Sutton Coldfield Observer reporter Michelle Russell “killed two birds with one stone” when she fulfilled an ambition to complete a skydive. The stunt also saw her raise £120 for the George Coller Memorial Fund. Here she relives her leap of faith…

Feeling no fear I decided to change my name to Michelle ‘Nerves of Steel’ Russell. Yet as I sat on the open edge of the plane I felt the first pangs of apprehension and began to fret for my sanity.

With the instructor strapped firmly behind me I had no way out – if I bottled, he certainly wouldn’t.

He pushed me forward and we fell, plummeting towards the earth below.

After the first burst of exhilaration my heart slowed down and I was able to take in the amazing high of flying above a mass of fluffy white clouds.

Driving down to Hinton Skydiving Centre in Northamptonshire at 7am, I had no idea I would be feeling as great as this in six hours’ time.

I knew I’d always wanted to do a skydive so signing up to raise money for the The George Coller Memorial Fund, which raises awareness of childhood asthma, was, I thought, a great way to kill two birds with one stone.

The morning was taken up with training to go through all the protocol of what we’d be wearing and what we’d be required to do.

At this point not much of the information went in and stayed in so I was relieved to hear it would be drummed into us again at a later stage.

Waiting for the skies to clear I was surprisingly calm and quite excited at the prospect of what I was about to do.

I don’t think it really sunk in until my instructor Mike Beeden started kitting me out with jumpsuit and harnesses.

I felt about five stone heavier too as I’d prepared for all eventualities and dressed in jogging bottoms, T-shirt, jumper and fleece just in case.

Arriving at the plane I was a little apprehensive at the size of it and the lack of space inside.

As we shuffled to the back and about eight more people crowded in, I started to hope it wouldn’t be long before we jumped, probably a great tactic all in all.

At 8,000ft I sat on Mike’s lap as he tightened the harness.

I sat back down between my instructor’s legs and found myself checking his altitude clock one time too many.

As he went through the instructions for one last time at 11,000ft, I forced myself to take everything in as the realisation started to dawn on me.

At 13,000ft the red light came on and I strangely found myself smiling, clearly not through joy so I guess it must have been a mask for the sheer panic I was feeling.

Everything I’d learned earlier went out of my head as I plummeted.

I was relying solely on my instructor to get me down to earth safely.

But I wanted to enjoy every minute of it and having a camera there was a great way of taking my mind off what I was actually doing.

Bob the cameraman was waving at me but I struggled to lift my arms and was too busy concentrating on breathing confidently.

Surprised I’d had no stomach churning after jumping, a sudden jolt brought me back to my senses as Mike pulled the cord.

We shot up what felt like a couple of hundred feet, the parachute opened and it sounded like someone had pulled the plug out of the Earth.

From the rush and confusion of the wind to the serene calmness of floating softly down, I felt a little disorientated as Mike steered us through the break in the clouds to reveal a minute town and vast fields below.

With the eerie silence around us, Mike pointed to Bob, a small dot in a field below us and we started steering towards him.

We were also way off course as the wind had changed direction so we had to make do with the soft landing of a field five miles away from the airfield.

As we approached our landing, Bob was becoming larger and we appeared to be falling faster so I just lifted my legs and hoped for the best.

With Mike’s feet firmly on the ground I let mine fall and was happy to feel the grass under my feet, but bitterly disappointed it was all over.