The incredible story of a man who survived “60 hours under the sea”
May 2013. Off the coast of Nigeria, a tugboat capsizes, fills with water and sinks to the bottom of the ocean, taking the entire crew on board with it in a hellish descent.
Harrison Okene is the only survivor among the 13 crew members. His story is barely believable. On May 26, 2013, this 29-year-old Nigerian, a cook on the tugboat Jascon IV, saw his life turned upside down. Caught in a storm, the boat he was on for work sank to the bottom of the sea without any of his crew members being able to find time to go up on deck.
Okene was on the toilet at the time of the tragedy. He recounts, during an appearance on the BBC radio show Outlook, that the toilet he was sitting on “suddenly” ended up above his head. He continued: “The light went out and I heard everyone screaming, screaming, screaming. I managed to open the door and get out, but I didn’t find anyone. The force of the water pushed me into one of the cabins and I was stuck there.” The Nigerian was fortunately trapped in what is called an air pocket, a bubble of air trapped underwater. A refuge of oxygen that would allow him to survive 60 hours, almost 3 days, at the bottom of the sea.
Just a can of Coke to keep him going
Okene remembers what he felt when the boat sank. “It was falling very quickly. I was panicking. I could hear people screaming, crying. It was five to ten in the morning so some of my companions were still asleep. They were screaming for help. You could hear the water bubbling as you entered the different spaces and then, silence.” At 30 meters from the surface, the ship finally ran aground, leaving the Nigerian alone in a “small place, with water up to his waist". "It was dark and cold,” he adds.
There, in the dark, Harrison Okene fed on his courage. The poor man had only a can of Coca-Cola to hold on until help arrived.
A rescue that lasted three hours
The head of the rescue operation, Tony Walker, explains to the American channel ABC News that the divers tasked with finding the crew members didn't expect “to find anyone alive”. “A diver saw a hand and thought it was another body. But when he wanted to grab it... It grabbed him!" he confides.
"In total, the rescue operation lasted three hours and involved three divers simultaneously, not counting the assistance of the crew," Walker said.
(MH with AsD - Source: BFMTV/BBC - Illustration: Unsplash)