93-Year-Old Michigan Woman Battles Fear of Water by Riding Giant Slide at Her YMCA

Whee!

A 93-year-old Michigan woman slid right through her lifelong fear of water by cascading down a giant slide and into the YMCA pool in her neighborhood. 

Since her husband died, Lucy has made the gym in Temperance her home away from home. She works out three times a week, spending three hours on each visit in the pool.

She never gets in over her shoulders, and trainers Ben and Taylor, who have become like family, keep a watchful eye on her. 

"Lucy is a character, I'll tell you that," Ben told InsideEdition.com. "She's not a swimmer. She's always a little nervous around water."

But she's managed to subdue her apprehension, thanks to Ben and Taylor, but when they both encouraged her to take a spin around the corkscrew-shaped water slide, she balked a bit.

Then she decided, oh what the heck. 

"Once she got up there and sat down, I said, 'Once you start scootin', you're going down,''' Taylor recounted. "She said, 'All right.' She was ready and she went down before I even knew it."

At the bottom, Ben was positioned to catch her. 

So what was going through her mind as she began her spiraling journey? "I thought, 'Why are you doing this, you silly old lady?'

"But I'd do it again," she proclaimed.

"I was very nervous when she got to the bottom," Ben added. But "she couldn't wipe the smile off her face and I couldn't wipe the smile off mine."

Little triumphs like this make big differences to an elderly woman who still wants to have fun.

"It has kept me going," she says.

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