Have you ever felt like the pool or the ocean just wasn’t a safe space for you? Maybe you’re not a good swimmer, or maybe you’ve lost one or more limbs.
The first time I went back into the pool after my lower limb amputation, I was terrified I would drown. It is a visceral, primal fear—the sudden realization that the body you knew has changed, and the water, which once felt predictable, now feels like an unstable abyss.
As part of The Limb Shift podcast launch in October, there will be an episode where you will hear from people who love the water. For these individuals, the water transformed from a place of vulnerability into an absolute sanctuary for healing, identity, and profound physical liberation.
The Weightless Freedom of a Paralympian
For Elizabeth Wright, a colleague of mine who reached out to me not long after I lost my limb, the water was never an adversary. Long before she became a Paralympian and a medal-winning swimmer, the pool was a foundational part of her childhood.
As she recalls, “When I was about two years old, we had a pool in our backyard, and one of the family stories we have is that one day when I was two, I disappeared and Mum couldn’t find me and she was freaking out. She went out to the backyard, and there I was at the bottom of the pool. No water in it yet, thank goodness. But there I was at the bottom of the pool like I’d climbed down the stairs and gotten in there somehow. And I always see that as a sign. How could that not have been a sign to my parents that swimming and the pool was going to be something really important to me?”
Once that home pool was filled, Elizabeth spent as much time in it as she possibly could. For her, swimming wasn’t just a learned skill; it was an innate calling where she could experience true movement. “Swimming just felt so natural to me,” she explains. “And the way I describe it to people is like, in water, I feel freedom because the water supports my body so much. I just love, even to this day, I just love being in the water. So there’s just something really nice about that, compared to walking around on land.”
Her formal journey into competitive swimming began with a primary school teacher who refused to let disability dictate capability. “My teacher just wanted me to learn to swim like the other kids,” Elizabeth notes, “so she would just try everything with me, in the same way that she would teach the other kids. And obviously it worked. I mean, it got to the point where from a really young age, I could swim freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly. And I was remarkably good at butterfly—which everyone says is the hardest stroke. But I still to this day cannot swim breaststroke. I think that is actually the most difficult stroke out of all four of them, certainly the most technically difficult stroke. And I just really struggled with that one, I think because of the nature of my disability. So I may have missing limbs, but I think there’s things going on inside in terms of my bone structure and all of that stuff, which just makes the stroke of breaststroke particularly hard. But in terms of my swim school teacher, she literally threw me in the deep end to just try everything. And it just seemed to work.”
By the time she was eleven or twelve, a pivotal moment at a school swimming carnival shifted her entire perspective on what her body could achieve. “I remember swimming at my first school swimming carnival in year six, and I was the only disabled kid at my school,” she says. “I was the only disabled kid, obviously, swimming at the carnival, and because of my age group, I was one of the oldest kids in my class. In my year, there was only me and one other girl competing in this race. So they put us in with the boys’ race of the same age and I beat my friend Leslie, I’m so sorry, it’s like I kicked your butt—but if I had been racing the boys, out of the five boys, I would have come third. And I think at that point, being up against non-disabled kids and actually beating them, especially the boys, you know, beating the boys, I think it really gave me that impetus that I could do something with this, that actually it’s something I’m really good at. It’s a sport that I’ve discovered that I’m really good at, and I think it was probably more when I was about eleven or twelve that I really got that solid idea of, yeah, I could do something like this. I could do the Paralympics if I really tried.”
The dream solidified into an unshakeable objective at thirteen years old, on the historic morning Sydney was awarded the 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games. As Elizabeth remembers, “I tend to tell people that it was when I was thirteen, and I got up really early that morning—I’ll never forget when it was announced. I think it was like 3:00 a.m. in the morning. It was announced that Sydney had won the right to host the 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games. I don’t know if you got up that early… and it was after that announcement, I turned to my parents and I said to them I was going to swim at those games.” She went on to achieve that goal, representing Australia in both the 1996 Atlanta Games and the 2000 Sydney Games.
However, the contrast between those two international events highlighted a massive cultural evolution for the Paralympic movement. Elizabeth notes that in the nineties, Paralympians frequently endured substandard conditions and an environment lacking basic respect. “I still think, you know, into the Atlanta Games, there was this real idea that the Paralympians were second rate, were not deserving of the attention that the Olympians got,” she reflects. “And we really felt that in Atlanta. You know, we kind of rocked up after the Olympians left and there was garbage everywhere. And, you know, it was August, so absolutely stinking hot in Atlanta, so all the plants were dying. I remember walking from the athletes’ village into the pool and we used to walk under the stands. And during the Olympics, obviously, a lot of the supporters had shoved their rubbish down under the stands and that hadn’t been cleared out, and it stank. And, you know, we just weren’t treated with the respect that we 100 per cent totally deserved.”
The shift that occurred four years later in Sydney reshaped the global standard for adaptive sports. Thanks to a dedicated partnership between the Australian Olympic and Paralympic Committees, the home games delivered identical standards of prestige, infrastructure, and celebratory energy to both sets of athletes. “It was just amazing,” Elizabeth says. “I’ll never forget, you know, you go from Atlanta where there was hardly anyone in the stands watching you swim, to going to the Sydney Games, where I remember the first night of finals, walking out onto pool deck, and I almost cried because the stands were absolutely packed to the rafters, and everyone was screaming and shouting and applauding, and it was so exciting. It was just so incredible and so different to the four years previously. And it just makes me really proud—not just to have represented my country, but the fact that Australia really was the first country that really stood up and said, no, we are proud of our Paralympians, we are going to support them, and they deserve the same respect and treatment as our Olympians.”
Beyond the glory of international gold medals, Elizabeth maintains that the physical architecture of the water remains an unparalleled health tool for anyone managing limb loss or limb difference. “Oh, a hundred per cent,” she states. “I think you can even ask any occupational therapist or physiotherapist, and they will tell you that swimming is probably one of the best sports that you can get into, whether you want to get into it competitively like I did, or whether you just want to go just to keep fit and healthy. Because essentially, you know, the water—don’t ask me the science about this, I know there’s a whole science behind it—but essentially the water will support your body. So, you know, you’re not going to end up with any pressure sores or backaches or all of that stuff that can happen when you’re maybe doing walking or running or playing basketball or whatever it may be. Swimming can build your aerobic fitness, it can build your strength, but just in a really gentle and supportive way.”
Whether building core strength through the rigorous movements of butterfly or simply mastering the balance required to pull oneself forward, the pool acts as an equalizer. Crucially, it provides a psychological break from the hardware of modern mobility. While waterproof prosthetics have become increasingly available today, Elizabeth prefers to swim entirely unassisted, reflecting a sentiment shared by many amputees. “For me, sometimes the best feeling in the world is getting home and taking that prosthetic off,” she shares. “I mean, I love my prosthetic leg and it gives me mobility. It’s amazing and I love it, and it is my right leg. But sometimes nothing beats taking that prosthetic off for a while. And I feel like in the pool, it’s a bit like that. You just get to take your prosthetic off for a while and just be in your body as it is.”
For those looking to dive back into the water after an amputation, her advice is grounded and practical: consult with your medical team, reintroduce yourself alongside a supportive companion or private instructor, research adaptive teachers, and avoid pushing for immediate, grueling distances. “As much as I do say, challenge yourself, maybe just ease into it,” she suggests. “I know certainly like when I haven’t been swimming for a while, I’m not going to dive in and swim like one kilometre immediately. I might only be able to handle 500 metres that day. So just ease yourself back into it.”
From Sepsis to the Fifty-Metre Pool
The therapeutic power of weightlessness is beautifully demonstrated in the story of Mick O’Dowd, who lost all four limbs to sepsis. Reclaiming his life required immense endurance, and an essential part of that rehabilitation was getting back into the water. However, his journey was severely delayed by a prolonged medical complication. “One thing I’ve always wanted to do was hydrotherapy, but I couldn’t do it because I had a tracheostomy for so long,” Mick reveals. “I had it in for seven months, I think it came in and out a few times—a couple of times in an emergency when they first took it out, then my lungs started filling with fluid, so they put it back in and all this sort of stuff. So the hole never actually closed properly, and they were waiting for it to close because they didn’t want to do another surgery on me. So I really wanted to go to the pool, but I couldn’t go to the pool because I had a hole in my throat, obviously. And I mean, that even caused problems because I’ve got sleep apnea as well, so I had to like tape my neck up at night so the air didn’t leak out of my throat, and all these sorts of things for months.”
The moment his throat was surgically repaired and the stitches were removed, Mick set his sights straight on the water, tracking down an adaptive program operating out of Bexley Pool. His initial hydrotherapy sessions began with the absolute fundamentals of human buoyancy: “Floating. Simple as that.” Mick describes the process: “They had these big polystyrene flotation devices for people, so you can do your whole body. I just started with my neck until I was able to float. And then, with the help of my prosthetist, we got some leg socks on, and I bought some swim fins and adapted them myself. Then I was starting to swim laps of the pool, still with a neck ring on. And that went on for months and months and months.”
Operating step-by-step in an indoor facility, Mick eventually discarded the neck ring, mastered swimming laps on his back, and collaborated with his exercise physiologist (EP) to construct custom arm fins. With four customized swim fins attached to his limbs, his presence at the facility eventually inspired a localized community movement. “There’s a couple of older guys at the pool, because they used to have an outdoor hoist but it had never been used,” Mick explains. “And then I started inquiring about it and they took it away. A couple of older guys in the swim club, they were like, well, that’s not right. So they lobbied to get a hoist for me. And one of the guys at the pool has connections to the local council, so they put a hoist in for outdoors now, and now I swim in the 50-metre pool.”
Mick’s affinity for the water extends well beyond hydrotherapy; he is a passionate scuba diver and even learned solo dinghy sailing through a specialized disability sailing program based out of Nowra. “After I got out of hospital, through a family friend, I also learned how to sail,” he says. “It was actually disability sailing… and the boats are from an Australian company. The guy lives in Nowra and anybody can sail, so it’s got me sailing solo in dinghies. So that’s another one I do.” Though family responsibilities with young kids and wheelchair logistics mean balancing his time carefully, his aquatic routine remains a top priority. He trains three times a week, relying heavily on a proactive exercise physiologist to maximize his physical gains. “For me, it’s been the attitude of the EP—the exercise physiologist, I think, is the big one,” Mick points out. “Because the one I’ve got at the moment, he likes to push and I like to push. So we always find ways of doing things to make the exercise harder, basically, so it’s better for you. That’s the one thing I would say. And you know, most local pools are accessible, but just find one that’s accessible because once you start going there, people know you and they’re all very helpful. But I think the EP is the key.”
Mick’s current routine avoids monotony by incorporating various challenging adaptations, which are made possible through structural support. “Look, that’s a good thing about the NDIS—it does enable you to do things like this,” he explains. “So there are people whose job is basically to take people with disabilities for hydrotherapy. And because they’ve got a bit of experience, they know what exercises to do, they sort of know the direction you need to go in, and then you sort of work it out together.” Because a total right shoulder replacement limits his range of motion, standard front strokes are out of the question, leaving backstroke as his primary discipline.
Mick outlines his complex weekly workout program: “So now I go three times a week. Like on a Monday, I’ll just swim laps, so I try to do twenty laps on a Monday. On a Wednesday we do this—I think it’s a bit crazy—where I swim two laps of a 50-metre pool and then we hang three kilos of weights around my neck and I tread water for two minutes. And that’s really good. The reason we do that, what the EPs say, is it’s to open your shoulders up. It pulls your shoulders back and strengthens your core. So we do that for two minutes and I swim two more laps; we do that four times. And then on the Friday, it just depends how I feel and what I do. Sometimes I have a resistance parachute and I swim against that. I’m getting back to swimming on my stomach again, but I need a snorkel for it, and I’ve been having trouble with my leaking snorkel. So we just try to mix it up all the time so I’m not just doing laps, because I can’t really do many strokes.”
Despite his current athletic routine, Mick admits that his very first entry back into the pool was accompanied by deep anxiety, echoing my own fears of drowning. “The first time I got in the pool, yes, [I was scared]. Because I had to find flotation devices, but it still felt… it felt great to feel weightless, but yeah, I was quite nervous.” To overcome that initial barrier, his trainer used a hands-on method to help him relax. “The exercise physiologist I had was pretty good because he had experience with this,” Mick shares. “They actually hold you—they put their hand under your back until you start relaxing, and then they slowly take it away. And basically, that’s what I started with, just floating. So you just progress from that feeling of holding on to, ‘well, we’ll just start moving this away,’ and you start floating and you start realising you can float. You start to engage the muscles to get you floating, and you just keep progressing from there.”
Rising Above the Waves: Adaptive Surfing
While Mick found his sanctuary within the tiled lines of municipal pools, Chris Blowes found his redemption out in the raw power of the ocean. Before his life changed in a fraction of a second, Chris was a self-described, obsessed surfer living on the South Australian coast. “I was surfing three or four times a week at least,” he recalls. “I was obsessed, like addicted to checking the charts, what the wind was, what I was doing, you know? I was constantly doing it on my lunch breaks, just trying to work out where I was going to surf that week. And then, yeah, after everything that happened, I just lost interest. I used to follow the surfing, like the WSL, a lot, but then I just didn’t even want to be around it.”
Following a catastrophic shark attack that resulted in an above-knee amputation, Chris completely disconnected from the ocean landscape, struggling to navigate the severe mental toll of the trauma. “I think it was two years after, and I was probably struggling mentally a little bit,” he notes. “And I think, you know, when I lost surfing, I almost lost a part of me in a way. It’s something that I was obsessed with and I just couldn’t really see at the time that I needed to get that back. And it was a conversation with my mate, Nick actually—Nick who said, ‘You need to get surfing back in your life, and it’ll help so much just getting back in the water.’ Yeah, I thought he was crazy at the start, but you know, now it’s turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done. Getting up and going for a surf is probably my go-to when I’m having a bad day now. So, two years after my attack, I went for my first surf.”
The primary engineering obstacle for an above-knee amputee lying flat on a surfboard is that the residual limb cannot naturally flex at a knee or ankle joint, making standing up a complex technical puzzle. To solve this, Chris turned to a classic longboard design. “The thing with an above-knee amputation is you don’t, as I said, you can’t bend your knee or your ankle, so you catch your foot on the back of the board. So I needed something where I could lay down, and when I was trying to get up, it wouldn’t catch on the back of the board. When you’re on a longboard, essentially your whole body is on top of the surfboard, whereas on a shorter board, the back half of your legs hang off. So that’s how I had to start. But once I got better at it, I was able to shorten the boards anyway. But yeah, it’s still not easy. You know, I still fall off a lot, but I’m so stoked that I’ve been able to stand up and surf a wave again.”
That monumental first session took place at Middleton on the Fleurieu Peninsula, with his trusted water crew paddling right alongside him. “Yeah, so it was down at Middleton, which is on the peninsula, and surprisingly enough, Nick and Brock were right there coming into the water for my first surf back as well,” Chris details. “And yeah, it was an amazing feeling once I stood up. My wife Chloe was on the beach, and she was crying with joy because she knew how much getting surfing back meant to me. And yeah, it was just an amazing feeling standing on a wave again—something that I thought that I would never be able to do. With all the trauma and stuff I went through, I just never thought I’d be able to physically get back in the water. But as I said, it’s the best thing for me now, and I absolutely love doing it.”
Mechanically, Chris notes he was highly fortunate that the amputation affected his trailing leg, allowing him to pop up in a relatively familiar fashion. “Pretty much the same,” he explains when describing his stance. “Luckily, it’s my back leg, because I pretty much just stand up like I used to. I’ve just got to straighten my leg out a little bit as I’m standing up and lift it over the back tail of the board, but nothing really changes too much. Being an above-knee amputee with it as your back leg, I always thought if it was my front leg, I wouldn’t be able to do it.” However, a trip to the global stage shattered that assumption completely. “I went to America to compete in the World Para Surfing Titles,” Chris shares. “And I competed against a French guy who lost his leg in a shark attack, actually, on Reunion Island. And he was an above-knee amputee on his front leg, and he proved me wrong. He was able to get up somehow. He used to swing the leg right the way around, virtually from the back all the way around to the front, and somehow get up. It was crazy, yeah! And he surfs well, too. So, yeah, he put that theory to bed. You just know when you lose your leg, you just find ways and adapt. I can do most things I used to, but just do it a little bit differently, I suppose.”
This realization completely mirrors my own experiences and matches the stories of nearly every adaptive individual I encounter: there is no single, prescribed path to success. “There’s not,” Chris agrees. “And you learn as you’re going along. You’re much more resilient than you give yourself credit for, and I feel like it takes getting put in that uncomfortable position or something outside of your comfort zone that makes you adapt to that. Yeah, I’ve blown myself away with how many things I’ve been able to still do, but just by trying it in a different way. You just seem to work it out.”
Today, Chris is a dedicated advocate for the global adaptive surfing community, which accommodates surfers across a vast spectrum of physical requirements. “Adaptive surfing as a whole is surfing with a disability,” he notes. “So you could be blind, you could be paraplegic, you could be a double below-knee amputee—it covers all kinds of different disabilities. There are different categories, and you normally compete against people that have similar injuries to you. Obviously, the quadriplegics and paraplegics and stuff like that who surf, they obviously don’t stand up, but they lie on modified boards and they surf. Some of these quads have minimal movement in their body, but they have assistance out there, so someone goes out with them and pushes them into waves. But you know, it’s crazy how they even keep themselves above water when you haven’t got much movement in your arms or legs, and how they even get out in four or five-foot surf. It’s crazy. Like I said, I came away from that event more inspired than ever, seeing all these people just get out there and have a crack.”
Universal Design: Breaking Barriers at the Beach
Even for those with zero desire to ever paddle out to a breaking reef, the shoreline remains an essential space for psychological peace and community connection. This is a mission championed by Shane Hryhorec, an Adelaide native who spent his youth embedded in the Australian surf lifesaving culture. “Growing up, I used to be a surf lifesaver,” Shane shares. “I spent my time on the beach in Grange, in Adelaide, and from the age of about ten onwards, I was hanging out at the beach, learning to patrol beaches and helping to save lives, really. I absolutely loved it, and it made a beautiful connection with the beach from a young age. From that point on, the beach was always a place where I’d go for exercise or when I was stressed, whatever it might have been. So, the beach was always a go-to place for me. And then when I had my accident in 2007, I broke my neck. I hit the bottom of a swimming pool, I broke my neck and I drowned. I was in a coma for five days, but when I came out of the coma, I knew straight away that my body was broken. Straight away, I started thinking about all the things that I couldn’t do anymore, and one of those things was going to the beach. Just lying in my hospital bed, I was like, ‘Oh shit, well, I guess I won’t be able to go for romantic long walks along the beach anymore’.”
Refusing to accept a life permanently barred from the coastline, Shane went on to found Accessible Beaches Australia, an organisation dedicated to ensuring public beaches are physically welcoming to individuals of all mobility levels. When looking at accessibility through an amputee-specific lens, the barriers are unique and often invisible to the broader public, particularly the massive financial risks involved. “Some of the key differences are that some people don’t want to leave a prosthetic unattended on a beach that costs $80,000 or $100,000,” Shane points out. “I know one of my friends said his leg is worth about 100 grand or something, and he is terrified to take it to the beach because he’s just worried about sand and salt getting in there. So, I know a lot of people with an amputation who use a leg would typically leave their leg behind and use a wheelchair or a beach wheelchair.”
For those who do choose to manoeuvre across the sand, un-stabilised coastal terrain poses a constant safety hazard, which is why structural interventions are so important. “And there’s a lot of crossovers; for instance, some people out there have trouble walking on surfaces that aren’t firm,” Shane explains. “So, the great thing is the beach matting allows people to be able to use a crutch, for instance, or it provides a firm surface for someone to be able to have that bit of extra support needed to get down to the water’s edge.” He highlights a specialized pilot program in Frankston, Victoria, which addresses these practical challenges through universal design features. “There’s a program that we’ve just launched in Frankston, and they have daybeds. What’s really great about that is you have the firm surface of the beach matting, and then you can get down however you want to—whether it’s walking, using your prosthetics, or using a wheelchair—down to a daybed, and then you can transfer or sit. And there’s another daybed next to you, so there are two daybeds. For instance, if you needed to take your leg off, you can pop it onto the other daybed, so you’ve got a spot to put it. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to still get salt and sea air on it, but these are little things that are being done to help people with the experience. And the neat thing about the Frankston program is there are also cabanas, so you’ve got shade.”
This addition of structural shade is more than just a standard comfort; it is a critical safety feature for an amputee. “Now, I know that if I leave my wheelchair in the sun when I go for a swim and I come back, my chair is so hot I can’t even sit on it,” Shane notes. “And the same thing would apply to someone who has a limb that they’ve taken off. For instance, if you’ve left it in the sun and you want to put it back on again on a 42-degree day, that’s not going to be too comfortable. So, when we talk about making beaches inclusive, like I said, it’s not just for the wheelchair user, it’s for everybody. Even our ageing population—over 50 per cent of people over 65 identify as having a disability. So, we are going to see an increased need for support for our ageing population when it comes to access to the beach.”
To help consumers navigate these spaces, Accessible Beaches Australia evaluates and ranks coastal sites using a detailed community rating system based on key environmental criteria. “Well, James, I’m so glad you asked. Let me tell you all about it,” Shane smiles. “There are key elements that make a beach accessible. You’ve got car parking—adequate, accessible car parking that’s close to the beach—and you’ve got footpaths. From where you park your car, you need to be able to have footpaths that connect all the different amenities: footpaths to the beach matting, footpaths to the bathrooms, and shaded eating areas. That’s pretty important. The next one is shade. If you’re going to a beach and spending a day there and it’s a 40-degree day, it’s really important that people have a place to get reprieve from the sun. Then there’s access to water fountains and things like that. This next one’s not essential, but there’s another one which is food. It’s not essential, but it’s really great when you’ve got the ability to get a place to buy some food to eat, though a lot of people do bring their own food. Other elements are beach wheelchairs and beach matting. Those are the key elements—I think I’ve said seven there, so I clearly can’t count—but those are some of the key elements that are required to make a beach accessible. And with our accessible beaches directory, we actually rate places on a star rating based upon those elements. So, the more of those elements they have at a beach, the higher the star rating.”
Crucially, the directory monitors how these features are managed, calling out locations that take a superficial or passive approach to inclusion. “And then, there’s another thing as well,” Shane concludes. “For instance, some beaches run what I would call a tokenistic approach towards beach accessibility. Bondi had a very tokenistic approach for a long time, where they had matting that you needed to roll out yourself. Now, let’s just face it—getting a wheelchair user or a person with one leg to roll out beach matting is very difficult, if not almost impossible. So, the best approach for beach matting is to have it out all season. Because if someone wants to go watch the sunrise or sunset, they don’t want to wait for someone to roll out the matting to be able to go and enjoy the beach.”
Conclusion
From Elizabeth’s historic Paralympic performances to Mick’s heavy-duty hydrotherapy, Chris’s return to the surf, and Shane’s structural changes to our coastlines, the message is clear. The water does not care how many limbs you have; it only requires your willingness to adapt, your courage to step outside your comfort zone, and a community dedicated to building real access.