Diving with the Injured is a charitable programme that takes wounded and injured service personnel to diving trips around the world as part of their rehabilitation, building resilience and confidence.

Also joining the diving trips (and paying their own fares) are military medical personnel that will have treated military patients at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham

You can find out more about Diving with the Injured here.

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Diving with the Injured (DWI) was founded by Colonel Mark Foster. Mark is a Plastic Reconstructive surgeon as well as the Military Clinical Director at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine based at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.

Additionally, Mark is a British Sub Aqua Club Advance Instructor and holds the highest military scuba diving instructor qualifications. He is also Chairman of the Defence Medical Services Dive Club (yes, he is a busy man!).

Mark arrived at RCDM during a busy period when many injured soldiers were still being admitted from the front lines of Afghanistan. It was chance that one of Mark’s patients was a qualified scuba diver. With multiple trauma injuries that resulted in an above knee amputation, the patient was venting his frustration that he would never be able to dive again. Mark immediately recognised that scuba diving could compliment this gentlemen’s recovery both physically and mentally. Keen to promote a positive mind set, Mark set the challenge to have him diving again within six months.

The success of this interaction was the catalyst for Diving with the Injured that formed in 2012. Mark was now not just training injured service personnel to dive, but also military nurses to act as support divers. Eleven years on and DWI continues to support military veterans that have been medically discharged on the grounds of injury or sickness including post-traumatic stress disorders.

As well as continuing to run the dive club and provide diving opportunities for regular members hardy enough to face the chilly waters of the UK. DWI has the mission to take injured veterans on a trip of a lifetime to warm climate waters that are less offensive to their injuries. It is one week of the year when in their own words, ‘they feel normal’. Accompanied by serving military nurses who have seen everything imaginable, their disabilities disappear. No stares, no sympathy, just lots of healing banter that goes both ways. Diving is one sport that due to the weightless effect of water, people with disabilities can swim alongside their able bodied ‘buddy’ as an equal. Some of the injured have even become instructors themselves.

Diving is a very expensive sport with one set of club diving equipment costing close to a thousand pounds. Despite their injuries many of the veterans have been able to secure employment outside of the military and can make their own financial contributions. Equally, many are dependant solely on their medical pension. Without donations to DWI, many would never have had the opportunity to try diving. Or like Mark’s first injured diver, have the belief they could continue to do a sport they thought would be impossible.