Megan's Story
Most fathers would jump through hoops for their daughters - but just how many would be prepared to leap 15,000ft for them?
That's exactly what Paul Mills did by skydiving to raise money for the Wessex Heartbeat charity.
And immediately after plummeting through the air the 30-year-old chef announced: "I'd love to do it again!"
He added: " I thought that I might have last-minute qualms about jumping, but it was a phenomenal feeling. It took 60 seconds to go from 15,000ft down to 5,000ft and then parachutes were deployed and it took another five or six minutes from there.
Paul organised the sponsored parachute jump in honour of his toddler daughter Megan who needed open-heart surgery after being born with a rare heart condition.
Megan was born at St Mary's Maternity Unit at Poole Hospital on March 5, 2007 and weighed 5lbs 14oz.
After three days she had failed to thrive; lost a significant amount of weight, and a heart murmur was detected.
She was transferred to the Wessex Cardiac Centre at Southampton General Hospital in a special neonatal incubator called a Babypod, where cardiologists diagnosed Truncus Arteriosus.
This is a congenital abnormality of the pulmonary artery, usually resulting in too much blood going to the lungs and too little red (oxygenated) blood reaching the body.
"When she was just two weeks old she underwent a six-and-a-half hour operation to close a hole between the two pumping chambers and fuse the arteries.
"We know that Megan will need further surgery as she grows - we are perhaps looking at an additional five operations before the age of 18", said Paul, who lives at Clover Drive, Creekmoor.
"Between 18 and the rest of her life further operations could be as frequent as two years or as infrequent as 25 years."
Because she was so small specialists couldn't insert the artificial veins normally used in the operation, and she has the distinction of being fitted with a calf's jugular vein.
"It's funny - we call her Meggy-Moo - but it's not for that reason", laughed Paul.
At the moment specialists at the Wessex Cardiac Centre are pleased with Megan's progress and she is being monitored every six months.
"We were warned that she would be late in crawling and walking - but she was up walking on her first birthday, and is behaving just like any other toddler", said Paul, who lives with his wife Joanne, who works as an admin manager for a high street store in Poole.
Paul, who works as a second chef at The Dorset Golf and Country Club in Bere Regis, did the tandem skydive on September 26 with three of his colleagues from the resort - Ben Hart, John Dewberry and Danielle Gavican.
The only "casualty" of the day was Ben, who suffered a perforated eardrum due to the air pressure.
Together they hope to raise around £1,500 for Wessex Heartbeat - which coincidentally, is the golf club's nominated charity for 2008.
They took to the skies above Dunkeswell, near Honiton in Devon in a twin turbine Beech King Air.
"Initially we were travelling at 128 mph and then with an open parachute we slowed to 20 mph. Conditions were great and I could see some stunning scenery - Chesil Beach in the distance; the north Devon coast and the south Wales coast."
"When Megan had her operation we stayed at Heartbeat House and it was like a home from home. We could chill out a bit, watch TV, talk to other families and try as best as we could to detach ourselves from what was happening on the ward. Now we just want to try and give something back", said Paul.
