Going under brought him above and beyond.
He was 23 years old when the sniper’s bullet pierced his chest, severing the brachial plexus artery and causing nerve damage. Right-handed, it left his dominant arm inoperative below the elbow.
Retired Army Sgt. William Isaac Chandler, 34, said he loved playing football and riding motorcycles before he left for that tour in Iraq. But when he came home, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) made him antisocial. His injury meant he couldn’t ride motorcycles or play football anymore. He said he couldn’t perform simple tasks like writing or opening a pickle jar. He was nervous about how he’d change his newborn’s diapers.
For Chandler, friendship was a far thought as he drowned in depression.
Until, that is, he went for a dive.
“Diving is kind of the same as combat, because it’s you and your combat buddy or your dive buddy, and you rely on each other and yourself to stay alive.”
— Ret. Sgt. William Chandler, who learned to dive
with Divers4Heroes
“Diving was what catapulted my life upward and out of that ditch,” Chandler said. “It was a life-changing experience. It gave me a sense of freedom I hadn’t felt in a long time. ”
Chandler got into diving through Divers4Heroes, a Lakeland-based charity organization founder Debbie Rivera said aims to help veterans improves their lives through SCUBA diving.
Rivera said she had the idea for a diving charity focused on veterans just after she learned to dive. She was on Duval Street in Key West and saw a group of veterans struggling to
navigate the cobblestone streets.
“SCUBA diving could change the life of somebody who was struggling with gravity or pain,” Rivera said. “In the water you’re weightless, there’s no gravity and you have freedom. You can have freedom from a wheelchair or a crutch. I thought SCUBA diving offers that feeling, that opportunity to overcome the feeling of ‘I can’t do anything.’ It’s ‘I can do,’ not
‘I can’t do.”
After looking into a way she could help injured veterans through diving, Rivera said she couldn’t find any organizations and decided to start one of her own.
Since starting the charity in 2006, Rivera said, the organization has gone from helping seven veterans at its first event to working with about 70 to 100 veterans per year. Divers4Heroes covers the cost of introduction classes, certification courses and courses in advanced diving. The organization also helps with costs for diving trips to places like Nassau and Key West. The trips, Rivera said, are fully immersive wellness programs that serve as a catapult for veterans to overcome perceived limitations.
Federally recognized, Rivera said they’ve worked with veterans from as far away as Oregon.
A Duke’s Brewhouse regular and veteran, Lance Larson, took notice of the program and brought it to the attention of General Manager Paul Ostendorf. Ostendorf said he knew hosting an event for the organization would be a perfect fit for Duke’s and Plant City. They set the date for Saturday, May 20.
“We definitely like helping out with the community,” Ostendorf said. “It was really important to us to be able to help out the military and the veterans. Everything the military does and the sacrifices they make, the sacrifices their families make every day. It’s important for me, for us, to do something here for the veterans.”
Duke’s will kick off the event at 4 p.m. A portion of the restaurant’s Miller Lite sales will go directly to the charity, Ostendorf said, as well as all the money raised through raffles. Area businesses like Diamond Hill Golf-Country Club, Fun Bike Center, the Pink Piano, 1916 Irish Pub, Pepin Distributing and more have donated items for the raffle. There will also be raffles for tickets to theme parks and sporting events, and live music from local band Rimfire.
Ostendorf hopes Duke’s and Divers4Heroes will be able to help the thousands of veterans who, according to the United States Census Bureau, call Plant City home, like Chandler has been helped. Chandler said diving offered him a familiar setting and showed he was capable beyond the limitations of an injury, leading him to enter new settings he wouldn’t have tried before.
“It’s amazing to see how far he’s come and how much he’s been able to accomplish,” Rivera said.
After starting to dive, Chandler said he became much more social. Rivera said he is now a presence in the North Lakeland community they both call home. He has friends now and started taking online college courses. He even refueled one of his first passions, football. Chandler now spends much of his time volunteering as a coach with Lake Gibson High School’s football team, where he helped coach the team to the runner-up spot in the Class 6A state championship.
“(Diving) gave me that sense of acceptance, for one, of my injury and the ability to say it’s not gonna stop me from doing the things I love to do,” Chandler said. “Diving is kind of the same as combat, because it’s you and your combat buddy or your dive buddy, and you rely on each other and yourself to stay alive. That’s what diving kind of brought back to me, which was really a nice feeling to have again. It was definitely the start of where I am now.”
Contact Daniel Figueroa IV at dfigueroa@plantcityobserver.com