Meet the professional skydiver who has jumped out of a plane more than 5,000 times - despite being afraid of heights.
Laura Hampton, 38, has always been afraid of heights and was scared to climb trees and ladders as a child. But she fell in love with skydiving after having to face her fears in a sponsored event. She has represented Team GB, has a world record and is now a skydiving coach and has jumped more than 5,000 times - despite still having her fear.
Laura, from Bingham, Nottingham, said: "Me and some of my housemates did a skydive, which was absolutely amazing and I remember going to do it and being absolutely terrified. Jumping out of a plane though, I feel like it's so high but you have to look down and it's like down at Google Maps.
"You're so high, it becomes a bit more abstract and once you jump you feel like you're floating. You don't have this feeling of falling, which slightly helps. I love it and actually part of the reason I still do it is if it doesn't scare me then it wouldn't be worth doing."
Laura Hampton exits a plane (Peter Harries/SWNS)Laura grew up with a fear of heights and still struggles with it now. She said: "It's one of those things that I have always had, so anytime as a kid I wouldn't climb a tree. I went on a trip with my boyfriend, many years ago now, but we went up the Eiffel Tower and halfway up and I remember how scared of heights I am."
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Laura pushed herself to do a tandem skydive in June 2007 for Clic Sargent while at Loughborough University. After loving her first skydive, Laura joined the skydiving committee at the university and from there she learned how to skydive by herself. She lived in an airfield after graduating and worked as a parachute packer.
She said: "As I got more into it and I got more serious about it, the expenses around it got a little bit higher. So I was in a team that subsequently went on to be national champions." Laura's first world championships was in 2016 in Teuge, Holland. She said: "It was mega - eight of us plus a camera flyer - and we were all relatively inexperienced. I met loads of people and teams from around the world.
Laura, in pink gloves, with the skydiving team (Peter Harries/SWNS)"I usually do formation diving either with four or eight of us. I usually do four of us and we jump out to make different shapes." In 2016 she co-founded Chimera, a formation skydiving team, and went on to enter a variety of competitions. In October 2022 Laura and her team won the world championships in Arizona, US.
A year later they came fifth at the World Championships in June, 2023. Laura excels in formative diving in which her and her team make a variety of shapes and sequences mid-air. Amongst being a British champion, Laura is also a world record holder. She was part of a team of 108 skydivers, 18,000 ft in the air.
The group became the largest group of skydivers in history to do consecutive sequences mid-air. She said: "For me, being in the team was all about being in a team. We're such a close group of friends, even though we're not competing together we're still really close. It was a happy coincidence that we were actually quite good and we were able to do those competitions and be a part of the global skydiving community."
Laura Hampton (right) in formation with her skydiving team (Peter Harries/SWNS)Laura is now currently a skydiving coach and videographer after her quitting her 9-5 job in PR. "I've been a coach for a number of years now. It was quite an easy switch. It's a little different to what I was doing," she said. "Part of it [the fear] does still get me though as well as when the parachute is open.
"If I look up and I can see the clouds are flying by and forget how fast I'm going and I think about what I'm doing, you know hanging they're basically held up by string."
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