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3 Days Underwater: The Impossible Survival of Harrison Okene — Transcript

by Africandocs · 2,976 words · 450 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Imagine being trapped 100 feet
0:01underwater in pitch black darkness. The
0:04air you're breathing is [music] slowly
0:06killing you. Your skin is being eaten by
0:09sea creatures. And through the metal
0:11walls, you can [music] hear the bodies
0:13of your crew mates floating past in the
0:15flooded corridors. This isn't the plot
0:17of a horror movie. This is exactly what
0:19happened to Harrison Okin, a 29year-old
0:22cook from Nigeria who survived 72 hours
0:24at the bottom of the ocean in conditions
0:26that should have killed him in minutes.
0:28This is the story of the most miraculous
0:31survival at sea you've never heard of.
0:36Harrison Okin grew up as one of 15
0:39children in Delta States, Nigeria,
0:41surrounded by nine sisters. [music] So
0:43he naturally gravitated towards the
0:45kitchen. Learning to cook alongside his
0:47mother. But Arisen didn't just want to
0:49cook. He wanted to provide for a family
0:51of his own. So he became a chef and
0:53worked his way into working [music] in
0:54Nigerian maritime industry. In the
0:56Nigerian maritime industry, there are
0:58two types of cooking jobs. You could
0:59work on land preparing food for
1:01thousands of workers at oil company
1:03facilities. Or you could work on sea
1:06cooking for small talk boats [music] and
1:08service vessels. Difference is that
1:10working on sea paid three to four times
1:12more. But here was the catch. To work
1:14aboard a vessel, you need maritime
1:15certifications, safety training,
1:17survival courses, [music] the works.
1:20Harrison invested his savings into
1:21getting certified. And in early 2013, he
1:24finally landed his dream job to cook
1:25aboard the Jascon 4, a tugboat [music]
1:28servicing oil rigs off Nigeria's coast.
1:30Change was night and day. He had moved
1:32from cooking for 4 to 6,000 men on land
1:35to cooking for a crew [music] of just 12
1:37at sea. And he quickly became a second
1:40family to Harrison. Harrison, a devout
1:42[music] Christian, became their
1:43counselor, their advisor, and a
1:45confidence for everyone on this boat.
1:47They would talk to him about their fears
1:49back home, their wives, their children,
1:51everything. and his shift pattern was
1:53simple. Two weeks on, two weeks off.
1:56[music] On May 25th, 2013, Harrison's
1:59two week rotation was supposed to end.
2:01[music] He was packed and ready to go
2:02home to his wife, but then his
2:04supervisor called him into the galley.
2:06One of the other cooks was sick. Could
2:07[music] Harrison cover just one more
2:09week. He said yes. 24 hours later,
2:12Harrison would have wished he said no.
2:16The date was May 26, 2013. The location
2:1920 mi off the coast of Nigeria. in the
2:22Gulf of Guinea where the Jaskan 4 was
2:24performing routine service operations
2:26for an OA or platform. At 4:30 a.m.
2:30Harrison was awake. He'd always been an
2:32early riser, part of his job. While most
2:35of the crew slept, he went to use the
2:37small bathroom next to the galley, was
2:39hitting on the toilet when he had it. He
2:41initially thought nothing of it, but in
2:43an instant, it sound like a fright
2:46train. The ship didn't just rock,
2:49pitched. In an instant, Harrison was
2:51thrown sideways as the tuckboat was hit
2:53by what is known in maritime term as a
2:56rogue wave. A wall of water that appears
2:58without warning. What happened next
3:00occurred in less than 60 seconds. The
3:02Jun didn't just capsize, it flipped. The
3:06100 ton vessel was picked up, turned
3:08nearly upside down, and slammed back
3:10into the ocean. The WC dropped and hit
3:13Harrison on his head. He was thrown from
3:15the bathroom into the galley, his body
3:18tumbling through the air as gravity lost
3:20all meaning. Then came the water. The
3:24pressurized explosion of sea water that
3:26punched through every opening, every
3:28door, every vent. The ocean didn't enter
3:31the ship, it consumed it. [music]
3:33Immediately, Harrison's training kicked
3:35in. He knew he had to get out. He swam
3:38toward where he thought a doorway was,
3:40following muscle memory in complete
3:42darkness. But the ship was upside down
3:44now. Everything was backwards. The door
3:47he reached for was now on the ceiling or
3:49the floor. He couldn't tell. Luckily, he
3:52saw a light from a phone flashing in a
3:54distance and he followed it and he found
3:56a few of his colleagues trying to open
3:58the watertight door. He [music] joins
4:00them, but to no avail. The water kept
4:02rising and eventually submerging them.
4:04Harrison then decides to swim backwards
4:07towards the galley to catch his breath.
4:09But as he was swimming backwards, the
4:10force of the water pushed him [music]
4:12into the second engineer's cabin and
4:14locked him in. The water kept coming and
4:16it was cold. That bone deep cold that
4:20steals your breath and your thoughts.
4:22Harrison's [music] lungs were screaming.
4:24He kicked upwards or what he thought was
4:26upwards and his head broke through into
4:29air. For a moment, he thought he had
4:31made it to the surface. Then he reached
4:33up and felt metal. He was in an air
4:35pocket, trapped inside the capsized
4:37[music] hall of the ship. And the ship
4:40was still sinking. Through the walls, he
4:42could hear banging, screaming, and then
4:44one by one, silence. The entire crew, 11
4:48men he had cooked for, laughed with,
4:51prayed with, were drowning, and there
4:53was nothing he could do but listen. When
4:56his ship finally hit the ocean floor,
4:57Harrison was 100 ft underwater, trapped
5:00in a metal coffin with nothing but the
5:03clothes on his back and a 4ft air pocket
5:05that would soon run out.
5:08Let me try and explain what Harrison was
5:10facing. The air pocket he was in
5:12measured roughly 4 ft high and 12 ft
5:15across. About the size of a small
5:17bathroom, was formed by the angle the
5:19ship landed at with trapped air
5:22collecting in what used to be the
5:23engineer's office and backroom. The
5:26water [music] level came up to his
5:28waist. Temperature was around 20° CC,
5:30cold enough to cause hypothermia [music]
5:32within hours, and he was in complete
5:35absolute darkness. The kind of darkness
5:37where your brain [music] starts
5:38inventing light because it can't process
5:40the absence of it. But the real killer,
5:42the air. Every breath Harrison took
5:45consumed oxygen and produce carbon
5:47dioxide. In an enclosed space, CO2
5:50buildup causes carbon dioxide poisoning,
5:53headaches, confusion, and eventually
5:56unconsciousness. The oxygen level was
5:58also dropping. At 100 ft deep, the
6:01pressure was four times more than
6:02normal, which meant the air around him
6:04was becoming increasingly dense and
6:06toxic. By every scientific calculation,
6:09Harrison should have been dead in 6
6:10hours, 12 hours at most. [music] Here is
6:13how he lasted for 3 days.
6:17Harrison's first instinct was to move,
6:19to find a [music] way out. He dove down
6:21repeatedly, feeling along the walls in
6:24pitch black darkness, searching for an
6:26opening, [music] a hatch, anything. But
6:29every door he found was either jammed
6:31shut by the pressure or led to flooded
6:34compartments. It was [music] during one
6:36of these dice that he made a horrifying
6:38discovery. His hand touched [music]
6:40something soft in the water, a body. It
6:43was the ship's cook supervisor, the man
6:45whose [music] shift Harrison had just
6:47taken. Harrison pulled back and didn't
6:49dive again. [music] After this, he
6:50realized movement was killing him. Every
6:52time he swam deeper into the ship, he
6:54got colder. His heart rate spiked. He
6:57consumed more oxygen. So, he did
6:58something extraordinary. He forced
7:00[music] himself to be completely still.
7:02He found a small platform, what used to
7:04be the part of the bathroom sink, and
7:06[music] wedged himself onto it, keeping
7:08as much of his body out of water as
7:10possible. Then he began to pray.
7:18As the first day passed into the second,
7:20Harrison's body began [music] to betray
7:22him. The cold was relentless. His finger
7:25and toes went numb. His teeth chattered
7:28so loudly he thought they would crack.
7:30Hypothermia was setting in, making him
7:32drowsy, which was dangerous because if
7:34he fell asleep, he fell into the water.
7:36The air was getting worse. Every breath
7:39felt [music] thinner, like breathing
7:41through a straw. His head pounded from
7:43CO2 [music] buildup. He started
7:45hallucinating, seeing lights, hearing
7:48voices, and then there were the fish
7:51nibbling on his feet beneath the waters.
7:53The flooded sheep had become an
7:55artificial reef. Small fish, crabs, and
7:58shrimp were drawn to the structure. They
8:00were also drawn to Harrison. In the
8:02darkness, he could feel them nibbling at
8:04his skin, his legs, his hands, anywhere
8:08exposed to the water.
8:09>> [music]
8:09>> was painful, but the sensation was
8:12maddening, like being slowly erased.
8:14[music] At some point, he couldn't even
8:16tell if it was day or night. But just
8:18when he was about to give up, his hand
8:19touched something floating in the water.
8:21A bottle. It was a can of Coke. He
8:24grabbed it. He had never been more
8:25grateful for anything in his life.
8:26[music]
8:27When he tried to eat or drink, he
8:29couldn't. The salt water had peeled the
8:30skin off his lips, his tongue, and his
8:33throat. The carbonation [music] was
8:34agony. He could only take tiny sips,
8:37rationing it across ours. Later he found
8:39a can of sardines. The same problem. His
8:41mouth was too raw to chew. [music] He
8:43could only place tiny portions on his
8:45tongue and let them just dissolve. And
8:47by the third day, Harrison was dying.
8:53The oxygen in his air pocket had dropped
8:55to critical levels. He was breathing but
8:57[snorts] barely. Each breath was a
8:59conscious effort. Like his lungs had
9:01forgotten how to work automatically.
9:03Cold had sapped most of his strength.
9:06His thinking was foggy. He started
9:08forgetting where he was while he was
9:10there. Time lost all meaning. He would
9:12drift in and out of consciousness, never
9:15sure if he was awake or dreaming. At his
9:17lowest moment, Harrison prepared to die,
9:19he recorded a final message to his wife
9:21in his mind, practicing the words over
9:23and over again. I love you. I am sorry.
9:26I tried. But something wouldn't let him
9:28give up. Maybe it was faith. Maybe it
9:31was stubbornness. Maybe it was the sheer
9:33cosmic joke of having [music] survived
9:35this long to give up in this moment. So
9:38he kept breathing, he kept praying, kept
9:40believing for a miracle that would never
9:42come. Because here's the thing, Harrison
9:44didn't know this, but the shipping
9:45company had declared everyone dead on
9:48that ship. There was no rescue mission,
9:51no search. As far as the world knew, the
9:53entire crew of the Jasan 4 was dead. The
9:56only reason anyone came to the wreck at
9:58all was to recover bodies.
10:01On the 20th of May, 60 hours [music]
10:03after the sinking, a South African
10:05diving company called DCN Diving was
10:08contacted to perform body recovery
10:10operations. Their job was simple. Locate
10:13the wreck, retrieve any remains, assess
10:16what caused the sinking, and seal the
10:18site. Nobody expected survivors. The
10:21ship had been on the ocean floor for 3
10:23days. Survival wasn't just unlikely, it
10:26was impossible. The dive team was led by
10:29Nico Van Herden and Darren Wright, two
10:32experienced commercial divers who had
10:33seen plenty of wreck recoveries. This
10:36was supposed to be routine, if grim
10:38work, they descended to the wreck at
10:41around 11:00 a.m. through the murky
10:42water. The hall of the Jin 4 came into
10:45view. A twisted metal cups resting at
10:48100 ft. Divers entered through a bridge
10:51in the hall. The helmet's lights cutting
10:53through the darkness. Inside was a tomb.
10:56Bodies were floating in flooded
10:58corridors, trapped by debris. Divers
11:00walked methodically, respectfully,
11:03securing each victim. But that is when
11:06Nico heard something. At first, he
11:08thought it was his breathing regulator
11:09making noise. But then it happened
11:11again. A tapping sound. Metal on metal.
11:14Niko followed the sound through the
11:16flooded corridor. His light swept across
11:18a partially opened doorway. And then he
11:20saw it. a hand a hand reaching out from
11:24the darkness waving at him. Nikico later
11:26said it was the most horrifying moment
11:28of his career in the instant before
11:30logic took over. His brain couldn't
11:31process it because [music] dead men do
11:33not wave. But Harrison Noi was not dead.
11:36Harrison heard the divers about 20
11:38minutes earlier. The sound of their
11:39equipment, the vibration of movement. At
11:41first, he thought he was hallucinating
11:43[music] again, but when he saw a light
11:46passed by the doorway, he knew this time
11:48it was for real. He had waited 3 days
11:51for this moment and now it was right
11:52there. He was terrified of scaring the
11:55diver away. So he swam into the water,
11:57swam towards the diver and tapped him
12:00softly on the shoulder. The audio from
12:01Nikico's helmet practically captured
12:03this exact moment.
12:04>> Ceiling. Yeah. Okay.
12:07>> What's that? Okay. Found one. Yeah.
12:10>> He's alive. He's alive.
12:12>> Okay. Keep him there. Keep him. And the
12:14next 10 hours were the most delicate of
12:16this operation because you can't just
12:18bring someone up from 100 ft underwater
12:20after 3 days. Harrison's body had
12:22absorbed massive amounts of nitrogen
12:24under pressure. Bringing him up too far
12:27to cause the nitrogen to bubble out
12:28[music] of his body, which is known as
12:30decompression sickness or the bends. It
12:32is agonizing and sometimes fatal. The
12:35dive team brought down a diving bell, a
12:37pressurized chamber, and carefully moved
12:39Harrison into it. then began the
12:41painstaking slow accent with
12:43decompression stops at different depths
12:45to allow his body to adjust. Inside the
12:48bell, Harrison was given warm fluids,
12:51oxygen, and for the first time in 72
12:53hours, light. The dive team said he was
12:56eerily calm, almost in shock. He kept
13:00repeating one phrase, "God saved me. God
13:03saved me."
13:05When the bell finally surfaced, Harrison
13:07was transferred to a decompression
13:08chamber on the rescue ship, where he
13:10spent another 60 hours being slowly,
13:13carefully brought back to the surface
13:15pressure. Remarkably, and against all
13:17[music] odds, Harrison's condition was
13:18stable. No major organ damage, no
13:21permanent injury [music] or brain
13:23damage. His body surprisingly withtood
13:24that pressure for that long, a condition
13:27that would have killed him in a dozen
13:28different ways. He was flown to a
13:31hospital, treated for hypotia and
13:32dehydration and after 2 days went home
13:35to his wife.
13:39The story should end there. A miraculous
13:41rescue. A man returned to his family, a
13:43second chance at life. But for Harrison,
13:45the nightmare wasn't over. The trauma of
13:47those days haunted him. He couldn't
13:49sleep without nightmares of drowning.
13:51He'd wake up screaming, disoriented,
13:54trying to escape rooms that felt too
13:56small. He would have panic attacks in
13:58bathrooms. Being in water, even a
14:00bathtub triggered flashbacks. For
14:02months, Harrison couldn't work. He
14:04couldn't function. The psychological
14:05scars caught deeper than any wound.
14:08Harrison might have left the water, but
14:10mentally he was still in the darkness.
14:11He was still in [music] the sinking
14:12ship. Therapy and one more thing was his
14:15saving grace, the divers who helped
14:17rescue him. They kept in touch. They
14:18reached out to him from time to time,
14:20and he told him, "You survived because
14:21you stayed calm. So try staying calm
14:24even now you're out of the water." and
14:26he planted a seed in Harrison. Instead
14:28of running away from the ocean, how
14:29about running towards it? In 2015, 2
14:32years after that disaster, Harrison
14:33[music]
14:34enrolled in commercial diving school.
14:37Just think about it. Most people would
14:39not go close to a pool [music] again.
14:40Harrison decided to make the ocean his
14:42career. He underwent months of intense
14:45training, the same training as the men
14:47who saved him. Learning to manage
14:49pressure, learning [music] to stay calm
14:51in the dark, enclosed spaces underwater,
14:53learning to face the exact conditions
14:55that nearly killed him. [music] And he
14:57excelled. Harrison graduated at the top
14:59of his class. Ceremony was held in South
15:01Africa. And the man who presented
15:03Harrison with his commercial diving
15:04certificate, Nikico [music] Vanherdan, a
15:07diver who found him in the wreck 3 years
15:09earlier. Today, Harrison works as a
15:11certified commercial diver performing
15:13underwater welding and maintenance on
15:16the same oil rigs his tugboat was
15:18servicing. He has faced his trauma and
15:20transformed it into purpose. Harrison
15:22Okine survival is one of the most
15:24improbable cases in maritime history.
15:26[music] Scientists still can't fully
15:28explain how he lasted 72 hours in
15:31conditions that could have killed him.
15:32the air pockets, the pressure, the
15:34temperature, the timing of the rescue,
15:37every single variable had to align
15:39perfectly. Tony Walker, a diving expert
15:42who reviewed the case, called it a one
15:44in a billion [music] chance. He said,
15:45"The fact that he survived, that he
15:47found that specific air pocket [music]
15:49that he held, that a diving team
15:51happened to be in the area with deep sea
15:53capability, that they went inside
15:56instead of just surveying externally.
15:57[music] It's not just luck. It's a chain
15:59of miracles." 11 men died on the Jaskan
16:024 that day. Harrison [music] was the
16:04only survivor. He doesn't know why he
16:06was choosing to leave, but he knows what
16:08he's supposed to do with [music] the
16:09time he's been given. Keep breathing,
16:12keep helping, and never taking a single
16:14day for granted. Because Harrison Noin
16:16knows something the rest of us don't. He
16:18knows exactly what it feels like to be
16:20at the edge of death in the cold and
16:22dark with nothing left but faith and
16:25breath. and he knows what it means to
16:28come back
16:29>> because I believe the thousands question
16:31will always come on that that epoch but
16:34I will tell you it's not the epet that
16:36kept me alive it's not my strength it's
16:38God

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