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.

Diving with the Injured (DWI) is a charitable programme supported by the Defence Medical Services Diving Club (DMSDC) and Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham Charity. Diving with the Injured supports military personnel that have received a life changing medical condition by taking them scuba diving. Medical conditions are varied such as PTSD, spinal or nerve injuries, brain injury, severe burns and loss of limb.

Previous diving experience is not required and through the DMSDC we will train both veterans and medical personnel who will become support divers. The end goal is to take them on diving trips for rehabilitation, building personal resilience and confidence.

History

Diving with the Injured was founded by Colonel Mark Foster who is the Military Clinical Director at RCDM and a Plastic reconstructive surgeon at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine based at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham. Additionally, Mark is a British Sub Aqua Club Advanced Instructor and holds the highest military scuba diving Qualifications. He is also Chairman of the DMSDC (yes, he is a busy man!).

Mark arrived at RCDM in 2010 during a busy period when many injured soldiers were still being admitted from the front lines of Afghanistan. By chance, a soldier under Marks care was a recreational scuba diver. With multiple trauma injuries that resulted in an above knee amputation, the patient vented his frustration that he would never be able to dive again. Mark immediately recognised that getting this gentleman back in the water could compliment his 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 medical staff to act as support divers. Twelve 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.

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 veterans 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 a 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.