Pauline Kana, who turned 100 this summer, has been recognised by Guinness World Records as the oldest person to crowd surf at a concert, having taken to the crowd at the age of 99 years and 274 days, she told the Guardian.
The attempt happened at a show by the country singer Brantley Gilbert in Bellville, Texas. Her grandson Ross, who knows Gilbert, had asked the musician to help.
It was the first time Kana had ever crowd surfed. To claim the record she had to stay aloft for at least ten seconds. Around 20,000 people filled the crowd, and the plan was for them to carry her in a straight line from the back towards the front.
Twenty minutes before the start, however, the pair saw that people in the main crowd were sitting on chairs with gaps between them, and Ross began to panic. They used the mosh pit instead, with Kana travelling in a U-shape from stage right to stage left.
She had originally been due to be strapped to a board Ross built to protect her back, but it flexed too much, so he secured her into a stretcher instead.
Kana wore a white T-shirt printed with a red outline of her face so that she would stand out. Gilbert introduced her to the crowd, joking that he would beat up anyone who dropped Granny.
She described being launched out and feeling as though she were flying, and said she knew she had to trust everyone. Ross was alarmed because a walkway with a 10ft gap and a high fence separated the two sides of the stage and she had to be passed across it; he jumped the fence while security staff carried her over.
Kana was held up for more than three minutes, close to the length of an entire song. She said she felt content, put her arms out and felt she could touch the sky.
When she was back on stage, the crowd chanted Granny, Granny. She said she stood there soaking it in and that it gave her chills.
The record attempt grew out of a decision she and Ross made to produce a documentary about her life. Putting it together, they drew up her bucket list, and breaking a world record was one of the entries. The pair spent months looking for something outrageous that would also be fun and inclusive, and settled on her becoming the world’s oldest crowd surfer.
The collaboration began in 2013, when Kana was 87 and playing basketball in Ohio with Ross while he was home from college. He filmed her blocking his shot and posted the clip online, where it was well received. The two went on to make comedy skits together and now have more than 4 million followers on Instagram.
Ross devises all the ideas, according to Kana, who said he compares himself to Steven Spielberg and her to Betty White. She only grasped how much people liked the videos when she was at a grocery store and strangers began asking to take pictures with her.
She described the videos as a new kind of work, and said meeting people is her favourite part. She has met Pope Leo and celebrities including Tom Holland and Bad Bunny on red carpets, and enjoys encountering followers who recognise the pair from social media. Some tell her they watched the videos while lonely and sad in hospital, and others say they have reconnected with family after seeing her and Ross together. Kana said that when she is on her deathbed she wants to know that they made everybody’s day a little better.
She looked after Ross when he was a baby, and said the project has brought them closer. She used to see him only a handful of times a year, while now they live together in Ohio.
Kana turned 100 this summer and marked it with two parties attended by hundreds of people. She said she cannot believe her age, and that she is the only one of her siblings to have lived so long.
Not every day is easy, she added, and the hardest part of growing older is the aches and pains. Making the videos gives her purpose, which she said lifts her on days when she does not feel well.
She grew up on a farm in Ohio as the youngest of seven children, in a household without a television or a telephone, and had chores from a young age. During the second world war she made ammunition in a weapons factory, and she worked in factories until retiring at 83. The work was hard, she said, but it gave her purpose.
Kana hopes the videos show people that it is never too late to live their best life. She advises anyone who wants to try something new to do it now, and to enjoy every moment because it goes by in the blink of an eye.
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