Officials in South Carolina have identified a Williamsburg woman who died while skydiving Thursday.
Carolyn Clay, 68, fell to her death about 3:30 p.m. Thursday while participating in the annual CarolinaFest skydiving event in Chester County, South Carolina, about 40 miles southwest of Charlotte, North Carolina.
Clay, who was called “the queen” by the skydiving community, began skydiving in 1969 while in the Navy and had amassed more than 15,000 jumps, according to media reports.
Her husband, Charles, told WSOC-TV in Charlotte that his wife died doing what she loved.
“She’s just a good woman,” he told the TV station. “If anybody is with Jesus, she is.”
The couple would have celebrated their 44th wedding anniversary on Monday, Charles Clay told the Rock Hill Herald. They had no children.
Chester County Coroner Terry Tinker said Carolyn Clay died from blunt-force trauma during a hard landing. He discounted equipment failure as the cause of her death.
“This is a case of diver error, or you could call it human error, on the part of the skydiver,” Tinker told the Herald.
The investigation into Clay’s death is ongoing.
