Sophie completes coldwater Lego challenge

Eleven-year-old scuba diver Sophie O’Dea pledged during the coronavirus lockdown to raise cash for her local NHS hospital trust once she was able to get out diving – and has now delivered by building a Lego model aircraft 14m down at the Capernwray inland site.

Sophie, who lives in Blackburn, spent almost an hour under water and took 44 minutes to construct the model on top of a twin-engined plane that was sunk at the site last year.

“It was good but cold,” she told the Lancashire Telegraph. “The hard bit was getting down because I couldn’t equalise, but the dive was fun…. I feel good that I did it, and so proud of myself.”

The young diver was observed throughout her mission by instructor Kris Fearnley and two diving relatives, her 18-year-old brother and her stepfather. A spare cylinder was standing by, because air-sharing would not have been possible under Covid restrictions.

The long-awaited dive came on what would have been Sophie’s last day at her junior school. During lockdown and unable to access a public pool to practise her underwater Lego building, she had used an inflatable pool in the garden.

Sophie, whose ambition is to work as a police search diver, has so far raised £600 for East Lancashire Hospital Trust through a JustGiving page.