The Veterans Administration has approved a scuba training program for disable veterans, called the Disabled Veterans Scuba Project.
Locally, the training takes place at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos.
The program will begin accepting applications for the Long Beach and West Los Angeles on Sunday, April 18.
A handful of volunteer staff of the Disabled Veterans Scuba Project started training disabled veterans to become certified scuba divers in January as part of a VA-approved adaptive recreational therapy program. The volunteers have made it their mission to serve disabled veterans by helping them experience the camaraderie of scuba diving and the wonders of the underwater world.
The training is held at the Joint Forces Training Base swimming pool nearly every week, usually on Sunday evenings.
Using an all-volunteer staff, DVSP currently has approval to teach scuba diving to disabled veterans at Long Beach, West Los Angeles and Loma Linda Veterans Administration hospitals and Camp Pendleton Wounded Warrior Battalion.
The project provides scuba diving instruction and free equipment use to disabled veterans, including paraplegics, quadriplegics, those diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and multiple traumas, as well as blind and amputee veterans.
For more information, call Melvin K. Pasley at (562) 421-3094 or e-mail president@DisabledVeteransScubaProject.org.
