The incredible footage above shows the moment when divers working on a body-retrieval mission involving a sunken tugboat came across one of the crew members still alive after some 60 hours trapped in a pitch-black ‘bubble’ within the boat:
After two days trapped in freezing cold water and breathing from an air bubble in an upturned tugboat under the ocean, Harrison Okene was sure he was going to die. Then a torch light pierced the darkness.
Ship’s cook Okene, 29, was on board the Jascon-4 tugboat when it capsized on May 26 due to heavy Atlantic ocean swells around 30 km (20 miles) off the coast of Nigeria, while stabilising an oil tanker filling up at a Chevron platform.
…Of the 12 people on board, divers recovered 10 dead bodies while a remaining crew member has not been found.
Somehow Okene survived, breathing inside a four foot high bubble of air as it shrunk in the waters slowly rising from the ceiling of the tiny toilet and adjoining bedroom where he sought refuge, until two South African divers eventually rescued him.
The discovery comes after 5:30 in the video, though it’s worth watching those first five minutes to get a sense for what the diver must have felt.
(via @MattStaggs)
