A terminally ill and blind veteran ticked a wish from his bucket list with a 13,000ft tandem skydive.
Mark Pile – who served in the Light Infantry between 1984 and 1993 as a bugler, a driver and a rifleman – wanted to complete a skydive while he was still able.
Strapped to a tandem instructor, the 58-year-old, who has cancer, experienced a few seconds of free fall before the parachute was opened and the descent began.
“The experience was everything I could have hoped for, the instructor was my eyes and explained everything that he could see on the way down,” Mr Pile from Somerset said.
“In the run-up to the jump I became unwell with pneumonia but that didn’t stop me, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
“The whole day was brilliant, I had fantastic weather and lots of friends, some who I hadn’t seen for over a year, came to support me.”
After starting to notice a deterioration in his eyesight in 2000, the veteran was diagnosed with amblyopia – a hereditary eye condition that causes a breakdown in how the brain and the eye work together.
In 2011, he was registered blind, with only 15% vision in one eye.
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“[I] did not go out for 10 years”, he said, adding that he took the news of his health “really badly”.
Things changed when Mr Pile reached out to charity Blind Veterans UK, and accepted the help they offered. He now credits the charity for “saving my life”.
“If it wasn’t for the fantastic support I’ve received I wouldn’t be here today. I can’t thank them enough,” he said.
As well as the skydive – which raised £3,000 – the charity supported Mr Pile’s passion for photography, where he was able to photograph an event at the Tower of London.
“I am so grateful for the opportunity to do this. It’s wonderful that the charity is still helping me at this stage in my life”, Mr Pile said.
“Giving back is important to me. This parachute jump has been my small way of saying thank you.”
