'It's so beautiful': Skydiving Sask. seniors soaring through their golden years

Two Prince Albert seniors have crossed an item off their bucket list after they went skydiving near Saskatoon last month.

Doreen Harder, 73, and Marie Panas, 77, recently jumped out of an airplane and dove 11,000 feet through the air.

“It is an unbelievably freeing, fantastic moment,” Panas said in an interview.

“At first it was a lot of wind, but it’s so beautiful,” Harder told CTV News.

The two became friends after they moved into a Prince Albert seniors’ home and discovered they had similar ambitions.

“I’ve been wanting to go for a few years and nobody would go with me, until I mentioned it to her,” Harder said.

They made plans to go skydiving last summer, but just two days before, Harder broke her leg. Her friends and family saw it as a sign, and told her it wasn’t meant to be.

“Well, I don’t listen to that,” Harder chuckled.

Adam Boucher, owner of Skydive Saskatoon, told CTV News Panas and Harder weren’t the first seniors to skydive at the facility, but they definitely stood out.

“They weren’t nervous at all. They were just kind of relaxed, looking forward to the experience, kind of making jokes,” Boucher said.

Panas had one fear in the back of her mind when she was getting ready to jump.

“I jokingly asked the guy I was strapped to, I said, ‘if I lose my dentures can we send out a search party?’ ‘No they’re gone. Keep your mouth closed,’ was his advice,” she said.

Panas believes age is just a number.

“I don’t consider my age a barrier for anything. Well, except getting out of bed in morning. But jumping out of a plane is nothing,” she said.

Now the daring friends want to encourage others to take the leap.

“You won’t know what it’s like until you absolutely do it. It’s no use describing, you have to feel it,” Harder said.

“If you have the opportunity, go for it, it’s an exhilarating time,” Panas said.