Para Athlete Finally Gets to Scuba Dive


The NEWS Minute reports that para athlete, Pooja Agarwal, has completed her first dive in Kerala on November 28. She says that before diving in Kerala she tried to dive a number of times but “no group agreed to do it with persons with physical disabilities.” 

Pooja Agarwal started shooting professionally a few years after losing both her legs and her arm in a train accident in 2012. However, it was not until she went to Kerala for the National Shooting Championship Competition that she made her scuba diving dream a reality. 

Agarwal said that she loved the dive and that she had been meaning to do it for a long time but no group had agreed due to her physical disabilities. However, Bond Safari considered her disability and limitations and gave her the help and support she needed to be able to scuba dive. Agarwal said that her 25-minute diving experience was “indescribable”.  

Bond Safari is a Kovalam-based scuba diving group who had helped another para athlete, Neeraj George, scuba dive. 

Managing partner of Bond Safari, Jackson Peter said:
Pooja came to know about Neeraj’s dive and she wanted to try it as well. She has tried pool diving in the past, but when she came to Kerala she knew we could help her do it and came to us.
Agarwal commented on the fact that when she was underwater she could only breathe from her mouth and said that “it was like you can count every breath, you experience every breath you take” and that the view was incredible.

Jackson Peter says that Bond Safari was encouraged to take on this challenge by the Responsible Tourism initiative of Kerala Tourism. This initiative aims to provide barrier-free tourism experiences for people with disabilities and aims to make all tourist destinations in Kerala completely reachable to disabled people by 2021. 

Sara

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