New to this board and wanted to share my scuba diving quest with all of you

[scuba diving Matt]

Hello to all,

Here is a copy of the story about my quest recently published in
the St. Paul Pioneer Press newspaper. There is no picture on the
internet copy...just the hard copy. The Woodberry Paper inter viewed me two weeks ago. Will forward that
as well. Again, thanks for all your support. It is making the
difference of my dream becoming a reality.

Regards,
-Matt-

Posted on Thu, Nov. 11, 2004

Man has designs on diving

Funding, his muscular dystrophy stand in way of realizing dream

BY NANCY YANG

Pioneer Press


Matt Johnston has wanted to scuba dive since he was 6 years old.

But the Woodbury man, who has muscular dystrophy and has to use a ventilator to breathe, didn't do much about his dream until the death last year of his best friend and nurse, Michelle Zimmer.

"She always said to me, 'Live your dream out.' That gave me the incentive," Johnston said of Zimmer. "I never would have gotten far without her. She always believed in me. … She left her mark on me, and I want to leave a mark on the world."

Fulfilling his dream won't be easy.

Johnston has a condition called Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a degenerative disease that eventually affects all voluntary muscles, the heart and breathing muscles. According to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, most people with this type of disease do not live past their early 30s. Johnston is 27. He also has scoliosis, which causes abnormal curvature of the spine.

For him to dive, he would need an underwater-capable ventilator. That type of ventilator hasn't been fully developed yet and would be quite expensive, Johnston said, so he is in the process of recruiting engineers to work on the design and lining up funding.

Most people he has talked to — doctors, friends in the scuba-diving industry, engineers and exploration divers — say it is definitely possible for him to dive. And he is determined. "I think it was destiny," Johnston said. "I think God is telling me to do it."

To fulfill his dream, Johnston estimates he will need approximately $200,000.

Project Innerspace, a Rhode Island-based nonprofit agency that seeks to address critical human health issues through ocean exploration, already has agreed to sponsor him by contributing to some early-stage program development and project management.

Mike Lombardi, who is on Project Innerspace's board and is also a friend of Johnston's, said the group agreed to take on the project because it believes whatever ventilator is developed will help everyone by advancing technology.

"I think this can develop a new life-support system," Lombardi said.

Lombardi, who is also an exploration diver, said the biggest hurdle will be raising enough money to fund the research so a prototype can be developed.

"We need to take his ventilator device, or a variation of his device, and repackage that so that it can get wet and submerged," Lombardi said. "Beyond that, it will be operating at an increased pressure, so the way that the system functions is going to change completely."

Johnston already has a special ventilator in mind for use — the HT50 from Newport Medical Instruments, based in Newport Beach, Calif. The HT50, which costs about $12,000, has been used in hyperbaric chambers, or high-pressure oxygenated sealed rooms, up to 2.1 atmospheres, which he said equates to about the same pressure as 33 feet underwater. Johnston has even come up with a way he thinks he could use it.

He said he would put the ventilator inside a backpack and strap it to himself, keeping the ventilator inside his dry suit. He would have a one-way exhalation valve to let the carbon dioxide into the water and an air line feeding into the ventilator. Johnston said he thinks his air supply could be either above water or he could have someone diving with him to carry the air tank underwater.

Johnston isn't planning to stay underwater long. He said he'd be satisfied with even 10 minutes of going between 2 and 10 feet under the sea. "I love everything that has to with things underwater," he said. "It's just amazing."

But it's still a dream that is about two years away. A tentative time line has Johnston doing the dive in the summer of 2006, after the funding, research, design and development are completed.

He hasn't yet picked a place for the dive, either. He is looking at Florida or San Diego, said Charlee Dollens, Johnston's father. Both are warm places that have good diving facilities, Dollens said, and Johnston already has contacts in San Diego.

In the meantime, Johnston is working on his project plan. He's asking for sponsorship, donations, help with publicity, and assistance with research and engineering.

"Nothing is impossible," he said. "If a man can go to the moon, I can certainly go scuba diving."