BALDWIN, WIS. - Kevin Burkart was planning to jump from a plane 200 times in a single day on Wednesday, beginning before dawn and finishing at sunset.
The weather didn't cooperate. "I woke up and opened the curtains at my motel," said his father, Gary, "and it was just solid fog" -- impossible conditions for skydiving.
The start was delayed by more than six hours -- and yet the Prior Lake man and his dozens of crew members were determined to make 200 jumps happen by the end of the evening. By the time they finally called it quits shortly after 10 p.m., the tally stood at 150 leaps -- and landings.
That meant steep climbs and fierce, body-jolting corkscrew descents in three-minute loops for hours on end, with occasional breaks to refuel the plane and put IV fluids and oxygen into Burkart..
But it was probably harder on pilot Kerry McCauley than it was on him, Burkart said.
McCauley didn't disagree. "It just all happens so fast," he said during his first extended break, at about 3 p.m., after going full-steam for more than four hours. "With the late start, you're going so hard and so fast. We don't want to finish in total darkness -- to be doing that when we're so tired."
The goal was to raise $60,000 in sponsorships in a day for the Parkinson Association of Minnesota.
Burkart's father was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease a decade ago. Knowing that it can be hereditary, Gary said, the younger Burkart threw himself into the cause.
