Monday, November 17, 2008

Blog Post #11

A group of disabled veterans of the Iraq war, who are paralyzed or limited to a wheelchair, got to take part in a program where they can swim in the largest aquarium in the world at the Georgia Aquarium. "It's like you're in space," Winkler said. "It's like you're an able body again. It makes you feel so free." The experience isn't cheap. A half hour dive costs $290. The veterans got to swim free. "The water is the great equalizer. Once you get in, you're floating, you're weightless, and everybody becomes equal," Oglesby said.
Winkler was outfitted in a wet suit and snorkeling gear. He rolled his wheelchair down a long ramp to a dock floating in the 6.3 million-gallon tank of salt water. "It is so amazing, he said. "It's like you don't have a disability, because you're just floating around with everybody else. ... The fish are just swimming by. It's a total other world."
I think this is a great program that is really good for the veterans because they've lost an ability thats really important, and most of the time they have to watch the rest of the world do things they can't but when they're in the tank they can do everything everyone else can and they don't have to worry about having a disability.

(quotes from: http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/11/10/hm.veterans.swimming.rehab.sharks/index.html )

1 comment:

Ms. Roehl said...

This is an interesting program. Be careful with all of your cutting and pasting. It's hard for me to know what you've copied into a blog post and what is your own writing.