To be wrecked on a ship is a nightmare for any navigator. The chances of escaping are minimal, especially if the accident caught you in the wrong place. However, sometimes the wrong place can save your life.
Harrison Okene is a ship’s cook from Nigeria. He loves his job, loves the ocean, but one day his favorite things almost killed him. Harrison worked on a tugboat that performed its tasks off the borders of Nigeria. One day, the boat was doing its job in rather difficult weather conditions, which led to a tragedy.
A strong wave hit the side of the boat, which overturned the ship. At this time, Harrison had just woken up and was in the toilet. Hearing the noise, and realizing that a tragedy was happening, he tried to escape from the raging waves, escape among the cabins, and accidentally ended up in the officer’s toilet. This became his salvation.
The ship went to the bottom (30 meters deep), but an air pocket formed in the toilet, so the cook, although he was almost completely in the water, could still breathe. He had no food with him, only a bottle of Coke and a few flashlights. Also, he could not swim to the surface on his own – decompression sickness would not have allowed him to do this. And what to do on the surface of the ocean in a storm? Pray?
The cook had no choice but to patiently wait for his oxygen to run out. So he lived 60 long hours of his life. With a bottle of Coke and flashlights that kept him sane in total darkness.
On the third day, he heard a strange knock. As if someone was floating on the ship. He thought it was sharks, but quickly realized that scuba divers had arrived to pick up the bodies of the dead. And what was their surprise when Harrison touched one of the scuba divers and let them know that he was alive?
Cooks began to be transported to the surface. It wasn’t easy due to decompression sickness and long bottoming, but according to Harrison, that wasn’t the main danger that awaited him.
Contrary to popular belief, in confined spaces, people die not from a lack of oxygen, but from an excess of carbon dioxide. A high concentration of gas kills a person quickly enough. And Harrison was at the breaking point. A few more hours and he would surely have died.
Several years have passed since the crash. What does a cook who almost got killed by the ocean do? He became a scuba diver and declared that he adores the sea so much that he will never refuse to work in the ocean, even in pain of death.