I was trapped underwater for three days! Rescued because of going to the toilet

The luckiest person!

It is usually annoying to wake up because of going to the toilet. On May 26, 2013, 29-year-old Harrison Odjegba Okene woke up from his sleep and left the bed to go to the bathroom. Due to the peculiar turn of fate, Harrison eventually became the only survivor of a ship sinking at sea. He has a unique title-he is the only person in the world who has survived under the sea for nearly 3 days.

The Gulf of Guinea is located in the southeastern Atlantic Ocean and is rich in oil deposits. So where are there many offshore oil drilling operations? On May 26, on rough seas about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Esclavos, Nigeria, three tugboats tilted during the tension towing mission of a Chevron tanker. The hull swayed from side to side. Just before 5 am, the tugboat Jascon-4 was swept away by a huge wave and capsized. Due to the ongoing piracy problem in the Gulf, the safety regulations on the tugboat are that the 12 crew members must lock themselves in the room while sleeping. Unfortunately, when the Jascon-4 crew tried to escape, this rule slowed them down. The crew must crawl out of the cabin first, except for the chef Harrison on board, who went to the toilet in underwear.

When the tugboat capsized and the sea water rushed in, Harrison had to lean against a water wall and forcibly open the metal door of the bathroom. The pressure of the sea water was so great that Harrison could not follow some of his colleagues to the emergency exit. He watched in horror as the huge wave swamped the three crew members and rushed them from the boat into the rough sea. Then the flood rushed Harrison into a narrow corridor and into another bathroom adjacent to an officer's cabin. In the four-foot-square bathroom, Harrison was dizzy and bruised, but was miraculously alive.

hanging upside down

The ship sank nearly 100 feet (30 meters), and finally hung upside down on the seabed. After the tugboat capsized, rescue operations were immediately launched. Other ships and a helicopter in the area also participated in the rescue operations.

The diving team quickly found the sunken ship and marked the location with a buoy. They knocked on the hull; Harrison hit back hard, but they didn't hear it. Since divers are not prepared for deep diving, they can only stay at the depth of the sunken ship for a limited time. With no signs of survivors, rescue efforts were cancelled.

After staying in the bathroom for nearly a day, Harrison plucked up the courage to leave his surviving place (a place with air). In the darkness, he swam and fumbled into the engineer's office. Incredibly, there is another airbag (filled with air but not submerged by sea water), which Harrison estimates are about 4 feet (1,2 meters) high. After solving the urgent problem of breathing air, Harrison can focus on other problems.

The first one is that he is cold. In May, the average surface temperature of the East Atlantic Ocean was 81.9 degrees Fahrenheit (27,7 degrees Celsius). But Harrison is under 100 feet (30 meters). Harrison was shaking and wet, wearing only boxer shorts. He is facing the problem of hypothermia, or his body loses heat faster than he can bear. Harrison touched the cabin carefully. He found some tools and used them to peel off the wall panels. With the mattress and wall materials, he can make a platform to sit on. This platform helped Harrison stay afloat and lifted his upper body out of the water, allowing him to reduce heat loss. Harrison was hungry, thirsty and cold, trapped in the darkness, he was frightened. He tried to think about his family. Harrison was very religious. Whenever he felt particularly scared, he would pray and call on Jesus to save him. Over time, the skin on his tongue was destroyed, and then he smelled a rotten smell-he thought it was the decaying body of his former shipmate. Every tiny sound in the darkness was amplified-the creak of the ship's hull, the bang of the wreckage hitting the wall, and the most terrifying sound-the splash and the sound of eating when the fish ate the carcass. At the same time, the diving support ship "Lerwick ToucanThe “Lewek Toucan” (Lewek Toucan) arrived at the shipwreck area.

jcon -4’s parent company West African Ventures (West African Ventures) hired a deep-sea salvage saturation diving team from undersea services company DCN Global to salvage the missing crew. Remains. The six divers, the crew on the deck and the technicians of the Lerwick Toucan all knew that this would be a difficult task. In addition to the drudgery of salvaging the corpse, the ship was still hanging upside down in the soft silt , Stirred up the fine silt, and visibility was extremely low. In addition, due to the safety agreement, the ship was locked from the inside.

The second diving team consisted of Nico van Hilden and Andre Erasmus and Darryl Oshuisen, their superior Kobe Waller Oshuisen is also on the ship, through a connected microphone to help guide the divers, while wearing Nick The camera watched the diving process. The team spent more than an hour breaking an external watertight door, and then a second metal door to enter the sunken ship. Once inside, the ceiling is at the bottom and the floor is above the head, making people extremely disoriented The muddy water was full of dangers, including furniture and equipment.

The divers explored the ship slowly and painstakingly. When Nick climbed the stairs to the main deck, they found four bodies; He was squeezed tightly with his diving equipment on his back. He was looking for directions in a small aisle when suddenly something protruded from the darkness and met him...

Harrison almost gave up hope, this Then he heard a sound that sounded like an anchor. Finally, he heard a knock. He knew it must be a diver. He banged against the wall, but they didn't hear it. As he swam across the corridor and passed by At the other end of the cabin, Harrison saw the light from a flashlight on the diver’s head. Unfortunately, the diver moved too fast and Harrison left the area before he could reach him.

But a magical moment Here comes. When the rescuers thought it was another corpse, he touched the corpse’s hand, and that hand unexpectedly squeezed his hand. When his boss Colby yelled through the microphone, "He still Alive, he’s alive!” Then Colby asked Nico to pat Harrison on the shoulder and give him a thumbs up to comfort him. The diver was surprised to find that Harrison was still alive.

The maximum depth of recreational diving is 130 feet ( 40 meters). Generally speaking, recreational divers will not stay at an altitude of 100 feet (30 meters) for more than 20 minutes. In terms of air pockets, divers reach Harrison in time. Humans inhale approximately 350 cubic feet (10 cubic feet) every 24 hours. Cubic meters) of air. However, because the ship is under pressure on the seafloor, scientists estimate that Harrison’s airbag is compressed about four times. If the volume of compressed air is about 216 cubic feet (6 cubic meters), it contains Oxygen is enough for Harrison to survive about Two and a half days. When Harrison was found, he had been underwater for about 60 hours. Another danger comes from the accumulation of carbon dioxide or carbon dioxide. A carbon dioxide concentration of about 5% is fatal to humans. Harrison breathed and exhaled carbon dioxide, slowly increasing the gas content in this tiny space. However, carbon dioxide is absorbed by water. Harrison accidentally splashed water into the air, inadvertently increasing the surface area of ​​the water, thereby increasing the absorption of carbon dioxide and helping to keep the gas below the 5% lethal level. The divers claimed that Harrison was poisoned by carbon dioxide, and when they found him, he was short of breath and unconscious-he would not live long (if not rescued).

CO₂+H₂O=H₂CO₃

The divers first warm Harrison with hot water, and then put him on an oxygen mask. At the same time, on the sea, diving support staff are contacting medical and diving experts to discuss how best to help survivors.

Saturation diver

Harrison has encountered a new problem. Decompression sickness (DCS) or caisson disease may occur when nitrogen bubbles are formed in the blood due to pressure changes. If Harrison rises directly from 100 feet (30 meters) underwater to the surface, the air bubbles in his blood can cause joint pain and rash in the best case.Bad conditions can lead to paralysis, neurological problems, cardiac arrest, and even death. They decided that Harrison would leave the seabed as a saturation diver. Harrison spent about 20 minutes getting used to breathing through the mask. Then the diver puts on him a diving helmet and harness. They were a little worried. When they rescued Harrison from the boat, he would panic and be dangerous for the dive, but Harrison remained calm under pressure. His plain manner left a deep impression on the team. Harrison was taken off the ship, he was taken to a diving bell, and the diving bell took him to the surface.

He finally reached the upper deck at around 7 pm on May 28 (Tuesday). But Harrison was a little confused. He thought it was Sunday night and he was only trapped for 12 hours. He was shocked that he had been underwater for more than two days. Leaving the diving bell, Harrison moved to the decompression room to rest for 2½ days to ensure that the pressure on his body surface was relieved.

Among the 12 crew members on the Jascon-4 tugboat, divers rescued 1 survivor and found 10 bodies. Due to the dangerous situation, the search for 11 crew members had to be cancelled. Harrison fully recovered from the ordeal and returned to his hometown of Warri, Nigeria. He did not attend the funeral of his colleagues because he was worried about the reaction of their family-Nigerians are very religious, but also very superstitious.

There are rumors that Harrison saved himself with black magic. Harrison was also troubled by the guilt of the survivors, and he wanted to know why he was the only person alive.

Since Harrison suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. His wife Akpovona Okene said he often had nightmares-Harrison would wake up suddenly, screaming, and thumping thinking he was underwater. Harrison has since found a cooking job on land and vowed never to work on a ship again. When he was at the bottom of the sea, he reached an agreement with God: "When I was underwater, I told God: If you save me, I will never go back to the sea again, never again. "

Do you think you can survive underwater for 3 days like Harrison? What will you think of to cheer up your spirit?