How 1 Guy Survived At the Bottom of the Ocean for 3 Days... Alone

The ocean is a vast and scary place, but when you travel below the surface, it becomes much bigger and more dreadful. Since more than 80% of the world's oceans are still uncharted, unseen, and unexplored, it is quite possible that if you travel down on a ship, you will reach a place where no one has ever seen boats before. And there are still frequent cases of people going missing, occasionally even entire aircraft with many passengers. Persons who go missing in those places very seldom ever come back to us on the ground, but here is the tale of one man who did, and he is possibly both one of the unfortunate and fortunate persons to have ever lived.

Harrison Odjegba Okene is a Nigerian man who, in 2013, was employed as a regular cook on a regular tugboat. On May 26, 2013, late at night, he was working with a few colleagues 32 kilometres off the coast of Nigeria in the Gulf of Guinea. Around 4:30 a.m., a strange, huge rogue wave crashed into the tugboat, snapping their rope and flipping the boat over as they struggled to work together to stabilise a Chevron oil tanker in the choppy seas. The 12 crew members on board started to worry as it started to sink quickly. In order to protect themselves from being invaded by pirates, the majority of these men were kept inside their cabins. But when your cabin is inundated with water, being confined inside a cabin is less effective than it is against a man carrying a pistol. Fortunately for Ken, he had just left his cabin for the toilet just before the ship capsized. He was thrown around inside while wearing only his pants before the tiny chamber filled with water. He peered through the door and saw some of his comrades being swept off the boats.

When the boat impacted the ocean floor 30 metres below the surface, which is roughly equivalent to a seven-story building, Okene was driven out of the bathroom and down the corridor into another bathroom, where he was able to cling on above water for a brief period of time. He eventually made it out of this dangerously small bathroom underwater and in total darkness, struggling with the intense cold. He was unable to see or breathe, so he used his hands to feel forward until he miraculously found another, larger air pocket in the engineers' office, where he made the decision to stay.

His chances of life were, however, undoubtedly very slim given that he was nearly fully nude, had no food or fresh water, and was trapped in a chilly, damp area with a limited supply of air. He was currently confined to a tiny pocket of air that was barely six cubic metres in capacity and 1.2 metres high, and the grim reaper was providing him with a hearty death feast. He may have perished from thirst, from being too cold, from the water filling up and drowning him, from simply running out of air and suffocating, or he may have been devoured alive by sharks that were already scavenging the wreck!

So this is how he was able to refuse the Reaper's numerous buddy invitations. To start with, he was able to locate a couple cans of coke nearby to stop himself from being dehydrated. Second, he found that the mattress he had constructed underneath him protected his head and part of his chest above the chilly water, which helped his core keep warm and staved off the beginning of hypothermia. The extremely chilly water would have surely killed him within hours if it weren't for that fortunate break. But the fact that he was imprisoned in a small air pocket that was running out of oxygen was his biggest issue.

His time limit for breathing was probably just approximately 60 hours, give or take, based on the size of the pocket he was in and the pressure it was under 30 metres beneath the ocean. He may have poisoned himself by exhaling too much carbon dioxide or running out of oxygen while he was in the pocket, in addition to the risk of simply running out of air to breathe. Fortunately for him, though, co2 is easily absorbed by water, and by accidentally increasing the water surface area inside, he was increasing the rate at which the co2 was being absorbed. Because of this, the levels within were never high enough to be deadly, and despite having to endure the noises of sharks entering and munching on the bodies of his buddies, they fortunately never discovered him in his little pockets.

In a cramped, completely dark six-square-meter area at the bottom of the ocean, Okene was confined while watching sharks devour his buddies. 460 terrifyingly exhausting hours, during which he used all of his available oxygen. He eventually heard the sound of an unfamiliar knock after perhaps just an hour or two of choking.

A team of divers from Chevron had been dispatched to the wreck to look for any corpses. Chevron was unaware that one of the bodies was still alive. Ineffectively, Okene started bashing his surroundings back at them. But when he eventually noticed a diver's light emerging from the water close by, he realised it was time to take action. The divers only anticipated finding a body, but as the next diver passed, he grabbed hold of his arm and probably gave him the shock of his life. But even at that point, Okene was still at risk of dying.

A quick return to the surface after spending so much time underwater would have likely caused him to experience cardiac collapse and die. He was given a diving helmet, put inside a diving bell, and lifted back above the ocean's surface by the divers. Following two more days of decompression, he was finally able to return to his normal life following his nightmare.

The horrifying struggle that Okene endured is thought to be the longest period of time any human has ever lived underwater without the use of any diving equipment. He claims that the experience still haunts him at night, and he has made a lifelong commitment to never go near the ocean again.

As Okene's terrifying story comes to a close, we are left in awe of the extraordinary fortitude and resiliency of the human spirit. He managed to live against impossibly bad odds, which is proof of the unbreakable desire to life.

May Okene's remarkable story of survival encourage you to endure hardship, to value your loved ones, and to value the priceless gift of life. I would love to hear your thoughts and reflections on this extraordinary journey, let me know in the comments below.