Recreation

Zero Gravity has zero pool

Bill Demmons needs a swimming pool.

Demmons runs a non-profit program called Zero Gravity, which teaches scuba diving and gives aquatic therapy to people with formidable handicaps. For the last six years, his group used the South Portland Municipal Pool, but a staffing shortage early this year forced Demmons to look elsewhere. So far, his search hasn’t been too fruitful.

“It’s immoral to give someone something that will change their lives and then take it away,” says Demmons, 34, who runs Zero Gravity from his South Portland retail dive shop. He says he receives no funding for the program and participants pay nothing. It’s a volunteer effort that depends on the goodwill of others — such as those in charge of swimming pools.

Pool-less for months, the group was suspended until June, when the Greater Portland YMCA offered its pool to the water-therapy program. While Demmons says he’s appreciative of the offer — and is taking advantage of it every Sunday from 8 to 10 a.m. — it’s not adequate.

The Y pool is inaccessible to some of the people in his program because there is no lift into the pool. The water is too cold, which is bad for those with arthritis. And two hours is too skimpy since it takes a while for many of his clients to get in and out of the pool.

As a consequence, Demmons says only 11 to 15 group members show up at the Y each Sunday; at the South Portland pool, he says 25 to 40 participated each week.

Sixty percent of his clients have cerebral palsy. Others have mental retardation, traumatic brain injuries, cancer, quadriplegia, or visual impairments. Many have multiple handicaps. “Every possible ailment and affliction,” says Demmons.

Zero Gravity, he claims, changes many of their lives. They learn scuba diving as well as basic swimming techniques. But it goes beyond the kick, splash, and snorkel, says Demmons. Participants socialize and build self-confidence.

“I even have people who are blind leading the blind,” he says. “They need to stay together as a group. They’re all friends.”

A suitable pool might not be so easy to come by. Demmons’s first choice is to return to the one in South Portland, since it is fully handicapped-accessible and the water is warm enough. But according to Bill Cary, recreation superintendent for the South Portland Parks and Recreation Department, a reunion doesn’t look too likely.

“We’re facing a real staffing problem,” says Cary. “We heavily subsidized [Demmons’s] program over the years. I think it would be helpful if he’d look at other facilities to help out, instead of everything going to South Portland.”

Cary says he’s had a hard time finding lifeguards this year. When Zero Gravity used the pool Sundays from 8 a.m. to noon, he had to hire an extra guard since the regular guard works from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m., when the pool is open to the public.

He says he didn’t charge Demmons a pool-use fee, while other groups of disabled people do pay. “It’s not out of the realm of possibilities [to offer the pool to Demmons again], but we really feel the focus of what we do is offering public swims and learn-to-swim programs,” says Cary.

Demmons has also taken his plea to the Portland Lodge of Elks, which has a pool. He spoke with Ernie Phillips, chairman of trustees for the Elks, who says he told Demmons to give him some “literature” on Zero Gravity so he could present it to the board this month for review.

But Phillips says he has yet to receive anything from Demmons, so the proposal will have to wait until November when the board meets again.

Demmons might also strike out at the Y pretty soon. His group is using that pool on a contractual basis, says Scott Krouse, Y executive director. And that contract has just expired and a new one is up in the air.

“One of the reasons why we’re looking at it is that it’s a scuba program and we have a scuba program, so we just need to make sure there’s not a duplication of services,” he says.

Krouse says when Demmons originally approached him about using the Y pool, he “presented [Zero Gravity] as more of a therapy program, not a scuba one.”

And Demmons is not having any luck at the University of New England, where he’s a physical therapy student. The school wants $42 an hour for use of its pool. The end.

“It’s not fair,” he says. “There’s no equity [in this] and we’ve always been about equity. [The clients’] alternative is sitting alone in front of the computer or TV.”

That’s basically what Tammy Steves says she used to do before she met up with Demmons. “I’d sit in the dark with my curtains down, [being] self-destructive,” says the 34-year-old who lives in Windham.

Steves was in a motorcycle accident a year and a half ago. She suffered a head injury, lost a leg, and had a stroke. She says she couldn’t talk, walk, read, or write, and underwent some rehabilitative therapy. But when her insurance ran out, she says, everybody dumped her.

Then she heard about Zero Gravity.

“I’m talking better and starting to stand up for myself,” says Steves, who aspires to be an underwater photographer. “I want to stay in Zero Gravity so I can help other people like me who are scared.”

—Sharon Bass