Mr. Harrison Ogjegba Okene survived a shipwreck with a bottle of carbonated soft drink and a cavity of air left over from the tragic disaster.
This is undoubtedly one of the rarest stories of survival in a shipwreck at sea: a man spent almost three days in a shipwreck on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
In May 2013, a ship with a 12-member crew sailed off the coast of Nigeria. The sea was suddenly rough, sinking the ill-fated ship at 4:30 am. Mr. Harrison Okene, the cook on the ship, was in the bathroom when the boat capsized, sinking straight to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the other members were trapped in their bedrooms, no one survived this tragedy.
Mr. Harrison Ogjegba Okene.
Mr. Okene, wearing only his shorts, was thrown violently when the boat capsized. “I was stunned when I was thrown in the dark, in the narrow area of the toilet,” he said in horror. Still, Harrison Okene was luckier than the others, he was still able to get out. He made his way to the technical room and fortunately, there was still some air left in this place.
The boat was lying still on the bottom of the water 30 meters deep, Mr. Okene had a pair of shorts covering his body in the cold and dark room, with no food or water, the oxygen was dwindling, his chances of survival were close to touching. number 0.
Okene made it to the technical room the next time and fortunately, there was still some air left in this place.
But if you can still tell this story yourself, you’ve survived! As is evident, all those who were stranded on the bottom of the sea but returned intact have stories of a lifetime to tell. Among the items found at Mr. Okene’s place were a bottle of carbonated soft drink and a life jacket containing two small flashlights.
The two flashlights could not continue to shine after less than a day of use. In the dark, he prayed while thinking of his loved ones and family, recalling the panic of the sinking ship, the last calls of his colleagues before the fateful hour. Amidst the silence, he occasionally heard the strange sounds of the sea.
On the third day, when the last drops of Coke dissipated in accordance with Okene’s hope of returning, he saw a glimmer of light and air bubbles rising to the spot where he was standing. He knew it was a diver, but ominously they were on the other side of this compartment.
Amidst the silence, he occasionally heard the strange sounds of the sea.
“He swam in so fast, I saw the light but before I could swim to him, the diver had already turned around. I tried to chase him in the dark water but couldn’t track him, so had to go back”. At this time, divers of a Dutch company are trying to retrieve the bodies of the unfortunate sailors, they have found 4 people before encountering Mr. Okene.
When the divers returned, Okene tried to swim to beg for help. “I tapped him on the neck so he was obviously scared.” When the diver saw Okene’s hand, he informed the ship on the water that there was a dead body here.
“When he reached out to me, I pulled his hand,” Okene recounts his moment of ecstasy and perhaps the most startling moment in the diver’s life.
Mr. Okene led the diver to the place where he had survived for the past 3 days. “I knew very well that when he gave me water, he looked closely to see if I was human, obviously he was too scared,” said Harrison Okene. The rescue team poured warm water on Okene, put an oxygen mask on him, and moved him into a pressure room before exposing him to outside air.
Here is a video from the diver’s mask, showing the attempt to rescue this lucky man.
According to the scientific site Live Science, this is what Mr. Okene has faced on the seabed.
According to Mr. Okene’s own estimate, the air chamber he stood in was only about 1.2 meters high. On average, the average person absorbs about 10 cubic meters of air every 24 hours.
However, because Okene is under pressure from the seabed, occasional scuba diving physicist Maxim Umansky of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) estimates that Okene’s air cavity has been damaged. Press down 3 times. If this compartment is about 6 cubic meters, it will have enough air for Mr. Okene for 2 and a half days, about 60 hours.
There is still another danger, which is the CO 2 emitted when Mr. Okene breathes. When the CO2 concentration reaches 5%, Mr. Okene will die. Fortunately, the CO2 is absorbed by the water, and by splashing the water, Mr. Okene has increased the surface of the water, thereby increasing the water’s ability to absorb CO2 , fortunately keeping the CO2 level below 5%.
Okene was rescued by divers.
One factor could have caused Mr. Okene’s death: if his temperature dropped below 35 degrees Celsius, he would die. Loss of heat can cause a person to panic, lose control of their limbs, and lose memory. With severe heat loss, a person can die. Even when the water is at a temperature of 16 degrees Celsius, a person can still lose consciousness within 2 hours of being immersed in the water.
But Mr. Okene was lucky again, as the compartment in which he stood was quite high above the sea floor. If he was close to the bottom, he could have died in just a few hours.
Okene was very lucky when the compartment he stood on was quite high above the seabed.
And most importantly, the divers soon found him, or rather the two found each other.
By the time he reached the 60-hour mark on the bottom of the water, Mr. Okene was close to death. “This guy was very lucky to have a large amount of air in this empty cavity,” said scientist Umansky. “He hasn’t had CO2 poisoning for 60 hours.”
Harrison Okene swore never to return to the open sea again.
Harrison Okene has returned to his family completely, but his wife says that he often has nightmares in the middle of the night. It is understandable why this is so: he was the sole survivor of the tragic shipwreck, he had to survive for 60 hours in a dark compartment, anxious in the cold water, surviving. Coming back is a miracle.
He swore never to return to the sea again. After such an experience, I completely sympathize with what this lucky man went through.