A Miraculous Survival: 3 Days in a Sunken Ship

It happened in 2013.

Harrison Okene, then 29, made headlines after surviving over 60 hours at the bottom of the ocean when the ship he was working on filled with water and sank. "Suddenly the light went out, and everyone on the ship screamed in fear. I was in the restroom when suddenly the toilet was on my head, and I couldn't see anything."

The ship was at sea, 32 km off the coast of Nigeria, when it started to sink, and all 13 crew members were in panic.

Okene's fortune was that the toilet he was sitting on ended up over his head, creating an air pocket that allowed him to breathe. The 12-member crew was there to stabilize an oil tanker at an Atlantic Ocean dock. Eventually, the ship came to rest upside down on the seabed, 30 meters deep. All the crew members drowned, except for Okene. According to him, he opened the door and was hit by a 'powerful wave of water,' which turned out to be his salvation, enabling him to survive nearly three days underwater.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of Okene's rescue, as he recounts the bizarre dream he had on the ship just days before the incident. "I dreamed about a sinking ship, and when I woke up, it really amused me because I didn't die in the dream," he said. It would take a few more days for him to grasp the chilling significance of what he had dreamed. Amidst the ship's wreckage, in the vast darkness, Okene could do nothing but look up and pray. After two and a half days of prayers, a team of South African divers arrived at the scene to inspect the vessel and recover the bodies.

In a video filmed by one of the divers, Okene can be seen reaching his hand through the ship's wreckage to touch the diver's arm. The camera captured the diver's shocked reaction upon discovering someone alive. "It was like he saw a ghost," said one of the rescue team members on site. "It was emotional. I would say someone was watching over him." The challenge facing the divers was to bring Okene safely to the surface. Okene lost consciousness during the transfer but managed to survive. "When you're at such depths for that many hours, you absorb lethal amounts of nitrogen, and a sudden ascent to the surface can trigger a deadly attack. They had to readjust the gas levels in his body."

When the mission was completed, Okene found himself in a decompression chamber, spending two days balancing the pressure in his body. He suffered from peeling skin, recurring nightmares, and insatiable hunger, but was in good health.

Only later, when his condition stabilized, did he learn he was the sole survivor.

All his friends' bodies were found, except one, which was never recovered.

Although Okene vowed never to go near the ocean again, he became a certified commercial diver in 2015, with the very diver who rescued him from the sea floor awarding him his 'rescue diver' certificate.