Wheelchair users dive at Monterey aquarium
It was 5:15 p.m. and Steve Lyon was preparing to get vertical for the first time in two weeks.
Zipped into his dry suit — warmer, more comfortable than a wet suit — he sat on a concrete deck, about 10 feet from the edge of what looked like a medium-sized swimming pool.
In reality, it was the Kelp Forest exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, 28 feet deep and holding 330,000 gallons of ocean water.
Lyon adjusted straps and buckles, tested his mask. Then slowly he started scooting his way toward the “pool,” lifting his legs with his hands and pushing them along in front of him.
Another diver tossed Lyon’s 80-pound tank rig into the water, where an inflated buoyancy compensator would keep it afloat until Lyon could strap it to his back — a procedure that most divers perform on land.
Finally, Lyon reached the edge of the tank. It was 5:30. He was right on schedule.
There was a splash, then another and another, as he “plopped” his way down the entry steps. And then he was in the water, and 6-foot-1 again.
Lyon, 47, is a member of the elite volunteer scuba diving team that does the maintenance work on three major exhibits at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
He is also a Paraplegic who usually uses a wheelchair to get around on land.
He was the second disabled diver to join the aquarium team. Marv Tuttle, 54, was the first. On their once-every-other-week shifts, they can get into the water by themselves, but they need some help getting out.
“I don’t know of any other organization in the country that has actually had two wheelchair divers doing this kind of stuff,” Lyon said.
Gavin Wuttken, senior dive officer at the aquarium, confirmed that the local program is unique.
He started planning for it in 1991 when he first came to work at the aquarium. His wife, Sally, was a recreation therapist, and he had seen how “freeing” time in the water could be for her patients.
“Their disabilities just went away,” he said.
Back in 1991, neither Tuttle nor Lyon had any idea they’d ever need the kind of program Wuttken had in mind. A tool salesman and software programmer, respectively, they were fit and healthy and always on the go with their families and work.
But in August 1998, Tuttle had a motorcycle accident that left him in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down. Still, he was determined to continue leading an active life, and eventually his thoughts turned toward scuba diving.
“I’d been certified back in 1972,” he said, “but then I fell out of the sport.”
In the summer of 2001, he got back into the water for the first time. It felt good.
“It’s like riding a bicycle,” he said. “You never forget.”
The same day, he learned about the program for disabled divers that Wuttken was trying to get started at the aquarium.
Wuttken had interviewed at least half a dozen candidates the preceding year. Tuttle was the first to meet all the requirements: the written test, the diving test and the physical.
By Sept. 3, 2002, he had passed all three, and he logged the first-ever disabled-diver hours at the aquarium.
In the meantime, he had met Lyon at a dive shop in San Jose. The two men had more in common than their shared interest in scuba diving. Lyon was in a wheelchair too, having suffered a spinal cord injury, also in a motorcycle accident, in October 2000.
“Diving was one of the activities I didn’t want to give up,” he said.
When he met Tuttle, he’d already been working to regain his skills and had heard about the disabled divers program.
Tuttle encouraged his new friend to sign on, and on Jan. 7, 2003, Lyon took his first cleaning shift.
In general, disabled divers have lots of limitations that other divers don’t. They’re allowed in the water only if they go with two buddies certified to rescue. It can be hard for them to cross the beach or board a boat, things they usually need to do just to get in the water at all.
These difficulties are mitigated at the aquarium, where able-bodied divers are all certified to rescue and where access to the water, if not exactly easy, is at least easier than elsewhere.
Disabled divers have some special assets too, Wuttken said. For instance, they’re exceptionally good at maintaining “neutral buoyancy” — hovering motionless in the water — without kicking, often because they can’t. This is a big advantage when working in aquarium exhibits and trying not to disturb the plant and animal life.
“Steve (Lyon) looks like an astronaut under water,” Wuttken said. “Always in perfect position, like he’s out on a space walk.”
Lyon called being under water a cool experience. “People in wheelchairs are always fighting gravity,” he said. “Well, everybody is, but people in wheelchairs even more. So one of the real great feelings is when you are weightless.”
Tuttle said being in the water is therapeutic mentally and physically. “The parts of your body that don’t work are heavy, bulky,” he said. “Once you’re in the water, the buoyancy takes over, and you don’t have that problem. It’s very releasing. It releases you from your Disability for the period of time that you’re in the water.”
That’s precisely the effect Wuttken was aiming for.
Lyon and Tuttle work on the maintenance diving team, serving shifts in the Kelp Forest, Outer Bay, and Monterey Bay Habitat exhibits. Lyon cleans windows. Tuttle vacuums floors.
Lyon is also a guide, and Tuttle is in training to be.
“I started out diving, but then Ruth recruited me,” Lyon said.
Ruth is Ruth Buell, manager of volunteer resources at the aquarium who coordinates the efforts of about 1,000 people from all over the area. Lyon commutes every other Wednesday from Los Gatos in his specially equipped truck. Tuttle comes every other Saturday from San Jose in his van.
Last year, Buell reported, aquarium volunteers contributed 129,163 hours. Lyon contributed 184 of those as a diver and guide. Tuttle’s total was about the same, although his were all diving hours.
On Wednesday afternoon, before his dive, Lyon was stationed as a guide at the touch pool in the Splash Zone.
“Can you see this guy?” he asked, pointing out a decorator crab to one shy little girl. “He puts stuff on top of himself to hide.”
The little girl stared, her interest piqued.
“If you can see this guy, he’s not doing his job,” Lyon added.
But every other Wednesday you can see Lyon, helping aquarium visitors, cleaning aquarium windows, ably doing his job.
By KAREN RAVN
© 2004 Monterey County Herald and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
