Divevets Log : Our Handicapped Scuba Association Training

Posted on 01. Jul, 2009 by DiveVets in Training

The weekend was planned, Saturday & Sunday lectures and pool and Monday a boat to Catalina. What was not so clear was that Saturday and Sunday would be 14 hour days half in the classroom and the other half in the pool.

Lunch breaks included grilled burgers and chicken on Saturday courtesy of our gracious dive shop hosts, the SSA Scuba Center in Pomona and pizza being delivered to the classroom on Sunday, so we didn’t get much break from training. Monday’s boat dive would be a real eye-opening day but more on that later.

Divevets was well represented. I think we made up 40% of the class as Dr. Bill, Michigan Chris and Richard the Brit joined me. We made introductions. Our instructor, Denise Dowd, is a course director for the Handicapped Scuba Association and her instructor/course director number is 10 (out of more than 3,000). She’s been involved in this project for over 25 years. Additionally we’d like to thank Melvin Pasley, Lt. Col.  USAR (Ret), who organized the class on behalf of the Disabled Veterans Scuba Project, and is himself a veteran of the Iraq war.   Mel is an HSA dive buddy, a DM, and has experience SCUBA diving with veterans with disabilities–not only assisting with Discover Scuba sessions in the pool but also beach diving.

Day 1: Students introduced themselves and we each gave our own reasons for wanting to take the class. For the most part, participants wanted to give something back to those that have given so much to us.

Class was spent going over the different issues, such as, how to properly handle various types of disabilities, and, how to make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate than ourselves. We talked about psychological adjustments the disabled go through when an injury occurs and learned that acceptance of the injury, for most individuals that reach this stage, takes 2 to 3 years before they eventually accept the fact that they need to get on with their lives despite the disability. Only 20% of the disabled ever reach the final acceptance stage.

We spent time reviewing various spinal cord injuries and how they occur, meaning, what limbs and body functions are affected if a specific vertebra is damaged. We went through other disabilities including, amputees, hearing and sight loss and various other disorders (cerebral palsy, MS, MD, diabetes, cancer patients, etc.).

Next was learning basic sign language, special equipment needs, and proper methods of transferring the disabled to the pool, beach or boat.  We learned to always use cushions for the disabled to sit on if you take them out of their wheelchair and place them on hard surfaces (if not, pressure sores are possible).

It became clear very early in our training that people with disabilities want to be treated normally, i.e., treated as a person. They like to be able to help themselves and we learned that we should not assume someone in a wheelchair wants or needs our help with any specific task. Those in a wheelchair will ask if they need help. Scuba diving challenges a person’s disability – providing both rehabilitation and helping create a bridge leading to the final adjustment and acceptance of their disability.

Next order of business, pool work. We split into 2-person buddy teams. I paired with Dr. Bill and Chris was stuck with the Brit. On this day, I played the roles of sight-impaired, paraplegic and quadriplegic divers.

To simulate the mobility-impairement, my legs were tied together and Dr. Bill practiced descending, hovering, and leading me of tours of the pool for both paraplegic and quadriplegic disabilities. We practiced sharing air, with the disabled diver as both the receiver and the donor (don’t think that isn’t scary when you are quadriplegic and someone takes the regulator out of your mouth and you have no way to retrieve it).

We practiced buddy breathing, regulator recovery, mask removal and clearing exercises and many more drills. As sight-impaired divers, we both took turns assembling our gear and repeating the pool exercises with a blacked-out mask – helping us grasp the challenges of those with sight impairment issues.

At 10pm, after a long day (class started at 8am), we wrapped-up at Chili’s with a margarita, food and punchy, fatigued laughter.

Day 2: We meet in the classroom at 8 am. We spent the morning discussing various training standards and what HSA student divers need to successfully complete to achieve program certification.

We learned the various certification levels and their requirements. There are preset standards that are required for HSA certification. If a diver can not complete those required skills, they can not receive a HSA certification. A few examples of these skills include, breathing through a snorkel, clearing a snorkel, swimming a set distance underwater on a single breath or staying submerged for 30 seconds for those that cannot swim unaided and others. Based on these standards, there are 3 certification levels in the HSA program: Levels A, B & C.

Level A – means the diver completed all the physical performance standards and demonstrated that he/she can help another diver in distress and perform some basic rescues. Divers who pass the requirements for Level A certification are certifiable as standard “Open Water Divers” by NAUI.

Level B – shows that the diver met all the requirements except they are not able to demonstrate that they can assist another diver in distress.

Level C – is for those divers that demonstrated that they can perform the HSA physical performance standards with assistance but are not able to execute some basic scuba skills on their own, such as, descents, underwater swimming or BCD operations (think quadriplegic here unless of course he/she has specialized gear).

Pool exercises on day 2 were a carbon copy of day 1, except we changed roles – Dr. Bill playing the disabled roles and me leading him through the drills. After finishing the pool work and packing up our gear at around 7pm, Denise said we should take the final exam (in lieu of dinner).

The 2- hour final exam was a 60 question multiple choice test that we were able to discuss among the group to arrive at the right answer. Whatever you may have missed during the classroom lectures you discovered during the test. Everyone passed the test and I headed home arriving at around 11pm. I needed some rest as the boarding time for the boat (Sundiver Express) the next morning was 6am.

Day 3: I arrived at the Sundiver around 6:15am. Unloaded my gear, signed the waivers, had some coffee, said hello to Michigan Chris and waited for the other Divevets divers to show up. By the way, I was tired but I asked Chris, who stayed in a hotel in Ontario on Sunday night what time he got up to make it to the boat and he said 3:30 am. The Brit made it and Dr. Bill, as usual, was 13 minutes late.

Dr. Bill, Kelly, Richard & Chris

Our guest for this trip was retired Air Force veteran Kelly McCumskey, a paraplegic with muscular sclerosis and a post traumatic stress disorder. Kelly arrived right about 7am. Along with Kelly, were Jason and another diver/assistant. At the same time Kelly was getting situated, Captain Ray was surveying the boat to determine exactly how he was going to make it “handicap friendly”. I think he figured out what he was going to do and we left the dock around 7:15 for our 1½  hour trip to Catalina.

On our way to Catalina the class was split into 3 teams with team DiveVets remaining intact. (Given our off-color banter at each other for the previous two days, it was unlikely that any of the other divers wanted to dive with us – for fear of being ridiculed mercilessly.)

Our assignments for the day were similar to the pool exercises – simulate diving with a paraplegic, quadraplegic and sight-impaired diver, using an instructor and an assistant (divemaster/certified buddy).

We would each take turns as the dive instructor and assistant,  as well as the paraplegic, quadriplegic and sight-impaired divers. For the paraplegic, we had to tie our legs together and swim using just our arms.

As the quadriplegic, we had our legs tied and could not use our hands/arms, though our arms were not tied in case of an actual emergency. As a quadriplegic, we were totally dependent upon the able-bodied divers. We couldn’t clear our own masks, equalize, or use our BCD controls. If our regulator came loose from our mouth we were at the mercy of other divers to notice and retrieve it.

The instructor and assistant had to gear-up the quadriplegic, get them safely into the water, control descent, equalize themselves and the quadriplegic, keep both masks clear,  hover, maintain buoyancy for both people, lead a guided tour, ascend, tow the quadriplegic back to the boat and help get them and their gear back aboard safely.

The entire arrangement worked out to be 8 short training dives.. For those that wonder why I was sore yesterday, imagine yourself having to pull Richard out of the water onto a boat a few times. I’m lucky to not be in a wheelchair from that exercise alone.

All exercises completed, we got back on the boat for the trip home. Kelly kept us focused as we were able to ask her direct questions as to how we might be able to better assist disabled divers.

an empty chair, one diver at a time.

She gave us a few “do’s and dont’s” but for the most part these were covered in the class. Kelly was ecstatic that she got 2 dives in that day and she is hooked on the sport. Kelly mentioned to us that being underwater is the only time she is not in pain and she thanked each of us for taking the time to train so that we can help others like her live, for even a short time, in a pain-free environment. It was a very touching and sincere discussion.

Back at the dock we unloaded gear and had a short debriefing about the class and the day’s events. Everyone was delighted they had taken the class and each of us has a new understanding of the daily struggles of the disabled.

But, you guess it, after the class debriefing, the DiveVets moved the debriefing to the nearest pub for a quick beer. Class is over and all of us received the proper HSA certification (instructor, divemaster or certified buddy).  If anyone is interested go to http://www.hsascuba.com for additional information.

Now that the initial step is complete (handicapped-certified) we can focus on the Disabled Veterans Scuba Project,  http://www.disabledveteransscubaproject.org/. Our focus, at least initially, is to work with the Los Angeles and Long Beach VA hospitals.

Our major issue now is locating a pool to do our confined water skills that is close to one or both of these hospitals. We will continue to search for a pool. There is a waiting list for the veterans to begin this program. If you want to help, let me know. We will hold a few fundraisers during the year even if it is having a jar to put a dollar or two in while you grab a burger or dog at one of our BBQ’s.

Until then, I’ll let you know how we are progressing. I do want to thank the Brit, Dr. Bill and Chris for joining me in this training. I’m sure they will let you know it was well worth the struggle.

Tags: Add new tag, Disabled Vets, Featured, Handicapped Scuba Association, HSA, Training