I’ve been delaying this post for several days, hoping that the source was somehow mistaken.

Last Tuesday, November 20th, Dan from the Divevets posted this message, on the message board:

“Saw this on Facebook: Barbara Soto – ‘Today I lost a wonderful niece. Shanon Wesserling. She could not take her living conditions anymore or her pain. Though she had many problems, she was a wonderful person. Giving, caring, always there to lend a helping hand to those who needed it. I will miss her terribly. God Bless you Shanon and now you are truly at peace. Love Aunt Barbie.’

“Shanon started diving with us 8 or 9 years ago. She had many problems, some we witnessed and many we did not. Goodbye Shanon, I hope you are in a better place.”

Shanon was a regular member of the Divevets and Pacific Wilderness Diving Club; I remember her from the early days of when I started diving.

The last few years were very hard for her; I guess harder than anyone could have imagined.

She will be missed, and I prefer to remember the happier Shanon from several years back.

These photos are from 2007.

R.I.P Shanon, a.k.a “Bite Me,” “Diving Smurf”

Sue Austin, who has been a wheelchair user since 1996, has created an under water wheel chair with the help of some diving experts.

Finding a means of propulsion was initially difficult because most are hand held devises, and Ms. Austin does not have the strength to hold on to them.

Eventually she found a model that was made for divers with disabilities and added two of them to a wheelchair.

“When we started talking to people about it, engineers were saying it wouldn’t work, the wheelchair would go into a spin, it was not designed to go through water – but I was sure it would,” she told the BBC News.

She modified the heel plates so that they formed fins at the back and redrilled the rubber straps to attach her legs to the acrylic “wings” she needed to steer the vehicle.

There is one problem with the wheelchair however – the frame is beginning to rust; Ms Austin says that ideally the next model should be made from Titanium.

Click here to view on YouTube.

Read the complete sourse article from the BBC News here.