DIVING WITH HEROES

Diving with Heroes provides an adaptive sports therapy program that builds the veteran diver community, gives veteran divers a sense of purpose, and provides them relief from their injuries and disabilities.

Recreational therapy has been proven effective in rehabilitating veterans with physical disabilities and mental health issues by: helping veterans process their new identity as a disabled individual; influencing the psycho-social health and well-being of disabled veterans; and equipping veterans to manage and address their disability, thereby reducing symptoms. Furthermore, recreational therapy has been shown to impact the subjective, psychological and social well-being of disabled veterans. Participation in sports has a restorative power that enables disabled veterans to enjoy life once again, allowing a disabled veteran to focus on their abilities and their achievements, rather than their disabilities. Recreational experiences in a group environment lead to camaraderie and connection, and outdoor recreational experiences have the added “ecotherapuetic” impact of being active in nature which can lead to inner peace and happiness.

Diving with Heroes takes small groups of divers on excursions to provide the opportunity to dive with others with similar injuries or disabilities, helping to build a supportive diving community of military veterans. We also seek to engage our divers in marine conservation projects allowing them to experience diving in a different way, elevating it from a recreational activity to a mission with measurable objectives, similar to their experiences serving in the military. This has coalesced into a burgeoning veteran diving brotherhood where shared experience, mutual therapeutic benefit, and a passion for the ocean have united our divers.

Diving with Heroes is an SDI/TDI training facility which offers more than 40 certification courses. It's team of instructors are certified to teach through a number of agencies, including: SDI (Scuba Diving International), TDI (Technical Diving International), FRTI (First Response Training International), PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors), EFR (Emergency First Response), HSA (Handicapped Scuba Association) and DAN (Divers Alert Network). Our dedicated team of scuba professionals attends each excursion to provide training and adaptive buddy diver assistance. Additionally, Diving with Heroes' leadership team is comprised of disabled veterans who have been scuba diving for decades.

Since our inception in 2014 we have taken 10 excursions to the Cayman Islands (visiting both Grand and Little Cayman), Petit St. Vincent (a small island resort in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines), Utila (Honduras), and, most recently, Singer Island off Florida’s South Atlantic Coast. We have worked with 46 injured or disabled veterans from all branches of the armed forces (including the Coast Guard) and hailing from 19 states across the country. We have issued 87 dive-level certifications to our participants.

As an organization, we are growing to incorporate more structured training for our divers to better help them achieve their scuba objectives, whether it be preparation for a professional or technical track, or to improve their skills as a recreational diver. We also want to develop our domestic dive programs to provide more local options for diving.