I've included the text below, but the article has some neat pictures
http://www.diveheart.org/newsletters/Dec2006/Dec2006-feature.htm
Ask anyone at Diveheart to name a single individual who embodies all that is good and unique in what we do and how we do it, and you'll probably receive a short, alliterative response: Deb Dudek.
It's difficult to forget the first time you meet Debbie. Her energy can seem almost otherwordly. It comes from a place deep inside, a place most people could never tap into let alone ever hope to control. And on her way to becoming Diveheart's head of HSA training and the latest nationally certified HSA course director she needed every ounce of it. For a long time indeed, this future instructor just couldn't seem to keep her head below water.
"When I first decided to try SCUBA, I couldn't stay underwater for more than a few minutes." She'll tell you without a hint of embarrassment in her voice. "I was scared or overwhelmed. I think it was three months before I could clear my mask."
Ask her why she stayed with it, and her response is instantaneous, simple, eloquent, and inspiring.
"Because for that brief moment that I felt that everything was alright, it was awesome!" she says.
That experience was awesome enough for her to make it through her certification, although it took months. Awesome enough for her to make it to divemaster within the next two years. Awesome enough for her to become an instructor by the next year.
But why would the one who had so many difficulties of her own want to become an instructor? Why would the full-time nurse, already in having of a frantic schedule, want to take on more responsibilities?
"I wanted to help people who were having problems like I was. I know how it feels to want something, but it does not come easy" she'll tell you. "I wanted them to know there someone out there who wouldn't quit on them if they didn't quit on themselves."
Perhaps Debbie's introduction to Diveheart proves there are forces conspiring to bring like-minded individuals in this world together. She met Diveheart President Jim Elliott while still struggling with her own certification. She credits seeing the pictures of the children with disabilities in the water trying to learn to scuba dive, as being a motivating force in her deciding to continue to try what she wanted to do.
As an HSA course director, a certification she received when HSA founder James Gatacre visited her for a week of instruction this November, Debbie can now certify not only people with disabilities, but abled- bodied dive buddies and also instructors who wish to become Handicapped SCUBA instructors. It is a distinction less than a hundred people share in the world.
Distinctions aside, anyone who has spent an hour or two around the Diveheart office already knows Debbie's tireless efforts in support Diveheart's work.
"We wouldn't be where we are today, and we could never make it to the next level, without her" Elliott says without hesitation.
People wonder why Diveheart is unique. They wonder why, if the therapeutic effects of the water and the procedures for getting handicapped individuals into it safely have been around for more than three decades, organizations like Diveheart need exist. A big reason is the people we bring to the endeavor. Diveheart's mission has never only been to get handicapped individuals into the water. More importantly, it has been to educate the diving industry and so create a world where there exists little distinction between the able-bodied and disabled diver. We do this in large part by training instructors and dive buddies. And we strive to train instructors who comprehend not simply how to get disabled people into the water but why the experience is significant to them. Who better to teach this than Debbie?
Debbie will tell you she struggled through the certification for herself; because it was hard but she wanted to do it. Still, when you think of the countless children and adults who will one day learn to fly or gain the courage to try, because Debbie was there to provide the wings, you can't help but wonder if the story is greater than we ever imagined.
http://www.diveheart.org/newsletters/Dec2006/Dec2006-feature.htm
Ask anyone at Diveheart to name a single individual who embodies all that is good and unique in what we do and how we do it, and you'll probably receive a short, alliterative response: Deb Dudek.
It's difficult to forget the first time you meet Debbie. Her energy can seem almost otherwordly. It comes from a place deep inside, a place most people could never tap into let alone ever hope to control. And on her way to becoming Diveheart's head of HSA training and the latest nationally certified HSA course director she needed every ounce of it. For a long time indeed, this future instructor just couldn't seem to keep her head below water.
"When I first decided to try SCUBA, I couldn't stay underwater for more than a few minutes." She'll tell you without a hint of embarrassment in her voice. "I was scared or overwhelmed. I think it was three months before I could clear my mask."
Ask her why she stayed with it, and her response is instantaneous, simple, eloquent, and inspiring.
"Because for that brief moment that I felt that everything was alright, it was awesome!" she says.
That experience was awesome enough for her to make it through her certification, although it took months. Awesome enough for her to make it to divemaster within the next two years. Awesome enough for her to become an instructor by the next year.
But why would the one who had so many difficulties of her own want to become an instructor? Why would the full-time nurse, already in having of a frantic schedule, want to take on more responsibilities?
"I wanted to help people who were having problems like I was. I know how it feels to want something, but it does not come easy" she'll tell you. "I wanted them to know there someone out there who wouldn't quit on them if they didn't quit on themselves."
Perhaps Debbie's introduction to Diveheart proves there are forces conspiring to bring like-minded individuals in this world together. She met Diveheart President Jim Elliott while still struggling with her own certification. She credits seeing the pictures of the children with disabilities in the water trying to learn to scuba dive, as being a motivating force in her deciding to continue to try what she wanted to do.
As an HSA course director, a certification she received when HSA founder James Gatacre visited her for a week of instruction this November, Debbie can now certify not only people with disabilities, but abled- bodied dive buddies and also instructors who wish to become Handicapped SCUBA instructors. It is a distinction less than a hundred people share in the world.
Distinctions aside, anyone who has spent an hour or two around the Diveheart office already knows Debbie's tireless efforts in support Diveheart's work.
"We wouldn't be where we are today, and we could never make it to the next level, without her" Elliott says without hesitation.
People wonder why Diveheart is unique. They wonder why, if the therapeutic effects of the water and the procedures for getting handicapped individuals into it safely have been around for more than three decades, organizations like Diveheart need exist. A big reason is the people we bring to the endeavor. Diveheart's mission has never only been to get handicapped individuals into the water. More importantly, it has been to educate the diving industry and so create a world where there exists little distinction between the able-bodied and disabled diver. We do this in large part by training instructors and dive buddies. And we strive to train instructors who comprehend not simply how to get disabled people into the water but why the experience is significant to them. Who better to teach this than Debbie?
Debbie will tell you she struggled through the certification for herself; because it was hard but she wanted to do it. Still, when you think of the countless children and adults who will one day learn to fly or gain the courage to try, because Debbie was there to provide the wings, you can't help but wonder if the story is greater than we ever imagined.
