Newsday has a feature on people with disabilities learning to dive through programs of the Handicapped Scuba Association. Some problematic language in the story but lots of excellent pictures and a video.The 27-year-old California-based Handicapped Scuba Association trains instructors to teach people with all kinds of disabilities, paraplegic, quadriplegic, blind or deaf people, dive.
Roger Tribelhorn of Bayville (right) became a diver two years ago when his family was planning a trip to Australia. He was diagnosed with transverse myelitis eight years ago and began using a wheelchair.
His son and daughter wanted to learn how to dive because they were planning a trip to Australia. His daughter, Patricia, made a list of local dive shops and asked her dad to check them out with her.
When they got to Katz's store, "Martha explained everything, and she told me, 'You can do it, too,' " Tribelhorn said. "That's all I needed to know, because I always was very active - skiing, swimming - so I needed something."
Tribelhorn constructed his own PVC-pipe wheelchair with large wheels so he could get down to Long Island Sound to dive near his home. And last winter, he and his kids traveled to Bonaire, off the northern coast of South America, for his first diving trip, a weeklong vacation with Katz.