thank you thank you all for coming and
Steven I have to connect with you later
about that hair gel guy okay it’s good
to be back at Northern Illinois
University where I was recruited by the
Chicago Tribune as a journalism major
and I’m not going to tell you what year
that was okay so what I’d like to do
first is tell you that I have some good
news for you and I have some bad news
for you okay
we’re gonna start with the bad news okay
yeah they’re always like hey man it’s
been a long week right you know how
about the good news
tempting but no so anyway the bad news
is that in your lifetime you’ll probably
never have a chance to walk on the
surface of the Moon I bet that no one in
this room no one on earth will have a
chance to go into outer space and
experience zero gravity like an
astronaut among their stars I shouldn’t
say no one because the astronauts
certainly will in fact I think that in
this room most people won’t have a
chance to hover weightless in the cosmos
visit the International Space Station
now wait a minute having said that this
is a TED audience right anything’s
possible right as long as we imagine the
possibilities in our life right imagine
the possibilities and that’s what I want
you all to do for the next few minutes
with me is imagine the possibilities as
I take you on a journey okay oh don’t
worry I’ll have a tether securely
holding you okay so you won’t get away
as you go and experience the opportunity
of freedom what I’d like to do first let
me go back one let me tell you a little
bit more about dive heart if I could
okay
dive heart oh I got to tell you good
news all right so the good news is that
even though you may never experience
zero gravity all right what I can do is
I can give you all the experience of
inner space right here on earth okay I
can give you what we call the astronaut
moment
all right and I can do that not in outer
space but in inner space okay what is
inner space right well the weightless
wonder of the water column is 800 times
denser than the atmosphere around us
that’s why app astronauts work in pools
all over the world with the scuba divers
underwater okay because in order to
become an astronaut you must first
become an Aquanaut you must understand
the principles of zero-gravity in inner
space before you can venture into outer
space okay so a dive heart our mantra is
imagine the possibilities and when we
started we thought that we’d be working
with people with disabilities to build
confidence independence and self esteem
and children adults and veterans and we
thought primarily we’d be working with
individuals with physical disabilities
getting in them out of their wheelchairs
and getting them in the water and giving
them a little bit of time to experience
zero gravity little did we know that
years later we would be working with
individuals with physical and cognitive
disabilities with children with autism
Kyah cerebral palsy Down syndrome as
well as veterans with traumatic brain
injuries and PTSD um I’d like to
introduce you to to one of our aquanauts
and that is amber amber is a here at 19
she’s a a world-class barefoot water
skier imagine that barefoot water skier
amber was also an accomplished athlete
here amber is showing her prowess as a
rock climber she’s in her prime at the
top of her game and you could see that
Amber’s having fun she’s she’s you know
living the life and then one day amber
did a jump it was a jump she’d done a
thousand times before but this time it
went terribly wrong
amber landed wrong and she got a spinal
cord injury and in fact Technic
at that moment she drowned her her team
because of their quick response was able
to save her life but Amber’s life then
had changed forever with a c5 spinal
cord injury Amber’s life would be very
different as she moved forward in fact
her new normal would include years of
intensive therapy it would include a
wheelchair it would include a regular
bowel program and also paralysis in her
arms legs and her torso that would limit
her from her usual normal activities in
fact barefoot water skiing was now part
of Amber’s history okay individuals that
undergo traumatic injuries experience
anger as did amber they also experienced
depression and Amber was depressed and
actually would not come out of her room
for months until one day her sister
adora who was determined to revive her
spirit drug amber against her protests
what we do at these events is we get
individuals of all disabilities in the
water to give them the experience of
weightlessness in fact University
medical researchers that we work with
have told us that there’s a very first
pool program a lot of times creates a
paradigm shift in an individual so it’s
not amber in the wheelchair anymore it’s
amber the scuba diver so now amber goes
Wow if I can scuba dive what else can I
do and she takes on other challenges and
and this time yet again Amber’s life has
changed forever
this first day amber young uncooperative
I guess you’d say participant was giving
people a hard time and later on she
admitted she said yeah I know I was
kind of a pain in the butt right but she
said I was really thankful to my dive
heart volunteer buddies who helped get
me in the water because when she was in
the water amber was smitten
amber fell in love with the freedom she
fell in love with the weightlessness of
leaving her wheelchair up on land while
she escaped gravity amber the Aquanaut
would take a journey into inner space
that would take her take her excuse me
take her around the world she would
travel she would make new friends I mean
look at the smiles on their faces right
her new friends would also give her her
astronaut moment over and over again in
fact amber is so independent now that
she travels with her sister adora around
the world as a dive heart ambassador
inspiring people not just with
disabilities but people of all abilities
to imagine the possibilities in their
lives here amber is having some fun
believe it or not she’s a hundred feet
underwater under the surface of the
ocean she’s standing in front of Believe
It or Not a barbecue grill with a
spatula in her hand right but she’s
vertical right she’s out of her
wheelchair she’s neutrally buoyant and I
think we all can see that Amber is not
lost her intrepid spirit or her sense of
humor it’s me again she said you know we
all need to be loved we all need to be
valued then we all need to have a
purpose and amber now has a purpose
again it’s amber again I’d like to take
you on Amber’s first open water dive now
remember when you’re diving never hold
your breath that’s more emotion for
so the first thing we do with amber is
we weight her properly so if you look
you’ll see the circles on her chest
those are ankle weights and we attach
this to her buoyancy compensator or her
BC and what we do is we try to get her
trimmed out so that amber is comfortable
in the water making sure she’s okay then
the next step is really to make sure she
has enough air in her buoyancy
compensator so that her breath when she
breathes in takes her up and when she
exhale it goes down that’s the sweet
spot right that’s how they achieved
their astronaut moment one of the
greatest joys in my life is to give
amber and people of all abilities the
opportunity to experience freedom like
this look at her she looks like an
astronaut right now we are underwater
and it’s really important to communicate
so I’m my slate that I take out I want
to make sure that I communicate with it
amber and tell her that she has to
remember to Furness her breathing so
amber when you when you breathe in
you’re gonna go up when you exhale go
down right in amber it’s also a
technique I use to distract people that
are having a little bit of anxiety
issues underwater
I say amber you’re an astronaut now
alright go show the world what you can
do now
Amber’s experience is hard to replicate
a lot right because we’re going to
different places where there’s warm
water warm deep water where they can get
the benefits of inner space in a pool is
where we really do most of most of the
heavy lifting you know children and
veterans and others with mobility issues
love it because they can get out of
their wheelchairs and get in the water
and experience for a while zero gravity
what we want to do is is replicate that
over and over again in fact University
medical researchers have told us that
the some of the benefits that would they
have seen with children with autism for
example now they don’t have to be real
deep to experience this because when
they get in the water there’s a ambient
pressure
and pressures a therapy for kids with
autism they were the weighted blankets
and and the pressure vest so we’ve seen
kids that we thought were nonverbal at
times go down come up and go wow I
really enjoy that like try it again and
we’re going oh my god did that kid just
say that right researchers have also
told us that veterans with
post-traumatic stress disorder can can
benefit from this as well and and people
who have chronic spinal cord pain for
someone who has pain for many years can
also be pain-free as long as up to three
weeks the the benefits of inner space
you know inner space is the great
equalizer and what we what we want to do
is help people realize that it helps
their body mind and spirit what we call
this is scuba therapy now when we add
deep water okay and the the hyperbaric
benefits of journeying down deep in the
inner space I think the potential for
healing is is endless and researchers
have told us again that that they’re
seeing things and I don’t know how many
studies studies we’ve done it’s using
with University medical centers but what
we found is this is the next big thing
okay we’re only scratching the surface
when it comes to research and that’s why
one of our goals at dive heart is to
build the deepest warm water therapy
pool in the world okay so that we can
replicate what we’re seeing in open
water over the years with people with
disabilities and we’re not going to stop
there this is I’d like to introduce you
to another aqua not a dive harder his
name is Lenny Lenny like amber is it is
a champion athlete and he’s also a
successful businessman
Lenny also is an adventurer his travels
all over the world and he’s an
accomplished scuba diver in fact he’s a
dive master which is one level below
instructor Lenny also is an entertainer
the Shulman and Lenny’s also a champion
springboard diver and he teaches diving
as well now like amber Lenny was doing a
jump a flip one day and and landed
terribly wrong what it did is it left
Lenny with this ac3 okay see three
complete cervical injuries so Lenny
can’t move his arms or his legs
obviously Lenny’s life had changed
forever and and actually Lenny now needs
a ventilator to breathe for him okay so
what’s Lenny doing next right well Lenny
the Aquanaut is pushing limits and is
collaborating with dive heart and with
professors at Northwestern University
and as well as engineers there and
individuals in the medical community and
the dive community and our goal is to
make Lenny the world’s first deep water
ventilator dependent diver right deep
water ventilator dependent diver I mean
think about that for a second
that’s pushing the limits and what we’re
going to do is we’re going to take two
of Lenny’s ventilators and we’re going
to put them in kind of an underwater
camera housing type of thing with a and
you can tell them that engineering and
with a gas block so that when we take
Lenny deep in the event of an emergency
we can switch from one ventilator to the
next ventilator we’re also going to put
Lenny in a custom dry suit that keeps
that keeps his body dry along with a
full face mask to protect his airway
we’re gonna then take his ventilator
hose are going to bring it down into a
custom port in his dry suit and on the
inside we’re gonna bring the ventilator
hose up to his trach right so that the
ventilator can deliver air to him why
he’s diving you know it’s funny a CNN
producer came up to me after we had
filmed a feature and it was about taking
gold star families and veterans with
disabilities and bringing them together
because they both had this new normal
and
the object was to get them to heal and
it was it was a home run it’s stories of
courage it’s in our media kit at dive
heart.org and I encourage you to check
it out but he came up to me at the end
of the week and he says he says I got it
he goes I get it he goes scuba divers he
goes you guys are the poor man’s
astronaut I went what did you say
he said scuba divers your poor man’s
astronaut I said poor man’s astronaut I
go dude I’m totally stealing that line
right and you know as Ocwen Aqua Dots I
guess we are the poor man’s astronaut I
mean what we do is we experience in
inner space weightlessness the same way
that astronauts experienced that in
outer space right so what’s what’s the
future hold for scuba therapy we believe
that this is going to revolutionize
rehabilitation not just for people with
disabilities but for people of all
abilities and we think that research is
going to help improve the quality of
life for people and it’s going to give
them hope and healing and we’re hoping
that that when we build this deep warm
water therapy pool that we can help
usher that in we can help make that a
destination where people from all over
the world can come and experience the
benefits of deep warm water because
right now the only place that you can
get this experience is in open water and
you could get it in lakes you can get it
in oceans but it’s really kind of
dangerous there’s water movement there’s
aquatic life there’s a visibility
there’s a lot of things that you have to
deal with that you wouldn’t have to deal
with in a warm deep water can find pool
so that’s that’s our goal is to is to
make that a destination and we want to
do that here in Illinois so that we can
really revolutionize rehabilitation
change the world for people of all
abilities so just want to say thank you
for being here go out and imagine the
possibilities in your life
I do want to say one more thing and that
is the real heroes are here today of the
show and that is amber the aqua not her
sister adora and her mother Tracy thank
you guys I love you [Music]
Steven I have to connect with you later
about that hair gel guy okay it’s good
to be back at Northern Illinois
University where I was recruited by the
Chicago Tribune as a journalism major
and I’m not going to tell you what year
that was okay so what I’d like to do
first is tell you that I have some good
news for you and I have some bad news
for you okay
we’re gonna start with the bad news okay
yeah they’re always like hey man it’s
been a long week right you know how
about the good news
tempting but no so anyway the bad news
is that in your lifetime you’ll probably
never have a chance to walk on the
surface of the Moon I bet that no one in
this room no one on earth will have a
chance to go into outer space and
experience zero gravity like an
astronaut among their stars I shouldn’t
say no one because the astronauts
certainly will in fact I think that in
this room most people won’t have a
chance to hover weightless in the cosmos
visit the International Space Station
now wait a minute having said that this
is a TED audience right anything’s
possible right as long as we imagine the
possibilities in our life right imagine
the possibilities and that’s what I want
you all to do for the next few minutes
with me is imagine the possibilities as
I take you on a journey okay oh don’t
worry I’ll have a tether securely
holding you okay so you won’t get away
as you go and experience the opportunity
of freedom what I’d like to do first let
me go back one let me tell you a little
bit more about dive heart if I could
okay
dive heart oh I got to tell you good
news all right so the good news is that
even though you may never experience
zero gravity all right what I can do is
I can give you all the experience of
inner space right here on earth okay I
can give you what we call the astronaut
moment
all right and I can do that not in outer
space but in inner space okay what is
inner space right well the weightless
wonder of the water column is 800 times
denser than the atmosphere around us
that’s why app astronauts work in pools
all over the world with the scuba divers
underwater okay because in order to
become an astronaut you must first
become an Aquanaut you must understand
the principles of zero-gravity in inner
space before you can venture into outer
space okay so a dive heart our mantra is
imagine the possibilities and when we
started we thought that we’d be working
with people with disabilities to build
confidence independence and self esteem
and children adults and veterans and we
thought primarily we’d be working with
individuals with physical disabilities
getting in them out of their wheelchairs
and getting them in the water and giving
them a little bit of time to experience
zero gravity little did we know that
years later we would be working with
individuals with physical and cognitive
disabilities with children with autism
Kyah cerebral palsy Down syndrome as
well as veterans with traumatic brain
injuries and PTSD um I’d like to
introduce you to to one of our aquanauts
and that is amber amber is a here at 19
she’s a a world-class barefoot water
skier imagine that barefoot water skier
amber was also an accomplished athlete
here amber is showing her prowess as a
rock climber she’s in her prime at the
top of her game and you could see that
Amber’s having fun she’s she’s you know
living the life and then one day amber
did a jump it was a jump she’d done a
thousand times before but this time it
went terribly wrong
amber landed wrong and she got a spinal
cord injury and in fact Technic
at that moment she drowned her her team
because of their quick response was able
to save her life but Amber’s life then
had changed forever with a c5 spinal
cord injury Amber’s life would be very
different as she moved forward in fact
her new normal would include years of
intensive therapy it would include a
wheelchair it would include a regular
bowel program and also paralysis in her
arms legs and her torso that would limit
her from her usual normal activities in
fact barefoot water skiing was now part
of Amber’s history okay individuals that
undergo traumatic injuries experience
anger as did amber they also experienced
depression and Amber was depressed and
actually would not come out of her room
for months until one day her sister
adora who was determined to revive her
spirit drug amber against her protests
what we do at these events is we get
individuals of all disabilities in the
water to give them the experience of
weightlessness in fact University
medical researchers that we work with
have told us that there’s a very first
pool program a lot of times creates a
paradigm shift in an individual so it’s
not amber in the wheelchair anymore it’s
amber the scuba diver so now amber goes
Wow if I can scuba dive what else can I
do and she takes on other challenges and
and this time yet again Amber’s life has
changed forever
this first day amber young uncooperative
I guess you’d say participant was giving
people a hard time and later on she
admitted she said yeah I know I was
kind of a pain in the butt right but she
said I was really thankful to my dive
heart volunteer buddies who helped get
me in the water because when she was in
the water amber was smitten
amber fell in love with the freedom she
fell in love with the weightlessness of
leaving her wheelchair up on land while
she escaped gravity amber the Aquanaut
would take a journey into inner space
that would take her take her excuse me
take her around the world she would
travel she would make new friends I mean
look at the smiles on their faces right
her new friends would also give her her
astronaut moment over and over again in
fact amber is so independent now that
she travels with her sister adora around
the world as a dive heart ambassador
inspiring people not just with
disabilities but people of all abilities
to imagine the possibilities in their
lives here amber is having some fun
believe it or not she’s a hundred feet
underwater under the surface of the
ocean she’s standing in front of Believe
It or Not a barbecue grill with a
spatula in her hand right but she’s
vertical right she’s out of her
wheelchair she’s neutrally buoyant and I
think we all can see that Amber is not
lost her intrepid spirit or her sense of
humor it’s me again she said you know we
all need to be loved we all need to be
valued then we all need to have a
purpose and amber now has a purpose
again it’s amber again I’d like to take
you on Amber’s first open water dive now
remember when you’re diving never hold
your breath that’s more emotion for
so the first thing we do with amber is
we weight her properly so if you look
you’ll see the circles on her chest
those are ankle weights and we attach
this to her buoyancy compensator or her
BC and what we do is we try to get her
trimmed out so that amber is comfortable
in the water making sure she’s okay then
the next step is really to make sure she
has enough air in her buoyancy
compensator so that her breath when she
breathes in takes her up and when she
exhale it goes down that’s the sweet
spot right that’s how they achieved
their astronaut moment one of the
greatest joys in my life is to give
amber and people of all abilities the
opportunity to experience freedom like
this look at her she looks like an
astronaut right now we are underwater
and it’s really important to communicate
so I’m my slate that I take out I want
to make sure that I communicate with it
amber and tell her that she has to
remember to Furness her breathing so
amber when you when you breathe in
you’re gonna go up when you exhale go
down right in amber it’s also a
technique I use to distract people that
are having a little bit of anxiety
issues underwater
I say amber you’re an astronaut now
alright go show the world what you can
do now
Amber’s experience is hard to replicate
a lot right because we’re going to
different places where there’s warm
water warm deep water where they can get
the benefits of inner space in a pool is
where we really do most of most of the
heavy lifting you know children and
veterans and others with mobility issues
love it because they can get out of
their wheelchairs and get in the water
and experience for a while zero gravity
what we want to do is is replicate that
over and over again in fact University
medical researchers have told us that
the some of the benefits that would they
have seen with children with autism for
example now they don’t have to be real
deep to experience this because when
they get in the water there’s a ambient
pressure
and pressures a therapy for kids with
autism they were the weighted blankets
and and the pressure vest so we’ve seen
kids that we thought were nonverbal at
times go down come up and go wow I
really enjoy that like try it again and
we’re going oh my god did that kid just
say that right researchers have also
told us that veterans with
post-traumatic stress disorder can can
benefit from this as well and and people
who have chronic spinal cord pain for
someone who has pain for many years can
also be pain-free as long as up to three
weeks the the benefits of inner space
you know inner space is the great
equalizer and what we what we want to do
is help people realize that it helps
their body mind and spirit what we call
this is scuba therapy now when we add
deep water okay and the the hyperbaric
benefits of journeying down deep in the
inner space I think the potential for
healing is is endless and researchers
have told us again that that they’re
seeing things and I don’t know how many
studies studies we’ve done it’s using
with University medical centers but what
we found is this is the next big thing
okay we’re only scratching the surface
when it comes to research and that’s why
one of our goals at dive heart is to
build the deepest warm water therapy
pool in the world okay so that we can
replicate what we’re seeing in open
water over the years with people with
disabilities and we’re not going to stop
there this is I’d like to introduce you
to another aqua not a dive harder his
name is Lenny Lenny like amber is it is
a champion athlete and he’s also a
successful businessman
Lenny also is an adventurer his travels
all over the world and he’s an
accomplished scuba diver in fact he’s a
dive master which is one level below
instructor Lenny also is an entertainer
the Shulman and Lenny’s also a champion
springboard diver and he teaches diving
as well now like amber Lenny was doing a
jump a flip one day and and landed
terribly wrong what it did is it left
Lenny with this ac3 okay see three
complete cervical injuries so Lenny
can’t move his arms or his legs
obviously Lenny’s life had changed
forever and and actually Lenny now needs
a ventilator to breathe for him okay so
what’s Lenny doing next right well Lenny
the Aquanaut is pushing limits and is
collaborating with dive heart and with
professors at Northwestern University
and as well as engineers there and
individuals in the medical community and
the dive community and our goal is to
make Lenny the world’s first deep water
ventilator dependent diver right deep
water ventilator dependent diver I mean
think about that for a second
that’s pushing the limits and what we’re
going to do is we’re going to take two
of Lenny’s ventilators and we’re going
to put them in kind of an underwater
camera housing type of thing with a and
you can tell them that engineering and
with a gas block so that when we take
Lenny deep in the event of an emergency
we can switch from one ventilator to the
next ventilator we’re also going to put
Lenny in a custom dry suit that keeps
that keeps his body dry along with a
full face mask to protect his airway
we’re gonna then take his ventilator
hose are going to bring it down into a
custom port in his dry suit and on the
inside we’re gonna bring the ventilator
hose up to his trach right so that the
ventilator can deliver air to him why
he’s diving you know it’s funny a CNN
producer came up to me after we had
filmed a feature and it was about taking
gold star families and veterans with
disabilities and bringing them together
because they both had this new normal
and
the object was to get them to heal and
it was it was a home run it’s stories of
courage it’s in our media kit at dive
heart.org and I encourage you to check
it out but he came up to me at the end
of the week and he says he says I got it
he goes I get it he goes scuba divers he
goes you guys are the poor man’s
astronaut I went what did you say
he said scuba divers your poor man’s
astronaut I said poor man’s astronaut I
go dude I’m totally stealing that line
right and you know as Ocwen Aqua Dots I
guess we are the poor man’s astronaut I
mean what we do is we experience in
inner space weightlessness the same way
that astronauts experienced that in
outer space right so what’s what’s the
future hold for scuba therapy we believe
that this is going to revolutionize
rehabilitation not just for people with
disabilities but for people of all
abilities and we think that research is
going to help improve the quality of
life for people and it’s going to give
them hope and healing and we’re hoping
that that when we build this deep warm
water therapy pool that we can help
usher that in we can help make that a
destination where people from all over
the world can come and experience the
benefits of deep warm water because
right now the only place that you can
get this experience is in open water and
you could get it in lakes you can get it
in oceans but it’s really kind of
dangerous there’s water movement there’s
aquatic life there’s a visibility
there’s a lot of things that you have to
deal with that you wouldn’t have to deal
with in a warm deep water can find pool
so that’s that’s our goal is to is to
make that a destination and we want to
do that here in Illinois so that we can
really revolutionize rehabilitation
change the world for people of all
abilities so just want to say thank you
for being here go out and imagine the
possibilities in your life
I do want to say one more thing and that
is the real heroes are here today of the
show and that is amber the aqua not her
sister adora and her mother Tracy thank
you guys I love you [Music]
Please follow and like us: