Earlier this month our principal solicitor Sarah Waddington, attended to the Deptherapy awards 2017. Deptherapy is our chosen charity, who provide an underwater escape for former soldiers who are suffering from PTSD or who have life-changing injuries. Scuba-diving with Deptherapy gives these men and women the opportunity to escape in total peace, while embracing the physical challenges that Scuba Diving brings.
The 2017 award ceremony was a fantastic opportunity to show gratitude, support and admiration for the amazing people the charity supports, and the people who make the charity what it is. Sarah Waddington Solicitors were also given the opportunity to sponsor one of the most inspirational awards of the evening. The Endeavor Award. Steve Atkin the winner of this award, shares his thoughts below. But we would like to take this opportunity to show our love for this incredible man. The courage he has shown over the last few years is inspiring to so many people. He has overcome obstacles most could not even imagine, and with the help of Deptherapy has become an even better version of himself. We are all so proud of Steve and can’t wait for the 2018 awards!
“I came into diving through the Endeavor fund, to be honest, I really didn’t want anyone getting in touch with me, as since being discharged from the Army with a broken back and PTSD,
I’d become a recluse and had lost the ability to cope in everyday life, and lost my identity. Richard Cullen, one of the Directors offered me a chance to go on a Deptherapy dive trip to Egypt, which looking back was a life line.
I tried every excuse not to go, but fortunately Stephanie my wife came home from work, booked my train and put me on it, thank God she did.
What Deptherapy had on their hands was a guy low in confidence, sceptical of the world with no direction in life and a broken soul. Deptherapy began to rebuild my confidence and mend that broken soul. For me it wasn’t just the diving, it was seeing other veterans with catastrophic injuries inside and out become and excel at diving and showing me a future that I thought I’d lost.
The undersea world is hard to explain other than to put on a wetsuit and dive gear and join me on an adventure I hope never ends.
Underwater I feel like Peter Pan, flying, free from pain in my body and mind and for the first time in nearly ten years I have glimpsed the old me, one who was indestructible and had the world at my feet, happy.
I now feel I have direction in my life a goal and maybe start being the Husband and Father I once was, the one I thought my family had lost in Afghanistan. If you don’t believe it, join me I dare you xx.”
You can find out more about Deptherapy, at www.deptherapy.co.uk