Survival stories often captivate our imagination, providing a glimpse into the resilience of the human spirit. One such extraordinary story is that of Harrison Odjegba Okene, a 29-year-old cook who survived a boat sinking in the Gulf of Guinea on May 26, 2013. The boat, called Jascon-4, capsized due to a large rogue wave while performing tension tow functions on a Chevron oil tanker. Harrison, was in the bathroom when this happened, and he had to struggle against the strong water pressure to survive.
The incident occurred in the Gulf of Guinea, located in the southeast Atlantic Ocean, known for its rich petroleum deposits beneath the sedimentary seabed. The waters off the coast of Escravos, Nigeria, were home to numerous offshore oil rig drilling operations. On that fateful day, the Jascon-4 was about 20 miles off the coast, engaged in tension tow functions on a Chevron oil tanker at Single Buoy Mooring.
Harrison was working on a tugboat called Jascon-4 with 11 other people. They were helping a Chevron oil tanker by pulling it with a cable. One day, a big unexpected wave hit the tugboat and it flipped over.
The crew knew about piracy problems in the area, so they had a safety rule to lock themselves in their rooms when they slept. Sadly, this rule made it hard for them to escape when the wave hit. The crew had to unlock their doors to get out, and it took time.
But Harrison was in a different situation. He had gotten up to use the bathroom and was not following the safety rules. When the boat flipped, he struggled to open the bathroom door because of the water. The strong water flow made it tough for him to reach the emergency exit. While trying, he saw three crew members being swept away by the water.
“I was trying to open the door to get out, when the toilet fell and hit me on the head,” he says. He just had time to see blood pour from the wound before the lights went off. “Everywhere was dark.” The bathroom began to fill with water. “It didn’t take long,” he says. “One minute, two minutes,” said Harrison. (Source)
Harrison was in a four-foot square bathroom that was now filled with water after a boat he was on flipped over. The boat sank about 100 feet underwater and ended up upside down on the ocean floor. A rescue mission with nearby boats and a helicopter was initiated. Divers found the sunken boat, marked its location and tried to talk to the people inside.
But the rescue had to be stopped because the water was too deep, and the crew was not ready for such deep diving. They could not find any signs of people alive. For almost a whole day, Harrison held on to the upside-down bathroom, dealing with the cold, hunger, and the fear of drowning. He kept praying to Jesus for help.
After spending almost a day in the dark, water-filled room, Harrison decided to take a risk. He swam through the darkness and found another air pocket in the engineer’s office. Using whatever tools and materials he could find, he made a platform to stay above the water and keep warm. It was a tough situation, but he had to be resourceful to survive.
He was in a tough situation that got even harder because it was really cold deep down. Normally, in May, the top of the East Atlantic Ocean is a comfortable 81.9°F. But Harrison was 100 feet below the surface, wearing only boxer shorts and feeling very cold. Still, he kept going because he wanted to stay alive. As time passed, he faced not just physical problems but also mental struggles.
As Harrison went into the underwater boat, he found out that all his colleagues had died. The boat was making scary sounds – it was creaking, things were hitting the walls, and there were creepy noises of fish-eating dead bodies. All these sounds felt like really spooky background music to his loneliness. The seawater started to make his tongue feel weird, and there was a bad smell in the air because of the decomposing bodies.
The team of six divers, along with deck crew and technical staff on the Lewek Toucan, embarked on a challenging mission to recover the bodies of the lost crew members from the sunken Jascon-4. The boat had sunk upside down into soft mud, stirring up fine silt, and its interior presented extremely poor visibility. Adding to the difficulty, security protocols had latched the boat from the inside.
Dive team two, led by Nico Van Heerden, Andre Erasmus, and Darryl Oosthuizen, faced the disorienting conditions inside the sunken vessel. Supervisor Colby Werrett, stationed topside, guided the divers through a connected microphone and observed the dive through a camera worn by Nico. Breaking through external watertight doors and a second metal door, the team navigated hazards such as furniture and equipment in the murky water.
As the divers explored the boat, they recovered four corpses. Nico, crawling up the stairs to the main deck, found himself in a small passageway when something unexpected reached out of the murk and touched him. The suspense heightened, and Harrison, still trapped inside, had nearly lost hope.
Then, a sound akin to an anchor dropping reached Harrison’s ears, followed by the distinct noise of hammering on the hull. Recognizing the telltale signs of divers, he banged on the wall, desperate for their attention. Seeing the light from one of the diver’s head torches through the hallway, Harrison tried to reach out, but the diver moved too quickly.
In a moment that can only be described as magical, the surreal rescue footage from Nico’s video captured the scene. Nico touched what he believed was another lifeless body, only for the hand to unexpectedly squeeze his. Colby, the supervisor, shouted through the microphone, “He’s alive, he’s alive!” The divers were astonished to find Harrison alive, defying the odds.
The maximum depth for recreational diving is 130 feet, and generally, divers don’t stay at 100 feet for more than 20 minutes. In terms of the air pocket, the divers had reached Harrison just in time. A human inhales roughly 350 cubic feet of air every 24 hours, but due to the pressure at the ocean floor, scientists estimated that Harrison’s air pocket had been compressed by a factor of about four. This compression meant that the pressurized air pocket, approximately 216 cubic feet, contained enough oxygen to keep Harrison alive for about two-and-a-half days.
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When the divers located Harrison, he had been underwater for about 60 hours. Beyond the challenge of low oxygen, there was the looming threat of carbon dioxide (CO2) buildup. CO2 becomes fatal to humans at a concentration of about 5%, and as Harrison breathed, he released CO2 into the confined space. However, his inadvertent splashing of water inside the air pocket increased the water’s surface area, enhancing CO2 absorption and preventing its concentration from becoming lethal.
The divers described Harrison as suffering from CO2 poisoning, exhibiting shortness of breath and delirium. His survival was remarkable, and the divers, acting swiftly, used hot water to warm him up and fitted him with an oxygen mask. On the surface, the dive support crew maintained contact with medical and diving experts to determine the best course of action for the survivor.
However, Harrison faced a new challenge – decompression sickness, commonly known as ‘the bends.’ This condition occurs when nitrogen bubbles form in the blood due to changes in pressure. Ascending directly from 100 feet underwater to the surface could result in various complications, ranging from joint pain and rashes to paralysis, neurological issues, cardiac arrest, or even death.
To keep him safe, the rescue team treated Harrison like a special kind of diver. First, he practiced breathing through a mask for about 20 minutes. Then, they put a diving helmet and harness on him. The team was worried he might panic, but Harrison stayed calm as they helped him out of the boat.
Harrison, finally rescued from the sunken boat, was brought to the surface on Tuesday, May 28, at 7 pm. But he was confused. He thought it was Sunday evening and that he had been trapped for only 12 hours. When he found out it was actually over two days, he was shocked.
They took Harrison to a diving bell, and then to a decompression chamber. He stayed there for two and a half days so his body could get used to the surface pressure again. The rescue was successful for Harrison, but it was sad for the other crew members of the Jascon-4. Only one out of the 12 survived, and they had to stop looking for the 11th crew member because it was too dangerous.
Harrison went back to his hometown in Nigeria, feeling physically better but struggling with the mental scars. He didn’t go to the funerals of his colleagues because he was afraid of how their families would react in a society with strong religious beliefs and superstitions. People even started saying he used black magic to save himself.
Haunted by the guilt of surviving and dealing with PTSD, Harrison had nightmares where he would wake up thinking he was still underwater. The screaming and flailing were tough for him after the rescue.
In the aftermath, Harrison made a solemn vow – he would never again take a position on a boat. This decision was part of a pact he had made with God at the bottom of the ocean: “When I was under the water, I told God: If you rescue me, I will never go back to the sea again, never.”
Harrison wanted to become a diver, but his older brother advised him not to because he was worried about Harrison’s safety. In 2015, Okene and his wife separated, leaving him feeling lonely and frustrated. “I was alone. I didn’t have children, I didn’t have a wife. Not a good job. I was frustrated. Just alone with my dog. I was depressed, but nobody knew,” he said.
Even though Okene was scared, he felt like he might die if he didn’t do something. He decided to face his fears and enrolled in a three-month diving course. He shared the news with his brother after completing the training. Harrison believes in confronting fears and taking control of one’s happiness and future. He worked on changing his mindset and overcoming his fear of water.
Now, at 40 years old, Okene works as a diver, installing, constructing, and repairing oil and gas facilities. He can go as deep as 50 meters underwater. Over the past eight years, his life has improved significantly. He has a partner and three children. Okene credits his survival underwater and his changed perspective for transforming his life. He believes in the presence of God and feels guided by a higher purpose. Okene values the lives he touches and believes that true meaning comes from the connections we make with others.
