Woman takes a leap of faith and sky dives at 91

Friday, Jul. 04, 2014

SANDY — Barbara Kegel checked skydiving off her bucket list June 1, after leaping out of an airplane at 13,000 feet. 

Kegel was encouraged to sky dive after a hot air balloon ride when she was 89, she said.

“I’d probably jump again; I’ve wanted to for about 10 years,” Kegel said, adding that she wasn’t “scared one little second; I didn’t even quiver. I held onto the harness and then I was down. It happened so fast.”

Kegel jumped with Lisa Bachiller; both are members of Saint Thomas More Parish. They became friends after visiting with each other weekly when Kegel moved to Utah from Montana 18 months ago.

Kegel wears hearing aids and is going blind, “but she was a vital, active woman when she was younger, so I asked her if there was anything on her bucket list she wanted to do, and then explained to her what that was,” said Bachiller. 

Kegel got a faraway look in her eyes, looked away, and then “looked back at me and said, ‘Well I only have one thing, but it will never happen,’” said Bachiller, who has jumped more than 100 times in her career as a Marine and was surprised when Kegel said she wanted to sky dive. 

The two of them asked Kegel’s family about the idea, who said they didn’t know how or whether they wanted skydiving to happen, said Bachiller, who is retired from the U.S. Marine Corps. They checked the drop zone at Erda Air Field, ensured that Kegel’s health was good, and scheduled the jump for the next week.

Kegel’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren witnessed the skydiving event. Both women jumped tandem with an instructor; Kegel jumped first. 

“It was an incredible experience,” said Bachiller. “It was very windy and we dropped at 120 miles an hour. It’s definitely made a punctuation mark in her life and really set an example for her whole family.” 

At first, Kegel’s daughter, Debra Castor, thought her mother’s idea to sky dive “was crazy,” she said. “I worried about hip fractures and the air pressure on her brain, and Lisa told me when the parachute deploys, it puts stress on every ounce of your body. Then I thought, ‘She doesn’t choose her food, what she wears or where she goes because we provide that for her; if she wants to jump out of an airplane, she should be able to jump out of an airplane.’”

Kegel thought she had moved to Utah to wait for her life to end, she said, even though she also spends time during the year visiting her other four children, who live in various states. 

The real reason Kegel wanted to jump, said Castor, “was because she wanted to be able to give her son, who died when he was 23, a hug while she was in the air.” 

“I knew I’d be able to see him, but I came down so fast, I forgot,” added Kegel. 

Kegel has an incredibly curious and intelligent mind, and she likes to see and experience everything, said Castor.

When she was 78, she hiked throughout Moab with her family, said Castor. “She is totally fearless.”

As a mother Kegel gave her children “absolute freedom,” said Castor. “It’s amazing that all six of us survived childhood. My mother has always worked hard and been strong-willed. We lived in a house she and my dad built with their own four hands on the Missouri River in a small town in Montana. Both my parents believed in education; my father was a school teacher.” 

Kegel sewed everything her children wore and “she is also an incredible artist,” said Castor. “She likes to experience things and it’s been painful for her to lose her vision and her hearing.” 

“My mind is always going, even when I’m quiet,” Kegel said, adding that her next adventure is going to be gambling because she has never done that. 

Kegel and Bachiller plan to go to Wendover with the St. Thomas More Fun Bunch, and “if we win, we’re going to split our money,” Kegel said.