The Survival Story of Harrison Okene Sep 2nd

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Even though you are taking care of yourself and following all the safety precautions in work, school, or anywhere, no one knows when accidents will happen. In Nigeria, there was a tugboat that sank, 10 dead bodies were recovered, one was never found, and only one man survived. Today we will hear this frightening and unbelievable story of a man who survived this tragedy.

In May 2013, A man survived nearly 3 days at the bottom of the ocean by breathing from an air pocket. He is Harrison Okene, a 29-year-old Nigerian chef. He can claim the recognition as the only person who lived 3 days on seafloor. 

On the Gulf of Guinea in southeast Atlantic Ocean, about 32 kilometers from Escravos, Nigeria coastline, a tugboat was caught by a large rogue wave and capsized. There was a security protocol where crew members should lock their rooms when sleeping because of the ongoing piracy problems. But this only slowed down their evacuation when the tragedy happened.

For some people, waking up because you need to use the bathroom while comfortably sleeping is annoying. But amazingly this tiresome event saved the life of Harrison. Out of the 12 crew members of the tugboat, he was the only person to survive.

Harrison was in the bathroom when the boat started to sink. All of them were having a hard time escaping. Events happened so fast; the water swept him to another toilet that contained an air pocket (a space underwater that has oxygen). The boat sank 30 meters deep and ended up lying upside down on the seafloor.

Almost one day later, Harrison decided to swim in hope that he could find a way to escape. He arrived at the engineer’s office which luckily had an even bigger air pocket so he stayed there. Imagine being trapped 30 meters under the ocean with darkness and creepy noises wondering if anyone would ever rescue you.

More than two days later, sixty hours to be exact, Harrison was crying and praying that someone would rescue him. He was hungry and thirsty. He was so cold from being soaked in water for those many hours. Meanwhile, the tugboat’s company hired professional deep-sea divers to retrieve all of the crew members’ bodies. And this was the answer to Harrison’s prayers.

Harrison heard the divers, he swam towards them but failed twice, on the third try he was finally found and brought back to the surface. Harrison is okay now and reunited with his family. He experienced post-traumatic stress disorder. According to his wife, sometimes he wakes up with nightmares, screaming and struggling. Since then, he continues working as a cook, but on land. He has promised to never work on a ship again.