LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — About 100 feet down,
on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, divers
had already pulled four bodies out of the
sunken tugboat. Then a hand appeared on a
TV screen monitoring the recovery.
Related Stories
Undersea Miracle: How Man in Sunken Ship
Survived 3 Days LiveScience.com
Harrison Okene Rescued From Sunken Ship
After 3 Days Trapped Under Sea (VIDEO)
Huffington Post
Everyone assumed it was another corpse,
and the diver moved toward it.
"But when he went to grab the hand, the
hand grabbed him!" Tony Walker, project
manager for the Dutch company DCN Diving,
said of the rescue in May.
Harrison Odjegba Okene, the tug's Nigerian
cook, had survived for three days by
breathing an ever-dwindling supply of
oxygen in an air pocket. A video of Okene's
dramatic rescue —
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=ArWGILmKCqE
— was posted on the Internet more than six
months after the rescue and has gone viral
this week.
As the temperature dropped to freezing,
Okene, dressed only in boxer shorts, recited
a psalm his wife had sent him earlier by text
message, sometimes called the Prayer for
Deliverance. "Oh, God, by your name, save
me. ... The Lord sustains my life."
To this day, Okene believes his rescue after
72 hours underwater was the result of divine
deliverance. The 11 other seamen aboard
the tug Jascon 4 died.
View gallery
In this image made available Tuesday Dec.
3, 2013, …
In this image made available Tuesday Dec.
3, 2013, Harrison Odjegba Okene looks in
awe as a rescue d …
On the video, there was an exclamation of
fear and shock from Okene's rescuers, and
then joy as the realization set in that this
hand belonged to a survivor. "What's that?
He's alive! He's alive!" a voice can be heard
exclaiming.
"It was frightening for everybody," Walker
said of that moment, speaking in a
telephone interview Tuesday. "For the guy
that was trapped because he didn't know
what was happening. It was a shock for the
diver while he was down there looking for
bodies, and we (in the control room) shot
back when the hand grabbed him on the
screen."
Walker said Okene couldn't have lasted
much longer.
"He was incredibly lucky. He was in an air
pocket, but he would have had a limited
time (before) ... he wouldn't be able to
breathe anymore."
The full video of the rescue was released by
DCN Diving after a request from The
Associated Press. Initially, a shorter version
of the rescue emerged on the Internet. The
authenticity of the video was confirmed
through conversations with DCN employees in
the Netherlands. The video showing Okene
was also consistent with additional photos of
him on the rescue ship. The AP also
contacted Okene, who confirmed the events.
View gallery
In this image made available Tuesday Dec.
3, 2013, …
In this image made available Tuesday Dec.
3, 2013, Harrison Odjegba Okene, 2nd left,
poses inside a …
Okene's ordeal began around 4:30 a.m. on
May 26. Always an early riser, he was in the
toilet when the tug, one of three towing an
oil tanker in Nigeria's oil-rich Delta waters,
gave a sudden lurch and then keeled over.
"I was dazed and everywhere was dark as I
was thrown from one end of the small
cubicle to another," Okene said in an
interview with Nigeria's Nation newspaper
after his rescue.
He groped his way out of the toilet and tried
to find a vent, propping doors open as he
moved. He discovered some tools and a life
vest with two flashlights, which he stuffed
into his shorts.
When he found a cabin of the sunken vessel
that felt safe, he began the long wait,
getting colder and colder as he played back
a mental tape of his life — remembering his
mother, his friends, but mostly his wife of
five years, with whom he hadn't yet
fathered a child.
He worried about his colleagues — the
Ukrainian captain and 10 Nigerians,
including four young cadets from Nigeria's
Maritime Academy. They would have locked
themselves into their cabins, standard
procedure in an area stalked by pirates.
View gallery
In this image made available Tuesday Dec.
3, 2013, …
In this image made available Tuesday Dec.
3, 2013, Harrison Odjegba Okene poses for a
portrait insid …
He got really worried when he heard a loud
sound in the water outside — sharks or
barracuda, he supposed — fighting over
something big.
As the waters rose, he made a rack on top
of a platform and piled two mattresses on
top.
"I started calling on the name of God,"
Okene told the Nation. "I started
reminiscing on the verses I read before I
slept. I read the Bible from Psalms 54 to
92. My wife had sent me the verses to read
that night when she called me before I went
to bed."
He survived on a single bottle of Coke.
Okene really thought he was going to die, he
said, when he heard the sound of a boat
engine and an anchor dropping, but failed
to get the attention of its crew. He figured,
given the size of the sunken tugboat, that it
would take a miracle for anyone to locate
him. So he waded across the cabin, stripped
the wall down to its steel body and banged
on it with a hammer.
View gallery
In this image made available Tuesday Dec.
3, 2013, …
In this image made available Tuesday Dec.
3, 2013, Harrison Odjegba Okene, 2nd left,
poses with memb …
But "I heard them moving away. They were
far away from where I was," he said.
By the time the divers found him, relatives
already had been told there were no
survivors.
Using hot water to warm him up, the rescue
crew attached Okene to an oxygen mask. He
was put into a decompression chamber and
then safely returned to the surface.
Before the slow ascent began, a voice on the
video could be heard asking Okene to give a
thumbs up if he understood what was about
to happen. Slowly he raised his hand and
stuck out his thumb.
"Good job, my friend. Well done," the voice
says. "You are a survivor."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nigerian-
man-survives-3-days-bottom-
atlantic-232654339.html
on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, divers
had already pulled four bodies out of the
sunken tugboat. Then a hand appeared on a
TV screen monitoring the recovery.
Related Stories
Undersea Miracle: How Man in Sunken Ship
Survived 3 Days LiveScience.com
Harrison Okene Rescued From Sunken Ship
After 3 Days Trapped Under Sea (VIDEO)
Huffington Post
Everyone assumed it was another corpse,
and the diver moved toward it.
"But when he went to grab the hand, the
hand grabbed him!" Tony Walker, project
manager for the Dutch company DCN Diving,
said of the rescue in May.
Harrison Odjegba Okene, the tug's Nigerian
cook, had survived for three days by
breathing an ever-dwindling supply of
oxygen in an air pocket. A video of Okene's
dramatic rescue —
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=ArWGILmKCqE
— was posted on the Internet more than six
months after the rescue and has gone viral
this week.
As the temperature dropped to freezing,
Okene, dressed only in boxer shorts, recited
a psalm his wife had sent him earlier by text
message, sometimes called the Prayer for
Deliverance. "Oh, God, by your name, save
me. ... The Lord sustains my life."
To this day, Okene believes his rescue after
72 hours underwater was the result of divine
deliverance. The 11 other seamen aboard
the tug Jascon 4 died.
View gallery
In this image made available Tuesday Dec.
3, 2013, …
In this image made available Tuesday Dec.
3, 2013, Harrison Odjegba Okene looks in
awe as a rescue d …
On the video, there was an exclamation of
fear and shock from Okene's rescuers, and
then joy as the realization set in that this
hand belonged to a survivor. "What's that?
He's alive! He's alive!" a voice can be heard
exclaiming.
"It was frightening for everybody," Walker
said of that moment, speaking in a
telephone interview Tuesday. "For the guy
that was trapped because he didn't know
what was happening. It was a shock for the
diver while he was down there looking for
bodies, and we (in the control room) shot
back when the hand grabbed him on the
screen."
Walker said Okene couldn't have lasted
much longer.
"He was incredibly lucky. He was in an air
pocket, but he would have had a limited
time (before) ... he wouldn't be able to
breathe anymore."
The full video of the rescue was released by
DCN Diving after a request from The
Associated Press. Initially, a shorter version
of the rescue emerged on the Internet. The
authenticity of the video was confirmed
through conversations with DCN employees in
the Netherlands. The video showing Okene
was also consistent with additional photos of
him on the rescue ship. The AP also
contacted Okene, who confirmed the events.
View gallery
In this image made available Tuesday Dec.
3, 2013, …
In this image made available Tuesday Dec.
3, 2013, Harrison Odjegba Okene, 2nd left,
poses inside a …
Okene's ordeal began around 4:30 a.m. on
May 26. Always an early riser, he was in the
toilet when the tug, one of three towing an
oil tanker in Nigeria's oil-rich Delta waters,
gave a sudden lurch and then keeled over.
"I was dazed and everywhere was dark as I
was thrown from one end of the small
cubicle to another," Okene said in an
interview with Nigeria's Nation newspaper
after his rescue.
He groped his way out of the toilet and tried
to find a vent, propping doors open as he
moved. He discovered some tools and a life
vest with two flashlights, which he stuffed
into his shorts.
When he found a cabin of the sunken vessel
that felt safe, he began the long wait,
getting colder and colder as he played back
a mental tape of his life — remembering his
mother, his friends, but mostly his wife of
five years, with whom he hadn't yet
fathered a child.
He worried about his colleagues — the
Ukrainian captain and 10 Nigerians,
including four young cadets from Nigeria's
Maritime Academy. They would have locked
themselves into their cabins, standard
procedure in an area stalked by pirates.
View gallery
In this image made available Tuesday Dec.
3, 2013, …
In this image made available Tuesday Dec.
3, 2013, Harrison Odjegba Okene poses for a
portrait insid …
He got really worried when he heard a loud
sound in the water outside — sharks or
barracuda, he supposed — fighting over
something big.
As the waters rose, he made a rack on top
of a platform and piled two mattresses on
top.
"I started calling on the name of God,"
Okene told the Nation. "I started
reminiscing on the verses I read before I
slept. I read the Bible from Psalms 54 to
92. My wife had sent me the verses to read
that night when she called me before I went
to bed."
He survived on a single bottle of Coke.
Okene really thought he was going to die, he
said, when he heard the sound of a boat
engine and an anchor dropping, but failed
to get the attention of its crew. He figured,
given the size of the sunken tugboat, that it
would take a miracle for anyone to locate
him. So he waded across the cabin, stripped
the wall down to its steel body and banged
on it with a hammer.
View gallery
In this image made available Tuesday Dec.
3, 2013, …
In this image made available Tuesday Dec.
3, 2013, Harrison Odjegba Okene, 2nd left,
poses with memb …
But "I heard them moving away. They were
far away from where I was," he said.
By the time the divers found him, relatives
already had been told there were no
survivors.
Using hot water to warm him up, the rescue
crew attached Okene to an oxygen mask. He
was put into a decompression chamber and
then safely returned to the surface.
Before the slow ascent began, a voice on the
video could be heard asking Okene to give a
thumbs up if he understood what was about
to happen. Slowly he raised his hand and
stuck out his thumb.
"Good job, my friend. Well done," the voice
says. "You are a survivor."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nigerian-
man-survives-3-days-bottom-
atlantic-232654339.html
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