The lucky one survived 60 hours on the Atlantic bottom before being rescued by a diver

Harrison Ogjegba Okene survived a shipwreck with a carbonated soft drink bottle and an air chamber left behind by a tragic disaster.

Surely this is one of the most rare stories about surviving a shipwreck in the sea: a man who has lived for nearly three days in a shipwreck on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

In May 2013, a ship with a 12-member crew was turning waves off Nigeria. Suddenly fluttering, sink the ill-fated ship at 4:30 am. Harrison Okene, the cook on the boat, is in the bathroom when the boat turns over, sinking straight into the Atlantic. Most of the other members were trapped in their bedrooms, no one survived through this tragedy.

Mr. Harrison Ogjegba Okene.

Okene, on top of his shorts, was thrown hard when the boat capsized."I was stunned when I was thrown in the dark, at the narrow area of ​​the toilet , " he recounted. So Harrison Okene is more fortunate than others, he can still escape. He came to the technical room and fortunately, there was still some air left.

The boat was lying in the bottom of the water 30 meters deep, Okene had a pair of boxer shorts in the dark and cold room, without food or drink, oxygen was decreasing, his chances of survival were close. number 0.

Okene went to the technical room and fortunately, there was still some air left.

But he could still tell this story himself, meaning he survived! As a matter of fact, all those who were trapped in the sea but still fully returned had stories to tell. In the pile of things that found him Okene, there was a carbonated soft drink bottle and a life jacket containing two small flashlights.

Two flashlights cannot continue to light after less than 1 day of use. In the dark, he prayed, thinking about his relatives and family, recalling the panic moment of the sinking ship, the last calls of colleagues before the fateful moment. In the midst of silence, he occasionally heard strange sounds of the sea.

By the third day, when the last drops of Coca vanished in the hope of returning to Okene, he saw the light gleaming with air bubbles floating in his place. He knew it was a diver, but it was ominous that they were on the other side of the cabin.

In the midst of silence, he occasionally heard strange sounds of the sea.

"He swam so fast, I saw the light of the lamp but before I could swim to him, the diver turned away. I tried to chase in the dark water but couldn't follow him, so had to come back ". At this time, a Dutch company diver was trying to retrieve the bodies of the ill-fated sailors, who found four before meeting Okene.

When a diver came back, Okene tried to swim to ask for help."I tapped his neck lightly so he was obviously scared". When the diver saw Okene's hand, he reported on the ship on the water that there was a corpse here.

"When he reached out to me, I pulled his hand," Okene recounted his extreme moment of joy and perhaps the startling moment in his diver's life.

Okene led him to the dive where he had survived for the past 3 days."I know that when he gives me water, he looks carefully to see if I'm a human being, obviously he's too scared," Harrison Okene recounted. The rescue team took Okene's warm water over him, put on an oxygen mask for him, and transferred him into a pressure room before exposing him to outside air.

This is a video from a diver's mask, showing the effort to rescue this lucky man.

According to the Live Science science page published, these are things Okene has faced on the seabed.

Physical factors

According to Okene's own estimate, the air chamber he stood was only about 1.2 meters high. On average, an average person absorbs about 10 cubic meters of air every 24 hours.

However, because Okene is under pressure from the seabed, the physicist occasionally dives for fun. Maxim Umansky from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) estimates that Okene's air chamber has been pressed down 3 times. If this compartment is about 6 cubic meters, it will have enough air for Mr. Okene for 2 1/2 days, about 60 hours.

There is another danger, that is, CO _{2 is} released when Mr. Okene breathes. When CO ₂ concentration reaches 5%, Okene will die. Fortunately, CO ₂ is absorbed by water, and by wiping water, Okene raises the surface of the water, thereby increasing the water's ability to absorb CO ₂ , luckily keeping CO ₂ below 5%.

Okene is rescued by divers.

He could have faded because of losing heat

One factor that could make Okene die: his body temperature if he drops below 35 degrees Celsius, he will die . Heat loss can cause a person to panic, lose the ability to control limbs and memory loss. When a person has severe heat loss, a person can die. Even when the water is at 16 degrees Celsius, a person can still lose consciousness for 2 hours in the water.

But Mr. Okene is lucky again, when the compartment he stands is quite high compared to the sea floor. If he was close to the bottom, he would have died after only a few hours.

Okene is very fortunate when the chamber he stands is quite high compared to the seabed.

And most importantly, the divers soon found him, or rather, two people found each other.

When he reached the 60-hour mark on the bottom of the water, Okene was close to death."This guy was very lucky to have a large amount of air in this empty space," Umansky said. "He did not suffer from CO ₂ poisoning for 60 hours."

Harrison Okene swore never to return to the sea.

Harrison Okene had completely returned to his family, but his wife told him that he often had nightmares. You can understand why this is the case: he was the only survivor in the sinking of the pitiful ship, he had to survive for 60 hours in a darkened cabin, anxious amidst the cold water, surviving It is a miraculous return.

He vowed never to return to the sea. After such an experience, we fully sympathize with what this lucky man went through.