Training opens water to everyone

Szilveszter Toth teaching people to dive in open water. Photo / Supplied

The freedom of diving is no longer restricted to able-bodied people, writes Sarah Ell.

The beauty of scuba diving is the sense of freedom of movement you experience when underwater. The feeling is even more significant for those with disabilities that limit their movement on land. They can now learn to dive thanks to a specially trained local instructor.

Szilveszter Toth, who goes by the nickname Sly, is the first in New Zealand to teach diving to teenagers and adults with physical and intellectual disabilities, having undertaken special training to adapt traditional dive education to those with special needs. He is affiliated with Disabled Divers International, a non-profit organisation set up in Denmark in 2010.

Toth is an enthusiastic Hungarian who has dived "pretty much everywhere I can" while working in hospitality around the world. He was working in Dubai when he heard about the disabled divers programme and started it here on his return to New Zealand at the start of last year.

His dive-training work is voluntary; he still has his day job but works with disabled divers evenings and weekends. Divers learn basic skills first in the Olympic Pool in Auckland's Newmarket, then in "open water" at Lake Pupuke on the North Shore, where I meet him and a student on a bright but windy Saturday morning.

"I think everybody should dive," Toth says. "It's just an amazing feeling floating underwater, like flying. I am a very lazy diver, I just like floating and drifting, being involved in the experience."

He lists the benefits of learning to dive for people with disabilities: exercise in a stress-free and pain-free environment, increased capability of movement without the effects of gravity, improved quality of life, "making new scuba friends" and enjoying the outdoors.

"With teaching disabled diving, the main difference is logistics. It's harder to get into the water, and it takes longer to get the weights right for buoyancy. You have to find that balance," he says. "The process of learning also takes much longer -- you can get certified in two days on a standard Padi course but for disabled divers it can take a lot longer, eight sessions at least. They need to be in the pool longer before going into open water."

Photo / Supplied

Toth says young people with conditions such as autism can also benefit from the diving experience. "We just need to use very strict ratios, with two instructors, and take everything slowly, to make sure the person can cope with the feeling of being underwater. It might be a whole day session, doing lots of swimming first before going underwater."

Toth will work with young people from the age of 14 up, but I'm here today with student 28-year-old Scott Rushbrooke. It's Rushbrooke's first time in open water after his pool training, and he is keen to get into it.

"I've been to 4m before, but today it's to 8m."

Rushbrooke was paralysed from the waist down in a wakeboarding accident nine years ago, but has always been keen on watersports. He enjoys swimming for exercise and physical therapy, so taking the plunge and learning to scuba dive seemed a natural next step.

Rushbrooke usually swims backstroke, so he has had to adapt to swimming face down, using his hands more, in a breaststroke style -- "like a mermaid."

"Merman," says Toth, laughing.

Szilveszter Toth teaches physically and mentally disabled people to dive.

Rushbrooke says learning to dive has been levelling: "I am learning a skill an able-bodied person would learn. The only difference is I can't kick with my feet and I don't have abs, but other than that it's not a lot different."

And his aims are the same as many able-bodied divers: "I've got mates and cousins that dive and it will be good to be able to get out with them -- and to get some crayfish, hopefully."

Need to know

• Find out about the disabled diving programme at divewithsly.com, or through Parafed Auckland or the Halberg Disability Sport Foundation.

• Sly runs the No Barrier Tour until May, offering try dives, a pool dive experience for those who are not sure diving is for them but are interested in trying it out. He offers free trial dives and is funded so anyone can complete disabled dive training with little or no cost. Donate at gofundme.com/DisabledDivers-NewZealand