsky took the literal plunge as a birthday gift to herself.

When asked to describe the experience, she likened it to dreams of falling.

“That’s exactly what it feels like. You get that jolt, but you don’t wake up. You’re going down and you’re going down really fast,” she said.

Long since retired from her job as a bread-delivery driver, Shyminsky spends much of her time volunteering at St. Mary’s Ukrainian Catholic Church.

She said she doesn’t have health issues that prevented her from going ahead with the extreme experience -- but admitted landing was a challenge.

“I have both knee replacement and shoulder replacement, and it was a little bit harder,” Shyminsky said.

“I’m glad I did it now, because if I would have waited longer, I know I wouldn’t be able to do it because you really have to bend your knees, and that’s not working very good for me now. So, I did it, I’m happy.”

“And, as they say, if you do it once, you get that rush to go back. And if I was younger, yes, I would do it again.”

Shyminsky said she asked the team at Sky Dive Toronto if she was their oldest jumper. They told her they had a 95-year-old jumper before.

The mother, grandmother and great-grandmother drove from her home in Sudbury to Cookstown, north of Toronto, to jump in tandem with an instructor.

She didn’t tell anyone what she was doing until afterwards, saying she didn’t want them to worry.

“I have one grandson that said … ‘I wasn’t surprised. If I hear someone say, ‘Look, your Baba’s running with the bulls,’ I’d believe it,” Shyminsky said.

She was mum on what’s next on her bucket list, although she did say if she were somewhere with zip-lining, she would try that.

As for her advice for others looking to check off an item on their bucket list, she said, “Just do it.”

“I don’t see why not. If that’s what you want to do .... you should do it. I don’t care what age you are.”