Scuba Diving, Equipment and training requirements Options

['52 Dodge]

I'm new to the para fraternity (6.5 months @ T11), and am keen to get back to scuba diving. While there's an American dive association, its website provides scant information on areas such as specialised traing for buddies and disabled divers, powered equipment, etc.

Can anyone help?

[Sarge]

Mate,

I have certainly dived since my accident.

The hardest part is to get a medical that states that you can dive. The head diving medical guy for Australia is based at the Hyperbaric Chamber at Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney and did provide medicals and therefore certificates, for paraplegics and quadriplegics free of charge. These were then recognised locally.

Although I have never used powered equipment etc. I have seen it for hire at various dive shops around NSW. I just pulled myself along the bottom or swam with my hands and found that was fine, after all you are not trying to get anywhere fast.

I went diving with a guy named Adrian Bayak, who is a physiotherapist for SOS (Spinal Outreach Service), I can probably dig up more details if you want.

Manly Dive Centre had modified a wheelchair that fitted the tank etc into the back, so that you could get kitted up out of the water and then be pushed down a slope into the water. (See Pictures)

I would certainly recommend that you have a dive master, one on one with you, just in case!

Anyway enjoy the pics, but ignore the blonde hair (One must never mix an alcohol fuelled night with hair dye!)

Cheers

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['52 Dodge]

Thanks Sarge. Gotta go back to POW to see the Asian dynamo soon so might tie in a dive medical while I'm in the neighbourhood.

Yellow is not your colour. Now red perhaps...

When you dived did they put ankle weights on? It seems that many spinals, depending on the atrophy in their lower body, need ankle weights. Also, weight belts are problematic because of the tendency for the belt to slip. Most literature (OK, webpages) I've read recommend integrated weights instead.

Say Giday to child bride. My end is shining.

Ciao

[Sarge]

Hey mate,

Give me a shout when you are coming back to POW and I will see if I can catch up for a cuppa.

As for the weights issue, I agree that integrated weights would have been beneficial. I used a weight belt but had the weights at the front to help keep me belly down! Every so often when I seemed to be turning vertical I realised the belt had immigrated to my knees!

I did not use leg/ankle weights. If you are hand crawling along the bottom of the sea you don't want your feet rubbing.

Also, I don't know whether you could see from the photo of the chair, but I also used a sport BCD one that has the air bladder at the back only not all the way round like the waistcoat type. The good thing about the sports BCD is that [a] it is easier to put on in the chair or even the water and [b] It helps to keep you belly down as mentioned above. The down side is that you do not have the front pockets or integral system for weights.

One other important tip by the way: Plastic Bags!!.... Getting sticky wetsuit trousers on is slightly harder for a paraplegic than climbing Mount Everest using only your teeth. I would suggest buying some of those very sexy skin tight tracky-daks like runners or cyclist wear, to wear under your wetsuit and also putting plastic bags over your bare feet means that they slip through the wetsuit legs much easier. Removing the said plastic bags prior to entering the water is optional depending on if you wish to look like a complete plonker or not!

Cheers