A PLUCKY mum from Alcester faced her fears to throw herself into a charity challenge marking what would have been her teenage son’s 18th birthday.
Denise Turner has raised more than £1,800 for Warwick-based charity Molly Ollys after jumping 13,000 ft from an aeroplane.
Denise’s son Sam was born with an abnormally developed brain, only detected when he stopped breathing at just 24 hours old, triggering a series of tests. He went on to be diagnosed with several chronic conditions including severe epilepsy and quadriplegic cerebral palsy. And, at one year-old was registered as blind. He died in 2023 aged 16.
Denise recalls: “All we could do was to see if he hit his baby milestones. He was put on various medications to find which ones worked best for him. He developed infantile spasms at about 10 months old and had steroid injections for four weeks to stop them. He couldn’t hold his head up, sit or stand unaided.”
Denise, 53, was joined in the stunt, on July 3 at Hinton Airfield in Brackley, by her sister Ali Perrett and stepson Jake, 21 both supported on the day by friends and family members.
She continued: “This was the first time either of us had done a parachute jump. I wasn’t nervous until the actual day. It started to get very real in the plane. We were packed in like sardines; my parachutist was chatting away to me about what we could see on the ground and I was just thinking I want this to be over.
“The initial part of the jump, leaving the plane and the free falling, was terrifying but once the parachute comes out, it’s so quiet and you can see for miles. It was just beautiful.”
Warwick-based charity Molly Ollys stepped in to grant a wish for Sam in the form of a short break at Centerparcs in Sherwood Forest. And later funded a super blender to help liquify Sam’s foods so he could be fed through his gastronomy tube.
Molly Ollys works to support children with terminal or life-limiting illnesses and their families and help with their emotional wellbeing. As well as providing more than 4,300 wishes to date, they donate therapeutic toys and books to both children directly and to hospitals throughout the UK.
Visit www.justgiving.com/page/denise-turner-1? to donate.
