What’s it like for a person with a disability to go through accessible scuba diving training?
Did you know you can have a disability AND become a scuba diver? As a PADI certified one-legged scuba diving open water mermaid, now I can leave my prosthetic leg on shore, strap on my scuba gear, and enjoy the water just like any other diver. Here are 5 things to know about adaptive dive training, from an amputee.
“Adaptive training doesn’t adapt the diver to diving. It adapts diving to the diver.”
Amputee, world traveler, and now, diver
I’ve been an above-knee amputee since I was 13, when an osteosarcoma (bone cancer) diagnosis resulted in a mid-thigh amputation. Being an amputee has its challenges, but as a person with a disability, I also travel the world with my husband, son, and daughter.
Water recreation has been a way for our family to enjoy an activity together. I’ve always loved water recreation because when I’m on or in the water, being an amputee matters so much less than when I’m on land. Becoming a scuba diver in 2025 has opened up a whole new world for me: an underwater world!
We want to thank PADI, Kids Scuba, Tourism Malaysia, and MIMPI Perhentian Resort for sponsoring our visit. However, this article reflects our own personal opinions and experiences.
1. Many people with disabilities can complete dive training
Some important things to know about adaptive dive training?
- PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) is the world’s largest ocean exploration and diver organization
- Adaptive diving and dive training is how people with disabilities can learn to dive and go on dives adapted for their mobility
- PADI’s adaptive dive training course can work with a range of disabilities, impairments, and conditions, from autism to quadriplegia.
Along with my own training as a PADI Adaptive Open Water Diver, my husband Anthony also completed training to be an Adaptive Support Diver. Alongside a diving instructor who was working on her own accessibility training, Anthony trained to assist divers who have:
- Blindness
- One functioning hand/arm
- No functioning hands/arms (such as a paraplegia or double amputee)
- One functioning leg (like me!)
- No functioning legs (such as amputations or quadriplegia)
That’s not a comprehensive list, either. For example, people who don’t have hearing function can also complete dive training.
When seeking dive training as a person with a disability, the journey starts with a medical questionnaire. You by no means have to be a world-class athlete to dive. However, diving involves safe breathing, navigating changes in air pressure, and responding to dive partner signals and instructions. The medical questionnaire establishes if you’re ready to dive, or if you need a medical evaluation to check fitness to dive.
Personally, I didn’t need to visit a doctor for anything more extensive. Our PADI instructors explained that when someone needs to go over their condition with a doctor, it’s to make sure that the diver is ready to go with any needed adaptations, and that the dive team is in the know on what the diver needs to be set up for success before, during, and after a dive.
2. Dive centers around the world are certified to offer accessible training
Adaptive dive instructors are highly trained professionals who train and dive with people who have disabilities. You can find dozens of PADI Adaptive Service Facilities worldwide, in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East.
Our family of four completed our dive training in Malaysia. The team at Kids Scuba in Kuala Lumpur worked with us in a swimming pool for initial in-water training, called Confined Water. The pool environment helped us get to know:
- Basics of putting on our diving gear
- Entering and exiting the water
- Understanding, following, and replying to signals
- Our instructors, and they could get to know us too!
One of the most important things to know about adaptive dive training?
Dive training may mean some travel, but options are out there. You can find something that can work for you and your mobility. You don’t have to be near an ocean or lake, either. Training can begin in your neighborhood pool.
3. Training adapts diving to the diver, not the other way around
One of the most crucial things to know about adaptive dive training is something we learned from our main instructor, and head of Kids Scuba, Syed Abd Rahman:
“Adaptive training doesn’t adapt the diver to diving. It adapts diving to the diver.”
We took that to heart, and it was clear that Syed and his team did too.
Does learning to dive take some learning and training? Certainly. But when you get down to it, learning to dive as a person with a disability means that you take the activity of diving and adapt it to your mobility.
That also means that there’s no one way to train every diver. What works for me and my mobility won’t necessarily work for you and for your mobility. Every diver has differences in terms of ability, confidence, knowledge, movement, and goals.
The great thing about accessible dive training is that it can work toward those goals, individually, for each unique diver.
“It’s good for every dive professional doing an adaptive dive program to listen more to the dive student, especially the dive student who comes in various categories of disabilities, from hearing to visually impaired, to amputee, paraplegic, quadriplegic, autism, Down’s syndrome,” notes Syed.
“Initially, yes, they will follow our instructor. As we go along, they will know how they can tell the dive master or guide what they can do and what they need assistance with.”
4. Training is a balance of independence and assistance, and that balance is different for every diver and each dive
Every disability manifests differently, and so does each diver’s approach to training. Backgrounds vary. We’ve participated in different activities. Our talents, concerns, goals, and limitations are all different from person to person.
For example, if you put me side by side with another above-knee amputee, our residual limbs might look similar, but that doesn’t mean we’ll approach diving in the same way.
I draw on a childhood that was full of dance, prior to my amputation at age 13. My body has known the challenges of pregnancy, chasing a toddler, and wearing a huge backpack while traveling the world (thankfully, not all 3 at the same time).
The other diver will come from their own array of experiences. Their amputation might have been more recent. Other amputees may have different confidence in their movement, or they may already be experienced divers prior to their disability.
“We set a boundary during the adaptive training, in which we inform all divers, all instructors and dive professionals, what you need to do and what you need to discuss with the person who has a disability,” says Syed.
“This is where the adaptive diver profile, we discuss up front first, before taking the person for a dive. It’s a checklist, an ice breaker, so we can build reassurance between the instructor, team, and the adaptive diver.”
Instructors then build rapport and understanding with the diver, discussing and assessing where they need assistance—and where they need space to act independently.
5. Diving offers unexpected benefits and mobility freedom
Adaptive activities like diving provide physical, mental, emotional, and recuperative benefits beyond the dive itself. For many divers Syed has worked with, they find that being in the water opens up new possibilities for their mobility.
“Their doctors may have explained to them that in water sports you can move freely,” says Syed. “On land, you may struggle with a wheelchair. In water, you can feel more relaxed and move freely in zero gravity.”
With training and a mutual respect between diver and team, many people with disabilities can find safety, exploration, movement, and joy in diving.
“We instructors adapt to the environment, to the situation, to the diver,” says Syed. “I’m sure Jodie felt happy, relaxed with her buoyancy, that she can move freely with the fish.”
Diving has given me a new way to experience and enjoy the world with my family
Learning to dive and getting my Open Water certification was a major personal accomplishment. Since my husband and kids also earned certifications, now diving can be an activity we share, enjoy, and plan our travels around.
Every diver, like every disability, is different. But of things to know about adaptive dive training, perhaps the most important is that diving can give people with disabilities a new way to experience and enjoy the world.
Video: Follow Jodie’s experience going through PADI adaptive training as an amputee
Start your accessible diving journey
Want to start your diving journey? Here are some next steps:
- Talk with your doctor or specialist about diving and your disability
- Find a PADI Adaptive Service Facility
- The online Open Water dive training course is self-paced (it took us about a week)
- Costs vary, but you’ll typically need to consider the Open Water training program, plus your travel costs
- You don’t have to acquire dive gear before the water portions of your training. Check with your instructor on what gear is provided, or what you’ll need to rent or buy
- Most programs require 2-3 days of pool training before 1-3 days of open water dives (depending on conditions and other circumstances)
Find Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) Adaptive Service Facilities
Dive instructors around the world are certified to work with divers who have disabilities.
Based in Malaysia, the Kids Scuba team has worked with divers of all ages and with a range of mobilities and conditions.
Off the northeastern coast of Malaysia, the Perhentian Islands are home to warm clear waters, quality dive shops, and the luxurious rooms, pool, and beachfront relaxing of the MIMPI Perhentian Resort.
