MUM TELLS OF MURDER PLOT HORROR The main ’chute failed & the reserve.. I just thought I have to fix this, I have children...
I felt a catatonic fear as the doors were closing
VICTORIA Cilliers has told how she desperately battled to fix her damaged parachute as she plunged 4,000ft to earth after it was sabotaged by her husband.
And the 42-year-old revealed her determination to stay alive was made even stronger by the thought of her two children being left without a mum.
Incredibly, former Army captain Victoria survived the fall – only to later discover cheating husband Emile had tried to kill her in a bid to cash in on life insurance and carry on with flings.
In her first interview since he was convicted of attempted murder last week, she told of the horrific moment both her main and reserve parachute failed as she plummeted at 120mph.
Victoria said: “I was diving towards the crowd. I got the twists out but the problems seemed to get worse. I couldn’t figure it out. That’s the point where I started to think, ‘I have to fix this, failure is not an option,’ because I have children.
“There’s a maternal drive to keep yourself alive. I didn’t let myself think, ‘I might die.’ I didn’t look down. My only focus was above. I had no sense of earth approaching, I was fixated on trying to get out of the mess I was in. “The spin was violent.” Speaking of the moment she crashed to the ground at Netheravon Airfield in Wiltshire on April 5, 2015, Victoria added: “I remember nothing except a metallic bang. I opened my eyes and saw a doctor friend. I could wiggle my hand and feet so I knew my spine was in one piece. I felt no pain because of the ketamine and morphine medics gave me and I was thinking, ‘They are making an awful lot of fuss for nothing.’ I’m still alive. I didn’t think how or why, but I never considered not surviving it.”
Victoria revealed how callous Army sergeant Emile, 37, kissed her goodbye on the morning of her jump at their home in Amesbury, Wilts – knowing she could be on her way to her death.
He had tangled the lines of her main canopy and removed vital links from the reserve so it was not properly connected to her harness.
Emile had plotted to get his hands on her £120,000 life insurance to fund a new life with one of his two mistresses.
The debt-ridden soldier had already tried to kill his wife by causing a gas leak at home. And Victoria told how she had a sense of doom as she climbed aboard the aircraft for the jump she had done more than 2,000 times. It was just five weeks after giving birth to her son and it was likely to be her last. She said: “Strangely, I felt a catatonic fear as the doors were closing. I really did not want to be on that aircraft. From the moment I got on, I wanted to get off. I think it was some sort of sixth sense.”
After the fall, Victoria was taken to hospital in Southampton with a broken pelvis, ribs and vertebrae.
Emile was by her side, but she said he showed no emotion towards her, despite her near-death experience.
Victoria added: “The thing I struggled with was that when I woke up in hospital I wanted him to say, ‘I love you and it will be alright.’ I don’t remember him saying that.
“When I was released I expected a bit more of a reaction to me coming home from hospital. Not exactly banners and balloons, though that would be nice, but there wasn’t anything.”
She believed she survived the fall thanks to her mum Veronica, who died of bowel cancer when Victoria was 16.
She said: “I feel like I’ve got a guardian angel. Mum’s up there looking after me.”