Oldest
bungee jumper - world record set by Mohr Keet
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Mohr Keet,
of George, 96, bungee jumped off the Bloukrans Bridge outside
Mossel Bay, judged to be the world's highest bungee jump (jumpers
fall around 160m off the 216m-high bridge) , setting the world record for the Oldest
bungee jumper.
The previous Guinness world record for the
oldest
bungee jumper was James Guyer, aged 74 years 47 days.
"It was too short," Mohr Keet, a pensioner
from George said after he bungee jumped off the 216m Bloukrans
Bridge in the Eastern Cape.
It is the fifth jump completed by
Keet who is no stranger to adrenaline activities, having been
white water rafting and parachuting in his 80s.
Keet said there was no reason why
other people could not do the same. Keet – who first made
the jump a decade ago when he was 88 – said he bungy jumped
for “the thrill” and to “get rid of fear”.
“They’ve got to make up their minds and
go and do it. You’ve got to overcome your fear. I have a fear
of falling and noises and by going to jump like that I hope
to overcome that fear.”
After the jump, a recovery specialist
was lowered to where Keet was hanging and he was attached
to a winch and hoisted back up to the platform. After the
plunge, paramedic Riaan Botha said Keet’s blood pressure was
“absolutely perfect”.
His daughter, Ellen van der Nett,
and his grand- niece, Yvette Kruger, jumped afterwards. Another
daughter, Lucille Keet, who lent moral support during the
jump, said he took his elderly sisters to Cape Town’s adventure
centre Ratanga Junction when he was 86. He had also been white
water rafting and parachuting. “He’s an inspiration and he
never gives up on anything,” she said.
A registered auditor and mountain club member
witnessed the fall. They would verify his age, confirm his
identity and that he completed the jump.
"He's set the record three times already,"
said Face
Adrenalin's Devan Tuohey, "but this will be the first
time that we'll be applying to make it official.
Starting in 1981 and as of December 22nd,
2009 there have been at least 140 fatalities related to the
sport. BASE jumping is one of the world's more dangerous recreational
activities, with overall fatalities in 2002 estimated at about
one fatality per sixty participants.
Keet, whose love of research into philosophy,
religion and quantum physics had kept his mind sharp since
his retirement from his career as a food technologist, said
he had always been healthy and played hockey in his younger
years.
Keet, who during the Second World War was
captured by Germans while on a return trip from America and
spent four years in a prisoner-of-war camp outside Paris,
said: “I believe that you have to do things, to live life,
so to speak. You have to face a challenge, to be able to go
through with it for yourself – not for exhibition but for
yourself.”
"Next he said he wants to do a tandem
skydive in Mossel Bay," company spokesman Martin Hatchuel
told the Cape Argus.
Chris Upton, of Face
Adrenalin which operates the Bloukrans jump, said:
“His jump was quite unique,” he said. “He is an inspiration
and he proves that life is not over once you go on pension.”