The country’s deepest swimming pool and the world’s deepest therapy pool is being planned for a North Chicago, Illinois, community.
Diveheart, a non-profit scubatherapy organization, is raising money to build a zero-gravity pool to provide therapy for people with disabilities.
According to Diveheart President and Founder Jim Elliott, diving can provide tremendous benefits for people across a broad spectrum of disabilities because the human body releases the neurotransmitters associated with well-being when subjected to water pressure.
“If you get people deep enough, you’re going to see an extra output of serotonin, which helps with pain relief. And PTSD symptoms evaporate while they’re diving,” Elliott said.
But he says that this kind of therapy is not always easy to find.
“You can’t always run to the Caribbean, and you certainly can’t run to Lake Michigan. So we said, ‘why don’t we build a deep warmwater therapy pool so we can replicate the benefits we see in open water.’” Elliott says there are four deep pools in the world today, and the deepest is in Dubai, at almost 200 feet deep. At about 130 feet deep, the Diveheart pool won’t be the world’s deepest, but it will be the deepest in the U.S.
Managing pain is among the greatest physical benefits of diving, Elliot said.
“We see somebody who’s been
To learn more visit https://www.diveheart.org/deep-pool-project. dealing with chronic pain for 15 years,” he explained. Then after diving, “during the week they are pain free and some of them don’t get that pain back two weeks later.”
For people who are confined to wheelchairs, Elliott says, putting them in zero gravity allows them to stand for the first time since their accidents, and the experience is transformative.
Diveheart’s Executive Director, Tinamarie Hernandez, says that diving is also beneficial for mental health. Some research has shown it’s useful for people with autism as well as PTSD, she says.
“They come up with a clearer mental attitude,” Hernandez said. “They also come up with an attitude of ‘I can DO things!’When they leave the pool, they feel that there are more things that they can accomplish. It really helps with people who deal with challenges every day, all day.”
According to Hernandez, a lot of research has shown that deep diving provides these therapeutic effects, but a lot more research is needed, and the pool will be used to further scientific studies on the benefits of deep-water scuba diving.
Compared to ocean or lake diving, one of the advantages of this pool is that it won’t have currents or cold temperatures, so researchers will be able to isolate the variables to show the therapeutic benefits of deep diving. “We want to attract researchers,” Hernandez said. “We have a lot of anecdotal evidence [about the benefits], but we’d like to get more hard evidence. Our pool will be dedicated to research, rehabilitation, training, and education, which makes us different from any other deep pool in the world.”
Elliott says they’ve already spent about 10 years on this project. The pool’s patented design has a telescoping, tiered shape, — like an upside-down wedding cake — with a 10-foot ledge at every atmosphere. The first tier would be aboveground and made of glass so visitors can look inside. The water can be heated to about 72 degrees using a combination of solar thermal and geothermal technologies.
Elliott says placing the pool in the Chicago area is important due to its proximity to two international airports, which will enable researchers from around the world to come and study the effects of deep-water therapy on a variety of disabilities such as Autism, Down’s Syndrome, Parkinson’s Disease, and Alzheimer’s Disease. And it’s also close to a lot of nearby teaching hospitals.
Diveheart is fundraising to make their deep pool a reality. So far, they’ve raised more than $1 million of their $300 million goal.
To donate to the world’s deepest therapy pool, go online to www. diveheart.org. For donations by check, make payable to ‘Diveheart’ and mail to 900 Ogden Ave. #274, Downers Grove, IL 60515.
