Amazing Dive Experience With A Paraplegic

What makes a great personality? What is greatness? These questions can be defined and redefined over and over again by anyone. The answer can be just about anything right? For me, to answer these simple yet complicated questions, I always refer to my own personal experiences. My journey through life with people from all walk of life. I like to observe most of the time. I like to listen most of the time.

When I logged into my Facebook today, an inquiry from a friend reminded me of what can make an invidual great. She was asking me about taking a wheel chair bound man who wishes to make a trip to Layang-Layang Island and complete his Padi Advanced Open Water course with her. She wished to know if the resort can acommodate such scenario. And my answer was a yes. I’ ve done quite a few dives with ’special divers’ while I was working in Mabul Island. I also did a 10 days of diving with a lady from Europe who had the same condition.These are what I want to share with you. These are what I look as greatness in a person from my own view and most of all, from my heart.

November 2007, about 3 months after I started working with Seaventures Dive Resort on Mabul, Semporna, the resort received a special request from the head office. The request was to guide the nephew of the resort’s managing director for a 5 days diving trip in Sipadan Island, a paraplegic young man from the U.S. Our manager decided that I will take him and 6 other relatives for the whole duration. Our main concern however was the logistic wise due to the way the resort was built. You see, the resort was converted from an oil platform into a 30 rooms resort. The main way to enter the resort’s main lobby was one small lift aka our boarding platform with 6 person of capacity. Alternate way was by the stairs through the back. The choppy surface during that month did not make things easier for us.

He wasn’t much of a talker. The most time we had a coversation was for the dive briefing and after the dive. However I could see how much he loved being underwater. A very lucky guy as well as his dive buddy was his wife who stayed close to him all the time while diving. How amazing is this guy? He told us that he wanted to try to do almost everything on his own. Entering the water, putting up his dive gears at the surface and he even tried to get on the boat on his own after surfacing. Imagine scuba diving without fins, not easy at all. He completed 50 minutes on almost every dive we did together. I wouldn’t be able to use only my arms to swim like him for 50 minutes. It is amazing how passion drives you. The only help he needed was to bring him back to the boat and to the platform after we reached the resort.

For 5 days in a row, he completed 9 dives with us and always surfaced with a smile. This was where I found another greatness in him, the ability to make others feel great. It was such a great feeling for me personally to be able to give him my best services.  However, if it wasn’t for the great coordination of our dive crews, things would have turned the other way.

So whenever I started to have doubts about myself, I always look back to these images in my memories to tell me that possibilities are always there. It’s just a matter of seeing it and accepting it.

On the next post, I will share with you another great experienced I had diving with a lady who had stroke and still so passionate and energetic she wouldn’t let anything stops her.

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