Paralysed in a climbing accident, Fraser Bathgate found a new lease of life scuba diving

IN THE waters off Grand Cayman, where the shades of turquoise gradually give way to deep blue, swim a magical menagerie of creatures: pilot whales, killer whales, tiger sharks and vast sailfish that rise up to dine on smaller fish then, just as quickly, disappear. At 60ft below the surface, divers can come eyeball to eyeball with a conger eel.

• The Deptherapy 'Wounded Warrior' dive group in Grand Cayman, including Fraser Bathgate, right. Picture: Complimentary/Patrick Gorham

Remember the Jacqueline Bissett film, The Deep? Picture the devilish, thick-jawed beast that lurked in coral crevices just waiting to decapitate passing fish - and any diver dumb enough to get in the way. The dark snout and bright eyes wedged into a rock can bring a brief frisson of fear which is quickly replaced by the electricity of excitement for those divers witnessing it.

The experience for an ordinary diver of Cayman can be life-changing, but when the men behind the masks and regulators are crippled soldiers, veterans severely paralysed by IEDS and gunfire - men who previously could not see a life beyond a wheelchair and were seriously contemplating suicide - the consequences can be miraculous.

Last week a group of three British soldiers, two of them amputees, joined four US marines similarly wounded for an extraordinary diving trip in Grand Cayman, spearheaded by a Scottish diver who has experienced at first hand the despair of the newly disabled.

Fraser Bathgate, the pioneer of Deptherapy, as the rehabilitation programme is called, explains: "It is impossible to imagine the emotion of being with these wounded soldiers when they experience for the first time the freedom of being in warm, clear waters and the stunning underwater marine world. I have seen men who were shadows of their former selves become alive again."

It is a journey Bathgate was forced to embark upon aged 23 when he slipped off a training wall in London while preparing for a Himalayan climbing expedition. He had been distracted when he looked down and saw a thief pull out and run away with the safety equipment designed to break his fall - when he tumbled down 25ft, he landed hard on his heels, driving them into his ankle which drove into his tibia and compressed his spine.

After numerous operations, the doctors made things plain for Fraser: "They told me very matter of factly, 'Very sorry, but you'll never walk again."

Stubborn, with a strong drive, Bathgate refused to accept their verdict and repeatedly tried to walk, but fell and caused further damage to his back, until he finally had to accept that his new position in life was seated.

After the accident, he left London, where he had worked teaching outdoor and leadership skills to a management training company, and returned to Edinburgh to live with his mother. He sank into depression, sleeping until the afternoon then wheeling himself down to the pub where he sought oblivion at the bottom of a pint glass. Resurrection came in the form of his sister, a flight attendant, who dragged him on a holiday to Dubai in 1994, where an enterprising couple who ran a dive school insisted his disability was no barrier to slipping beneath the waves.

The freedom he had enjoyed in the mountains returned in the big blue of the ocean where, like any able-bodied diver, he enjoyed the gift of flight. He says simply: "In the water, I don't feel disabled."

Like a pilot light igniting a gas cloud, that first dive brought his inherent determination surging back and soon he became the world's first scuba diving instructor to qualify from a wheelchair and joined the International Association of Handicapped Divers (IAHD) which had been formed in 1993 to provide instructors for people with serious physical disabilities. Today he is now its vice-president and director of training.

Over the years he has helped transform diving for the disabled, including the development of a special undersuit, webbed gloves, weight harnesses and flexible fins. Perhaps the most successful device, which has revolutionised the prospects of the most severely disabled, is an underwater scooter which is attached the person's air tank and can be operated by the use of their chin.

In what is believed to be a world's first, Dominic Lovett, a former British Marine, who as a result of a training accident was paralysed from the neck down and left with only minimal movement in his right hand, was taught to scuba dive - and thanks to the revolutionary diving aid he was able to swim underwater by himself after ten days' training.

The genesis of the Deptherapy Foundation came in 2007 when Bathgate was invited to teach his new techniques to the 101st Airborne division - the Screaming Eagles - when he visited them at Fort Campbell in Kentucky as part of the US's Wounded Warrior initiative. After teaching techniques in the pool, Bathgate led the first Deptherapy trips to Key Largo in Florida, the world's largest dive centre.

From the beginning Bathgate's programme appeared to have an almost miraculous impact on the rehabilitation of men who have suffered a range of severe injuries from traumatic brain injuries to paralysis.

In 2007 he accompanied six veterans to Key Largo, and the following April, he repeated the trip with 12 veterans, including staff sergeant Brian Price, who suffered spinal cord severance in a roadside bombing in Iraq, and was left paralysed from the lumbar region down. As he explained: "When I started diving I did a complete 360 in my attitude with my injury, because I was pretty depressed. And the more I dive, the happier I get."

Warm water is essential for deptherapy since those with spinal injuries find it difficult to regulate their body temperature, which makes diving in the cold waters of Britain out of the question. After witnessing the positive effects on US soldiers, Bathgate was anxious to extend the experience to disabled British troops. An early supporter was Lance Corporal Matt Croucher, who won the George Cross after he threw himself on top of a booby-trapped grenade at a Taliban bombmaking compound in Afghanistan to protect his comrades. He has been on two Deptherapy trips and plans to become an instructor himself.

At the moment it is unclear exactly why Deptherapy is successful. While there are those who believe it has a positive holistic effect on the soldiers, offering an ease and freedom they had previously lost, the American military are now keen to quantify the specific effects and are sending a research team from the National Naval Medical Centre in Washington on the next trip. Unfortunately the British soldiers who participated in the trip as not authorised to talk to the media, but Fraser insisted they found the trip hugely beneficial.

Don McDougall, regional manager for the Cayman Island Department of Tourism, said they had been "absolutely delighted to support Fraser and the soldiers" and so had the whole diving industry on the island.

In Cayman, amid those warm blue waters, the soldiers dived twice a day and then traded war stories at night over steak and beers. "The camaraderie that quickly develops is quite amazing," said Fraser, tired but pleased with the success of the trip. "We've found that the pick-up rate after trips is 95 per cent of the soldiers going on to take up scuba diving.

"At the moment I'm keen to get Deptherapy trips organised for twice a year and we've been delighted by the support we got from Cayman Island's tourist board and all the dive shops who helped us and offered us the greatest hospitality.

"The soldiers have such a close synergy and do really hit it off. They are able to open up and talk about their experiences in a way they can't with anyone else."..