An accountant has successfully completed a skydive to raise £2,300 for charity.
Matt Cooper took the plunge at Old Sarum, Wiltshire, and raised funds for the hospice Mountbatten Hampshire.
Mr Cooper, who is an associate director at HWB Chartered Accountants in Hampshire, enjoyed a 60-second freefall followed by a tandem parachute descent.
A skydive novice, he partnered with veteran skydive company, GoSkydive, for the occasion.
The skydive had been postponed three times due to poor weather conditions.
Despite these obstacles, he completed the dive accompanied by his brother, James. His wife, Daicy, also took on the challenge separately.
James gifted Mr Cooper, who confesses a fear of heights, the skydive as a birthday present.
His employer, HWB, is presently partnered with Mountbatten Hampshire as its chosen charity of the year.
Mr Cooper said: "Being launched out of a plane at 15,000ft and hurtling towards the fields below at 125mph is not necessarily my idea of fun, but I simply had to do it for Mountbatten Hampshire.
"On the skydive itself I didn’t really enjoy the freefall, but it was a thrilling experience once the ripcord had been pulled and the parachute opened. You’re above the clouds, can see the horizon and then float down gently at about 20mph.
"I even had controls of the cords at one point before my instructor took over again and we landed very smoothly. I hardly felt it. The jump was certainly worth it to raise so much money for the charity.
"Mountbatten Hampshire provides vital support and every penny counts towards the essential support they provide – with demand for its services predicted to rise by 40 per cent over the next 18 months."
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