A blind scuba diver’s outlook on life
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LOVELAND, Colo. —Bob Kitchens wears his gray hair long, an earring in his left ear and frequently sports sunglasses and a fedora. He has a slightly dirty sense of humor and warns repeatedly that the only way to get him to shut up is to leave the room.
Kitchens is also a certified scuba diver and can quickly dive in-depth about life at-depth from his land-locked Loveland.
He described the “blub-blub-blub” of bubbles running up his face during a dive, the “true wildlife” swimming around him underwater and the way that the oranges and reds “explode in front of you” out of the black waters of a flashlight night dive.
“It’s just incredible,” said Kitchens. “It is surreal.”
Video: Chase McCleary, Rocky Mountain PBS
Also surreal was the 2 a.m. rollover van accident in 2011 that took Kitchens’ vision and his ability to control any part of his body below his arms. Kitchens believes the other driver may have been under the influence.
Kitchens uses a wheelchair and is 100% blind, yet in June he and about 70 divers with Denver Adaptive Divers (DAD) traveled to Cayman Brac in the Caribbean for a week-long, 18-dive excursion.
“We basically take over the [Cayman Brac Beach Resort] and all four boats, and we have a weeklong celebration of doing some diving and getting some people certified and having a great time,” said John Sherman, the co-founder and director of DAD.
Based out of the Denver Divers dive shop, DAD teaches and certifies individuals with physical or mental disabilities for open-water scuba diving (diving in a natural body of water like the ocean as compared to diving a closed body of water, such as a pool).
“I went and did this ‘Try Scuba’ where they put you in a pool, and they let you swim around the pool… that was so exciting,” said Kitchens.
”And I’m going, ‘This is doable. Therefore, I’m going to do it.’”
Research out of Johns Hopkins University and the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health tout the physical and mental benefits of scuba diving for those with disabilities, including improving muscle movement for people with spinal cord injuries, improvements in respiratory systems, and a reduction in post-traumatic stress disorder, among others.
DAD partners with Craig rehabilitation hospital to spread awareness of the program, which is currently training quadriplegic and paraplegic divers, divers with multiple sclerosis and veterans with traumatic brain injuries.
“Scuba diving has the power to be a quality of life changing event,” said Sherman, “and when we sit there and get them training in the pool, faces light up, smiles come across their face and they do things they didn’t think they could do.”
This year was DAD’s ninth trip to Cayman Brac, the easternmost island of the Cayman Islands. Many participants came as couples, with one partner training to become an adaptive dive buddy for their partners. Adaptive dive buddies are volunteers trained to dive alongside adaptive divers for safety and support.
There was at least one instructor and one dive buddy for each adaptive diver. Vince Phelan, an instructor of 30 years and adaptive diving instructor for about six, assisted Kitchens on the trip and acted as Kitchens’ main “driver” throughout each dive.
“I’m doing everything, every aspect of the diving experience for them,” said Phelan.
“I’m regulating their buoyancy, I’m regulating the depth… clearing their mask, clearing their ears, those are the key issues.”
After using a system of harnesses to move Kitchens from his wheelchair on the boat to the water, Phelan and two other assistive dive buddies helped him descend to depth, holding Kitchens’ nose while he is equalizing his ears and controlling Kitchens buoyancy control device, an inflatable vest that scuba divers wear to regulate their buoyancy underwater.
Once underwater, Phelan positioned himself behind Kitchens and grabbed the top of his air tank using it as a sort of lever to “drive” or control their direction.
Video: Chase McCleary, Rocky Mountain PBS
Phelan primarily pushed Kitchens through the water, but to assist with propulsion, Kitchens is equipped with a pair of webbed gloves.
“And so I can, you know, give it one of these things,” said Kitchens, paddling his arms through the air.
“I look a little goofy,” he said, “but I can’t see, so it don’t matter to me.”
Ethan Lemberger, a 26 year-old EMT, acted as Kitchens’ main caretaker throughout the trip, and assisted Kitchens both on land and underwater.
Lemberger has only been diving for three years, though he learned under extreme conditions; he spends his free time volunteering as a public safety diver for Larimer County, which involves ice diving, swift water rescue, and feeling his way around muddy lakes with almost no visibility.
He learned that Kitchens was looking for a caretaker through Larimer County Dive Rescue and had the opportunity to practice with Kitchens in the pool a couple months before leaving.
“Diving is a release from my personal life,” said Lemberger. “It’s a way for me to just clear my mind and just blow bubbles.”
“And it’s so cool that [we] get to [dive] with all these other people that have the same passion as you… there’s other people with different disabilities, and you can really learn a lot both about scuba diving and yourself by relaxing and learning with them.”
Kitchens insisted that Lemberger take as many photos as possible, documentation and proof of Kitchens diving that he could show to his octogenarian father still living in Colorado.
“I talked to my father about [the trip] and he was smiling and laughing, and we talked about some of the old stuff that happened while we were diving,” said Kitchens.
“I wish that he could do it with me, but [Ethan] will take a living image of our trip that I’ll be sending to my father to show him.”
More than anything, Kitchens appreciates the people around him: Lemberger, for assisting throughout the trip; Phelan and Sherman, who helped him coordinate his travel and his dive; and, of course, his father, who defines Kitchens’ “live grateful” and “live easy” outlook on life.
After two days of diving, Kitchens experienced extreme fatigue and signs of more serious medical conditions. He was admitted to a hospital on the island and was eventually moved to a hospital in Florida.
Despite the difficulties he faced on the trip, Kitchens repeated the guiding life motto that drove him underwater again and will drive him forward into his next endeavor (hint: he hand-makes and hand-paints guitars, even though he cannot play more than a few chords):
“Don’t sweat the small s–t. The big s–t will take care of itself,” he said. “And hell, it’s all small s–t anyway.”
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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