Millie reflects on her skydive!
On 22 July, I jumped out of an aeroplane from 15,000 feet — completely blind.
There are some things in life that, when you tell people you’ve done them, they immediately ask the same question:
“But how?”
Skydiving is probably one of them.
For me, there was an additional question.
“How did you skydive when you can’t see?”
The answer is actually quite simple.
I trusted.
On 22 July, I took part in a skydive from 15,000 feet to raise money for SRSB — the Sheffield Royal Society for the Blind, my local blind centre. But although I was raising money for a charity that means so much to me, the jump became about something much bigger.
It became about proving to myself that blindness doesn’t get to decide how big my life can be.
The decision
I don’t think there is a particularly logical reason to decide that jumping out of an aeroplane is a brilliant idea.
And yet, somehow, I decided it was exactly what I wanted to do in the name of charity.
I’ve been completely blind since 2023. I know what it’s like to have the world I once knew visually change completely. I know what it’s like to have to learn new ways of doing things, to rebuild confidence and to discover who you are when something you once took for granted is suddenly gone.
So perhaps skydiving made perfect sense after all.
Because sometimes, when you’ve already had to step into the unknown, you become a little less afraid of it.
15,000 feet
As the aeroplane climbed higher and higher, I couldn’t look out of the window and see the ground getting further away.
I couldn’t see the clouds beneath me.
I couldn’t see the landscape.
I couldn’t see how high we were.
But I could feel it.
I could hear the aeroplane around me. I could hear the voices of the people with me. I could feel the anticipation building as we got closer to the moment I had spent so long thinking about.
And then came the realisation:
I was about to jump.
15,000 feet.
Completely blind.
There was no going back.
For a moment, every emotion seemed to arrive at once — excitement, pride, adrenaline, disbelief.
And then I jumped.
The moment I let go
There is something strange about falling when you can’t see.
People often assume blindness means missing out on experiences because you can’t visually take them in.
But that day reminded me that experiencing something isn’t limited to seeing it.
I felt the wind.
I heard the roar of the air around me.
I felt my body moving through the sky.
I could feel the movement, the speed and the sheer enormity of what I was doing.
I didn’t need to see the sky to know I was flying through it.
And perhaps that was my favourite part.
For a few moments, there was nothing except me, the air and the feeling of freedom.
I wasn’t thinking about being blind.
I wasn’t thinking about what I couldn’t do.
I wasn’t thinking about limitations.
I was simply there.
Falling.
Flying.
Living.
More than a skydive
I don’t want people to look at this story and think, “Wow, she’s so brave because she’s blind.”
Because I’m not sure bravery is about not being afraid.
Bravery, to me, is being afraid and doing it anyway.
Blindness has taught me that there will always be things I can’t do in exactly the same way as someone who can see. But that doesn’t mean I have to stop doing the things I love, trying new things or occasionally doing something completely ridiculous.
Sometimes accessibility means finding another way.
Sometimes it means having someone beside you who understands what you need.
And sometimes it means trusting yourself enough to take the leap.
Why SRSB?
I chose to do the skydive to raise money for SRSB, the Sheffield Royal Society for the Blind, because it is my blind centre.
Having a place where blind people can find support, community, independence and understanding matters enormously.
When you lose your sight, there can be so much to learn. Sometimes you need practical support. Sometimes you need someone who understands. Sometimes you simply need to know that you’re not the only person figuring it all out.
SRSB has been part of my journey, which made raising money for them feel incredibly meaningful.
I wasn’t just jumping for the sake of jumping.
I was jumping for something I believe in.
Taking the leap
When I think about that day now, I don’t think about the fact that I couldn’t see the ground below me.
I think about everything I could feel.
The wind against my face.
The sound of the air.
The excitement.
The unknown.
The laughter.
The freedom.
And I think about how fitting it was that someone who had spent so much of her life being told, directly or indirectly, to be careful because of her blindness and disabilities ended up at 15,000 feet in the air, preparing to throw herself into the sky.
Blindness changed my life.
But it didn’t end it.
If anything, it taught me to experience it differently.
I may not be able to see the world, but I can still feel it.
I can hear it.
I can touch it.
I can live it.
And sometimes, I can even jump out of an aeroplane.
So, if there’s one thing I took away from skydiving, it’s this:
You don’t always need to see where you’re going to take the leap.
Sometimes, you just have to trust yourself, spread your wings and fall.
And sometimes, falling is how you discover that you can fly.
by Millie-Jayne Britton
