2023-06-22 00:55:57
The recent tragedy concerning the disappearance of the tourist submersible Titan brings back to many the memory of this man who spent three days under water, in an air pocket.
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Harrison Okene, a 29-year-old cook, found himself in dire straits in May 2013 when the boat he was on capsized following being battered by heavy swells.
The eleven other members of the crew perished, while the ship was some 20km from the Niger coast.
“It was around 5 a.m. and I was in the toilet when the boat started to sink at full speed,” Mr Okene told the Guardian at the time.
As he rushed outside, he was unable to reach the emergency exit hatch and watched in horror as three crew members were sucked into the rough seas.
Water swept him into another toilet as the boat plunged 30 meters into the freezing depths.
Wearing only his breeches, Mr Okene watched in horror as the water slowly seeped all around.
He then noticed that he was in a one square meter air bubble.
Mr. Okene quickly lost track of time.
“Everything around me was just dark and noisy,” he said.
The castaway remained nearly 60 hours in the air bubble, despairing of knowing if he was going to be saved.
“I was crying and calling on Jesus to save me, I was praying so hard. I was hungry, thirsty and cold, and I was just praying to see some light,” the survivor explained.
After three days of waiting, he suddenly heard knocks on the deck.
The rescue team that came to the ship expected to recover Mr Okene’s body.
“I went into the water and hit the diver. He trembled with fear. So I backed up and held my hand in the water waving it in front of his camera so they might see me,” Okene said.
Once the castaway was located, a delicate rescue mission began.
His body had indeed absorbed potentially fatal amounts of nitrogen.
“His heart might not have pumped [sur la terre ferme] it was so full of gas,” said Christine Cridge, medical director of Plymouth Diving Disease Research Centre, who advised the rescue team.
Okene was strapped into scuba gear and then led to a diving bell which brought him back to the surface, where he spent two days in a decompression chamber.
“To survive this long at this depth is phenomenal. Normally, one does not dive more than 20 minutes at these depths as part of a recreational activity,” explained a training consultant for the Professional Association of Diving Instructors.
Okene then had to learn the terrible news: all the crew members had perished.
“They told me everyone else was dead and I cried because I thought I was the only one who got trapped in the boat,” he said.
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