Ron Rispoli, recreational therapist Diveheart board member and right arm amputee won’t let anything hold him back. He shares that philosophy with his students who have a variety of disabilities at the Illinois Center for Rehabilitation and Education in Chicago.
I’ve known Ron for over two decades and his spirit is inspiring. He has helped the Downers Grove based nonprofit Diveheart introduce his students with disabilities to zero gravity and scuba therapy which has been transformational in their lives.
Because 99% of the people in the world don’t scuba dive or they have issues with water, it makes diving that much more powerful and cool when someone with a disability can master the activity. The thrill for me personally is when I get someone who has never been in the water in the pool standing up in the deep end. When they look down and see themselves standing up, they are amazed. The look on their face is priceless.
I can almost read their minds by looking at the expression on their face. They are standing up, out of their wheelchair for the first time since their injury or maybe for the first time in their life, if they were born with a disability like cerebral palsy. When you combine that with the fact that they are breathing underwater, it creates a paradigm shift in the way they look at the world.
They no longer self-identify as someone with a disability, but rather they self-identify as a diver. This new perspective gives them the opportunity to reach out and try new things that they may not have tried otherwise.
After all, what we do at Diveheart is not about scuba diving but rather about creating that paradigm shift in their lives so that they can go out and inspire the world, creating a ripple effect that touches and inspires others in their community.
Scuba diving was just the beginning for Ron Rispoli. After years of watching scuba diving change the lives of his students, Ron began a new journey to become an archer as an amputee. An archer who must hold the bow with one hand and pull the bow string back with his teeth. Ron’s goal is to someday be an archer in the para-Olympics. I am proud to call Ron Rispoli a friend and inspiration to us all.