---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 23:04:53 -0500
From: Paul Matthyssen <MoonMist at aol.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list AEROSP-L <AEROSP-L at SIVM.BITNET>
Subject: You're never too old!
Article in the Honolulu Advertiser
Feb.19,1996
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99-year old has higher goal after skydive
By Tino Ramerez
Avertiser Staff Writer
WAHIAWA - Hildegarde Ferrera, who went skydiving Saturday to celebrate
her 99th birthda, was resting well in Wahiawa general Hospital yesterday.
Emergency room technicians said Ferrera may have strained her neck when she
jumped from a plane above Mokuleia.
Daughter LaVonne West said her mother is in good spirits, although she is
having trouble moving her head and her doctors don't know when she can
leave.
"They took X-rays and scanned her neck to check for fractures and found
none", said West. "The injury seems to be like whiplash."
"Before the jump, which was witnessed by nearly a hundred friends and family
members an excited Ferrera said she wasnt nervous at all.
"I just wanted to get it over with" , she said. West was slightly more
worried.
"I had tears in my eyes", she said. I'm so proud of her, but a little
apprehensive.
In the past, Ferrerea has floated over the Swiss Alps in a hot air balloon,
danced with New Guinea's Mud Men, walked China's Great Wall and visited Dr.
Albert Schweitzer in Africa.
Saturday's jump hasn't curbed her mothers' appetite for adventure, said West,
Ferrera still wants to to celebrate her 100 th birthday by going to the moon.
" She told me yesteday, I'm sure that going to the moon will be easier than
this", said West. " She would really like that, I hope NASA or someone picks
up on it".
West said she often went along on her mothers trips. She vividly remembers
Schweitzer operating on a man who had been mauled by a lion.
Despite the operating room's unsanitary conditions and the presence of a duck
and goat, Schweitzer saved the man's life.
"I also got heck from Schweiter for killing an ant," said West. "He told
me,' Don't you ever kill something that's alive.' ".
Photo H. Ferrera
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