A Valley Center Air Force Veteran celebrated his 90th birthday in style by jumping out a plane with his daughter.
“He often says he can do anything that he did before. It just takes him longer,” Barbara Rohrer, Stanley Rohrer’s wife, said.
Stanley was a first lieutenant in communications in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed in South Korea in the 1950s. He later became a physics teacher.
His daughter, Linda Rohrer, asked him if he wanted to jump out of a plane on his birthday and he agreed.
When asked what type of physics lesson we could learn in this scenario, he jokingly replied, “Perhaps Newton's laws.”
So how fast can a man fall when he doesn’t have legs to land?
“I definitely have less resistance than the average man. I was concerned about it at first because all I have is my hands,” Stanley said. “I was concerned that if I put my hands out that I might flip.”
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Stanley is a double-amputee who lost both legs due to aneurysms behind his knees. He lost the first leg when he was 80 and lost his second leg four years later.
Surprisingly, he lost both legs on May 21st.
“Every time May 21st comes around—I’m keeping my fingers crossed, I don’t want anymore,” he said.
Stanley soon got geared up and boarded the plane at Skydive Elsinore that took him up almost 14,000 feet. When he finally descended towards earth, he told NBC 7 that he might even do it again.
“It was great. I enjoyed it. It was cold, but I enjoyed the free fall,” Stanley said. “It was a beautiful view, and I was looking over where I used to hike up in the mountains.”
Stanley said this experience tops his list of craziest things he’s done in his life.
Besides skydiving, Stanley also kayaks, plays tennis and rides his hand-peddled bike.
“My main philosophy is that I am able to go ahead and adapt myself to younger people and by keeping in contact with younger people, I do what they want to do,” he said. “People my age, they’re not really that interesting.”
