Other

BBC World Service South Asia

Migrated podcast image for: Outlook

Outlook

Factual: Life Stories

True stories of ordinary people and the extraordinary events that have shaped their lives.

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

Outlook: Why I dive on my birthday

Magazines & Reviews

Why I dive on my birthday

14/04/2020 GMT

BBC World Service - Outlook, Why I dive on my birthday

How diver Cliff Devries got back in the water after being paralysed from the neck down

Diver Cliff Devries had a promising career ahead when he was paralysed after surgery on a spinal cord tumour. Now he’s a diving coach and does a special birthday dive each year.

Cliff Devries was a talented young diver hoping to make the US Olympic team when he discovered he had a life threatening tumour on his spinal cord. He was given less than a year to live. He opted to try an experimental and risky surgery, and when he woke up he was paralysed from the neck down. But he realised that his diving training had prepared him for the gruelling recovery, and eventually enabled him to walk again, become a coach to new young divers and dive each year to celebrate his birthday.
 
Tito Quiroz used to wave up at the inmates of the prison next door to his university in Ensenada, Mexico, and they'd wave back from their cell windows. Then, one day, he got the opportunity to go inside to teach them his passion, the violin. He tells Outlook’s Clayton Conn about the audience he found behind those walls, and how one particular man used the music Tito shared with to turn his life around.
 
Picture:  Cliff Devries on the diving board
Credit: ESPN

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Outlook

Why I dive on my birthday

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service South Asia

About BBC World Service