Scuba diving is therapy for wounded troops

By Jane Sutton

KEY LARGO, Florida (Reuters) - It took nearly half an hour to slick up quadriplegic British Royal Marine Dominic Lovett with baby shampoo and tug him into a neoprene wetsuit.

Then six scuba instructors carried him on a mat from the sandy shore into the turquoise sea off the Florida Keys, where he briefly felt freedom from his injuries.

For 20 minutes, Lovett scooted around a shallow lagoon with a motorized propeller strapped to his air tank, making his first ocean dive since he was paralyzed from the neck down in a military training accident 15 months ago.

"Absolutely fantastic," Lovett said. "Brilliant, absolutely brilliant."

"I'm so happy," said Lovett, one of three wounded British war veterans who joined a dozen wounded U.S. troops for a week of diving in the islands off Florida's southern tip in May.

The twice-yearly Warrior Dive in Key Largo promotes scuba diving as rehabilitative therapy.

It started with a group of wounded soldiers from the 101st Airborne at the U.S. Army's Fort Campbell in Kentucky, and has grown to include outpatients from the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Fraser Bathgate, vice president and training director for the International Association for Handicapped Divers, was invited to Fort Campbell in 2007 to train wounded soldiers who formed the Eagle Divers club. He introduced them to divers in Key Largo.

In an outpouring of patriotic gratitude, Key Largo merchants and veterans donated hotel rooms and boat rides, hosted barbecues and provided a bus with a wheelchair lift.

"We want to make this a true gift from the Upper Keys community," said Kenny Wheeler of the Ocean Divers dive shop.

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Bathgate, a Scotsman paralyzed from the waist down in a climbing accident in 1986, is also a co-founder of the newly formed Deptherapy Foundation, which offers scuba rehab to disabled British veterans and brought three Royal Marines to Key Largo.

Bathgate tried diving at a friend's urging and loved it.

"I felt a freedom I hadn't felt since I was in the chair," said the Edinburgh resident, who learned how to rotate his hips enough to propel himself underwater with dive fins and went on to become a certified instructor.

"I was the first instructor to have qualified from a wheelchair," said Bathgate, who has spent the last 15 years training other instructors to work with disabled divers.