Survived 2 days underwater

[grizz18]

Sorry if you've already seen this story, but its effn wild!

View PhotoHarrison Okene, 29, poses for a photograph after an interview with Reuters outside an hotel in Nigeria's …
By Joe Brock

WARRI, Nigeria (Reuters) - 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 stabilizing 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.

"I was there in the water in total darkness just thinking it's the end. I kept thinking the water was going to fill up the room but it did not," Okene said, parts of his skin peeling away after days soaking in the salt water.
"I was so hungry but mostly so, so thirsty. The salt water took the skin off my tongue," he said. Seawater got into his mouth but he had nothing to eat or drink throughout his ordeal.

At 4:50 a.m. on May 26, Okene says he was in the toilet when he realized the tugboat was beginning to turn over. As water rushed in and the Jascon-4 flipped, he forced open the metal door.

"As I was coming out of the toilet it was pitch black so we were trying to link our way out to the water tidal (exit hatch)," Okene told Reuters in his home town of Warri, a city in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta.

"Three guys were in front of me and suddenly water rushed in full force. I saw the first one, the second one, the third one just washed away. I knew these guys were dead."

What he didn't know was that he would spend the next two and a half days trapped under the sea praying he would be found.

Turning away from his only exit, Okene was swept along a narrow passageway by surging water into another toilet, this time adjoining a ship's officers cabin, as the overturned boat crashed onto the ocean floor. To his amazement he was still breathing.

FISH FEASTED ON THE DEAD
Okene, wearing only his underpants, survived around a day in the four foot square toilet, holding onto the overturned washbasin to keep his head out of the water.

He built up the courage to open the door and swim into the officer's bedroom and began pulling off the wall paneling to use as a tiny raft to lift himself out of the freezing water.

He sensed he was not alone in the darkness.
"I was very, very cold and it was black. I couldn't see anything," says Okene, staring into the middle distance.

"But I could perceive the dead bodies of my crew were nearby. I could smell them. The fish came in and began eating the bodies. I could hear the sound. It was horror.

What Okene didn't know was a team of divers sent by Chevron and the ship's owners, West African Ventures, were searching for crew members, assumed by now to be dead.

Then in the afternoon of May 28, Okene heard them.
"I heard a sound of a hammer hitting the vessel. Boom, boom, boom. I swam down and found a water dispenser. I pulled the water filter and I hammered the side of the vessel hoping someone would hear me. Then the diver must have heard a sound."

Divers broke into the ship and Okene saw light from a head torch of someone swimming along the passageway past the room.

"I went into the water and tapped him. I was waving my hands and he was shocked," Okene said, his relief still visible.

He thought he was at the bottom of the sea, although the company says it was 30 meters below.

The diving team fitted Okene with an oxygen mask, diver's suit and helmet and he reached the surface at 19:32, more than 60 hours after the ship sank, he says.

Okene says he spent another 60 hours in a decompression chamber where his body pressure was returned to normal. Had he just been exposed immediately to the outside air he would have died.

The cook describes his extraordinary survival story as a "miracle" but the memories of his time in the watery darkness still haunt him and he is not sure he will return to the sea.

"When I am at home sometimes it feels like the bed I am sleeping in is sinking. I think I'm still in the sea again. I jump up and I scream," Okene said, shaking his head.

"I don't know what stopped the water from filling that room. I was calling on God. He did it. It was a miracle."

[capt1972]

while taking a shit.....that sucks!

[assateague]

That's impressive. Although at the end, I thought he was going to appeal to me to cash a check for him that Chevron gave him for his ordeal, and that I could keep $1,000,000 of it for my efforts if I would just send him my contact and bank account information.

[Flightstopper]

Based on the title, I thought it was another AB thread.

[aunt betty]

Trapped on some land where no firearms were allowed.
Ever try to drown a raccoon?
They take about two days...
The guy musta been part coon. rofl

[3legged_lab]

That's impressive. Although at the end, I thought he was going to appeal to me to cash a check for him that Chevron gave him for his ordeal, and that I could keep $1,000,000 of it for my efforts if I would just send him my contact and bank account information.

:lol::lol:
Good shit!

Based on the title, I thought it was another AB thread.

X2

[assateague]

Though in all seriousness, I'm not certain I would have the will to do what he did.

[waterfowlman]

Though in all seriousness, I'm not certain I would have the will to do what he did.

Yeah you would. You'd think about that beautiful family of yours and that's all it would take to fight like hell.

[rebelp74]

That dude's a trooper

[Redbeard]

Holy shit balls

[DeadEye_Dan]

Damn.

[The Duck Hammer]

Wow

[jehler]

To bad the guy didn't have a BOWMAG to open an escape hole in the hull.

[assateague]

[Woody]

To bad the guy didn't have a BOWMAG to open an escape hole in the hull.

[The Duck Hammer]

To bad the guy didn't have a BOWMAG to open an escape hole in the hull.

That would have done him a lot of good. A 357 on the end of a stick does not equal can opener.

[assateague]

You're right, which is a good thing. Because a can opener wouldn't have done him much good. But "anti-ship torpedo on a stick" most certainly would have done him some good. Blew a hole clean through that hull, and he could have rode the explosion to the surface. Where he would have been picked up, shortly, because people 46 miles away would have seen the fireball erupt from the sea.

[jehler]

To bad the guy didn't have a BOWMAG to open an escape hole in the hull.

That would have done him a lot of good. A 357 on the end of a stick does not equal can opener.

your right, the conclusion of the explosion probably would kill him

[Woody]

You're right, which is a good thing. Because a can opener wouldn't have done him much good. But "anti-ship torpedo on a stick" most certainly would have done him some good. Blew a hole clean through that hull, and he could have rode the explosion to the surface. Where he would have been picked up, shortly, because people 46 miles away would have seen the fireball erupt from the sea.

Even if he had survived the explosion, decompression sickness would have gotten him.

[jehler]

You're right, which is a good thing. Because a can opener wouldn't have done him much good. But "anti-ship torpedo on a stick" most certainly would have done him some good. Blew a hole clean through that hull, and he could have rode the explosion to the surface. Where he would have been picked up, shortly, because people 46 miles away would have seen the fireball erupt from the sea.

this is also a viable outcome, assa's experience with explosives is much greater than mine

[assateague]

You're right, which is a good thing. Because a can opener wouldn't have done him much good. But "anti-ship torpedo on a stick" most certainly would have done him some good. Blew a hole clean through that hull, and he could have rode the explosion to the surface. Where he would have been picked up, shortly, because people 46 miles away would have seen the fireball erupt from the sea.

Even if he had survived the explosion, decompression sickness would have gotten him.

The high-explosive component on a Bowmag would actually negate the need for a decompression chamber. When it explodes, the concussion would actually hit hard enough to force the Nitrogen out of the blood stream, and by the time he reached the surface, his body would have been equaled out with the surface pressure. Not only would it have gotten him out quicker, it would have saved him a month in decompression. Yes, the Bowmag is that good. Sort of like a Heimlich maneuver for the Bends.

[Feelin' Fowl]

How do you know this crap?

I think this is where something clever about tapatalk should go.

[assateague]

You think that's actually true? If so, I'm doing better than I thought.

[grizz18]

[Feelin' Fowl]

I was told to trust in Assa!

You can't put anything on the internet that isn't true. Bonjour!

I thought it was a bunch of crap, but I have zero knowledge on the subject, and no ground to stand on in questioning any kind of answer. You could have thrown something about unicorns in there, and I would have to accept it unless I wanted to do some research, which I do not...

I think this is where something clever about tapatalk should go.

[Woody]

You think that's actually true? If so, I'm doing better than I thought.

You're not

[assateague]

Unicorns don't get the Bends, because they're horses. Horses have a completely different digestive system than us, which helps them to process the pressure. That's why horses and cows and such will generally lie down or go into the barn long before we even know a storm is coming. They can sense the pressure change in their gut. So I couldn't work a unicorn into the original story. Sorry, but the science ruled it out.

[Feelin' Fowl]

Didn't know that either

I think this is where something clever about tapatalk should go.

[Goldfish]

Unicorns don't get the Bends, because they're horses. Horses have a completely different digestive system than us, which helps them to process the pressure. That's why horses and cows and such will generally lie down or go into the barn long before we even know a storm is coming. They can sense the pressure change in their gut. So I couldn't work a unicorn into the original story. Sorry, but the science ruled it out.

You wonder why farm animals are so gassy? They are constantly expelling that nitrogen out their system

sent from a phancy fone

[assateague]

See? Goldie knows.