Briel Adams-Wheatley was born without limbs, but that hasn't stopped her from enjoying the water. You can catch her swimming almost every summer.
"Since I have no arms and legs, it's harder for my body to stay cool and regulate heat," Adams-Wheatley told People. "I run really hot all the time, and in the summertime I was getting lots of hot flashes — sometimes to the point where I was passing out because I was so overheated."
So her parents decided to take her to the pool.
Swimming
"My parents were like, 'We need to go to the pool so she can cool off,' but then they were like, 'How is she gonna swim?' " she said. Her father threw her into the pool. "I sank straight to the bottom, and then he jumped in and grabbed me and said, 'If you're gonna be in the water, you need to know how to swim and protect yourself and float.'"
Eventually, over the next two years, she learned how to swim despite not having limbs. "I would beg my brothers to take me up on the high dive," she says. "I'd sit at the end for like 10 minutes, and the whole pool would freeze just watching me."
"When I meet people, they sometimes talk down to me like I don't understand them," she also said. "Then they realize I'm fully capable, just like anyone else. The world needs to open its horizons. Just because someone has a disability doesn't mean they're not normal. All people with disabilities want is to be treated like everybody else."
