As a totally blind individual myself, I completely agree with the statements that Andrew listed above. I have been a totally blind person for my entire life. If anybody should know what my capabilities are, it should be me. I pose a question to anyone reading this forum. If we are not given the opportunity to discover what we are capable of doing, how will we ever know what our capabilities are? For example, I was told by numerous individuals that a blind person could not scuba dive. Instead, I decided to do the research and find out for myself. I discovered my local dive club and enrolled in a discover scuba class. From the moment that my wife, who is also totally blind, and myself met our instructor, the instructor treated us as equals! The instructor was not sure exactly how to teach two individuals who are completely blind. It should be noted that he went through the Divehart instructions, but he still felt inadequate. Our instructor was adaptable and willing to listen to what we had to say and also, he was not afraid to let us try everything! For example, I told him that I wanted to learn how to hover, toe an incapacitated diver, do a controlled emergency swimming assent, etc. My instructor turned to me and said there is no reason why you cannot fulfill all the requirements and do every single skill. He treated me know differently than any other one of his divers. The only difference is that instead of showing me visually how to assemble our equipment, he gave us the gear, showed us tactilely how to put it together. After that, we were on our own in terms of assembling our own equipment. He would inspect the equipment to ensure that it was correct but we had to do the same for him. Andrew is right when he says that under the water, we are responsible for each other. I remember very clearly turning to my instructor when we first met, and I told him the following. I must learn every single safety procedure, even if it is difficult, because your life is in my hands exactly as my life is in yours. Sure, it may have taken us a little longer to learn some of the skills, but he put the same expectations on me as any other diver. And that is an honor for a person with a disability. Understand this, we have been told as people with disabilities all of our lives we can't do something. So many times, people turn to us and ask us how do you do something like scuba diving, that is impossible. What we say is give us the chance. That is all we are looking for is the chance to be equal, and the chance that is given to every other person. This book sends the absolutely wrong message for people with disabilities. By insisting that a dive team is up three people, that sends the message that we are not safe under the water and that we need to be cuddled. We are divers first plain and simple. My wife told me today that if she had read this book before she went scuba diving for the first time, if this was the only manual that she had ever read, she would have actually decided not to even try. Your book says imagine the possibilities, that is all we are doing is imagining. Because there is no additional training requirements above this initial program. Unlike PADI, there is no additional courses that you can take. I have a desire to learn some of the more advanced skills such as advanced open water, enriched air Nitrox, possibly reck diving or cave diving in the future. Without the ability to receive a open water certification, which is the baseline to take all of these more advanced courses, how do you expect us to go for these higher level courses? I will leave you with this thought. According to your own manual, the motto of the Marine Corps, adapt and overcome is what we should live by as people with disabilities. How can we do that if your own program is holding us back from doing so.
Thoughts and opinions from a blind diver
As I mentioned elsewhere, I have read through this book from cover to cover and studied it thoroughly. While I agree that people with disabilities can, for the most part, participate in scuba diving, I strongly disagree with certain points and assertions made by this book. I did not come to these opinions by chance, but by observing people with disabilities dive on a weekly basis, including one very experienced diver who is totally blind. I also draw on my own experience as a totally blind diver myself. Therefore, I'd like to clarify a few points and concerns that I have regarding this book.
This is not a dive manual!
The term "dive manual" typically conjurs up images of a book or manual which teaches the fundamentals of scuba diving. Scuba diving manuals teach and discuss physiology, skills and techniques related to scuba diving. Typically, there is discussion regarding pressure/volume, boyancy and other concepts that form the fundamentals of scuba diving. This manual does none of this. As a matter of fact, in the beginning of the book, it emphasizes the need to enroll in a nationally recognized certifying agency prior to enrolling in the Diveheart portion of training.
The primary goal of "The Diveheart Adaptive Diver" book is to establish the guidelines and procedures for diving as part of a Diveheart Adaptive Dive Team and to explain and justify the use of such tools as the Needs Scuba Assessment (NSA) evaluation. The beginning of Chapter 3 explains that It is for this reason that one of the guidelines of Diveheart is to require It should be noted here that independence is not listed as one of the goals of the NSA.
Self-Confidence and Independence
I have been diving for about nine months and I could not agree more that scuba diving has the ability to build self-confidence in people with disabilities. When I first joined my club in September of last year, I had only done a discovery dive and that was back in 1998. I knew nothing about the concepts, skills and techniques that I would need to eventually learn to be a certified scuba diver. For about 6 and a half months, I dove weekly, practicing skills in preparation for my first dive in the ocean. In mid April, the day finally came for me to experience my first dive in open water.
I dove with one other person who was an instructor. For each and every one of the ten dives that week, I dove with only one other person in my dive team. Looking back on it now, I am deeply humbled that my instructor, who has been a diver for more than 30 years, trusted me solely with her life.
By allowing me to dive in a two-person dive team, my club, its instructors and particularly the five instructors that dove with me that week, sent me a clear message. They never voiced it, but they didn't need to. There message was simple, clear and touched my heart and soul. "We trust you! We believe in you! We are not afraid to place our lives in your hands! We know you are capable of handling an emergency situation at the depths we are taking you to! You may have a disability, but under the water, we are all the same and look out for each other and we know that if there is a problem, you have the knowhow and capacity to deal with it." That message still brings tears to my eyes and an overwhelming feeling of humility whenever I think of the trust and confidence they placed in me, a diver that is totally blind. This is the biggest compliment one can give someone with a disability.
Contrast that with the message that the following excerpt from The Diveheart Adaptive Diver book communicates: The message it says to me is, "We don't believe in you. We don't trust you so we must have a third person there to feel safe. We refuse to place our lives solely in your hands and feel much more comfortable placing our lives in the hands of someone else, just to make sure. You have a disability and because of that, you are inferior to us in knowledge and ability."
Now I fully understand that certain disabilities necessitate a three-person dive team or larger, but each of the handicapped divers in my club dive in two-person dive teams. We have two that are totally blind, one that is visually-impaired, one with a motor handicap that is made worse by a mental handicap, one that is autistic and one that has just a motor disability. Again, not one of them is required to dive in a dive team consisting of three or more people. I am honored and humbled knowing that the French government, my club and ultimately my instructors believe in us so much and trust us enough to allow us to dive with only one other person.
I should clarify here, that during my weekly dives in the swimming pool, I did dive with a third person at times. During one session, I dove with the gentleman that has a mental handicap as well as a motor handicap. For my last session, I also dove with a third person, but he was the other totally blind diver. For each of those two sessions, we had only one instructor for the two of us. If that doesn't instill self-confidence and trust in the handicap divers, I don't know what will.
