The diver assumed all 12 men aboard the tugboat had died after it capsized about 20 miles off the coast of Nigeria last May. But as he searched for bodies, he found Harrison Okene - who survived in a small air pocket inside the ship nearly three days after it sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
TODAY
The diver found Harrison Okene, 29, alive nearly three days after the tugboat capsized and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The cook was the only person of the 12-man crew to survive.
A diver swimming through the wreckage of a capsized tugboat off the coast of Nigeria assumed the crew had drowned and was only searching for bodies.
But as the diver maneuvered his way through the overturned Chevron vessel more than 60 hours after it sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean last May, a hand suddenly emerged from the murky water and grabbed him.
The hand belonged to Harrison Okene, 29, the ship’s cook and the only person from the 12-man crew who survived.
TODAY
Harrison Okene managed to survive with no food and only sips of Coca-Cola.
And recently released footage of the rescue shows the dramatic moment Okene was saved.
“He’s alive! He’s alive!” the diver told his team, according to a clip that aired on NBC's TODAY.
TODAY
The diver assumed everyone aboard the overturned tugboat had died when a hand emerged from the murky water and grabbed him.
“Just reassure him,” a colleague tells him. “Just reassure him. Pat him on the shoulder.”
Divers helped free Okene, who was put in a decompression chamber for another 60 hours before he was allowed to go back to his home town of Warri, a city in the Niger Delta.
TODAY
Okene was rescued from the wreckage after he was found alive inside the tugboat, which capsized due to heavy swells about 20 miles off the coast of Nigeria.
Okene managed to survive for nearly three days in a small air pocket inside the Jacon-4 tugboat with no food and only sips of Coca Cola.
“I was so hungry but mostly so, so thirsty,” he told Reuters after he returned home. “The salt water took the skin off my tongue.”
