The first paraplegic PADI Course Director

[Normoxic Diver]

March 2008

Mark Slingo a British diving instructor based in Thailand has become the first wheelchair-user PADI Course Director.

Mark who is a paraplegic after a falling three floors from a balcony, three years ago completed the PADI Course Director Training Course in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia.

The PADI CDTC is a 10 day program involving skill evaluations, grading evaluations, confined water teaching presentations, open water teaching presentations, and classroom presentations, as well a number of presentations by the PADI Staff members on Marketing, the psychology of evaluation and Project AWARE.

Mark’s achievement in gaining the PADI Course Director rating makes him the first wheelchair user to attain this, it was confirmed by the PADI staff. “Hopefully”, Mark says, “it will help highlight the fact that a wheelchair user can get to the top in diving and additionally highlight the benefits of diving for someone with a spinal injury’.

After having the accident which left him paralysed from the waist down two months following his PADI Instructor examination Mark has thrown himself back into the diving world and teaching and worked his way up the PADI Instructional ladder to reach this goal. The rating of Course Director qualifies Mark not just to teach people how to dive but the also conduct Instructor Development Courses where candidates are taught to be diving instructors.