Swimming with marine animals offered a group of injured U.S. military veterans a structured break from recovery and everyday stress during a Wednesday visit to Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, according to the Associated Press. The swim was part of the Wounded Warrior Project’s support for veterans and their families, pairing access to aquatic life with time meant for rest while participants are recovering.
Jason Bush, manager of the aquarium’s Military Salute program, described the brief window the event provides for relaxation. He said the experience gives participants “30 or 40 minutes to just relax,” and he said the water and the program’s activities can also reduce the experience of physical pain for at least a moment.
Bush added that whether participants were swimming in the water or scuba diving, “you’re weightless,” and he said “So physically, it takes away even for a moment physical pain that you feel when you’re on land.” The program, he said, aims to give veterans respite as they manage injuries and recovery.
Veterans at the event snorkeled or swam with marine animals including a whale shark named Yushan, stingrays and giant groupers. Aquarium officials said Yushan was rescued from a Taiwanese fish market several years ago and is the only whale shark in captivity in the Western Hemisphere.
Bush said the veterans typically enter the water nervous and come out describing the experience as the best they have ever had. “They go in nervous and they come out saying it’s the best experience they’ve had in their life,” Bush said.
William Mund, a U.S. Marine gunnery sergeant who said he was wounded in Iraq, said the water helped with his blood flow. Mund said his swim with the whale shark was a “once-in-a-lifetime thing.”
U.S. Army Col. Quentin Collins, who said he was wounded twice in Iraq—once by a mortar and then a second time when he drove over an improvised explosive device—said his favorite part of the swim was “surfing” with the whale shark. Collins, who said he is paralyzed, described how the whale shark’s wake pulled him as he moved through the water.
Collins said, “Actually, its wake pulled me with it,” adding, “So I was swimming forward and the next thing I know, I’m going backwards and I realized the whale shark is right below me.” Collins also said he had not been in the water since 2020 because of his injuries.
His son, Ian Collins, watched the swim and described it as meaningful to see his father experience something he said he could not do before. Ian Collins said, “It’s a wonderful thing to see my dad being able to enjoy things he couldn’t anymore,” and “It’s a great thing to see.”