‘I just need an air bath’: Butler, Missouri, skydiver remembered for his go big or go home life
By Krista Tatschl
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KANSAS CITY, Kansas (KMBC) — Katie Nold-McKinney gently twists a black wedding band in tiny circles on a silver chain that drapes down her neck.
“This is Dustin’s wedding band. It was with his things that we were able to get back from the drop zone,” she says.
Her love of over 25 years, 44-year-old Dustin McKinney of Stilwell, Kansas, perished in Sunday’s plane crash in Butler, Missouri.
She says, “I was sharing with others that I didn’t always wear a wedding ring, and he’d say, ‘See? I love you the most.'”
Katie and Dustin have two children, ages 9 and 11, who are trying to navigate their new reality without their dad.
Nold-McKinney says, “There’s a lot of processing going on. My son, he’s a very sensitive soul. He’s just so much like his dad. He just pleaded that, ‘Let him just be in the hospital. Let it not be true. Let it be a lie.’ He’s coming to terms with it, but it was really horrific to see.”
McKinney, a drummer and tech aficionado, was passionate about everything. He was a true student of life.
His wife offers, “Skydiving became his way of staying on that path of sobriety to just embrace it, and he did. He didn’t have any support groups. It was just his skydiving community. He was a part of skydiver supporting sobriety and had a lot of other friends that he found that had also found sobriety and skydiving.”
“He would say, ‘I just need an air bath.'”
He was the videographer for SkyDive KC at the time of his death. Filming the jumps was why he was on the fated flight that crashed shortly after takeoff, killing all 12 on board.
“I’ve had folks say, ‘Dustin died doing what he loved.’ For me, as his wife and mother of his kids, he loved skydiving and he loved his friends, but he loved his family at a level that is just indescribable,” she says.
In the coming days, Nold-McKinney says she will take her healing moment by moment, buoyed by the love of her family and closest friends.
“I got up and took a shower and put on some makeup today,” she says.
“Just trying to take care of myself. I just want to look nice for my husband.”
A GoFundMe has been set up for the family.
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