Nigerian cook tells how he survived for three days trapped under sunken ship

Harrison Okene was in the bathroom of the Jascon 4 in the early hours when the tug begun to capsize in heavy seas, 20 miles off the Nigerian coast. But unlike his 11 colleagues, all of whom were locked in their rooms for safety against piracy and are thought to have perished, Mr Okene was able to locate an air pocket and await rescue.

“I prayed about a hundred times,” he said. “When I was tired, I started calling on the name of God. I was just calling on His name for divine intervention.”

The drama began at 5am on May 26, when the tug – owned by West African Ventures, a Nigerian subsidiary of a Dutch contractor – was caught up in heavy swell. Towing a Chevron tanker in the Escravos area, in the Gulf of Guinea, the boat found itself in trouble.

Kurt Glaubitz, Chevron spokesman, said the boat overturned while towing an oil tanker.

“Initial reports indicated that heavy ocean swells caused the Jascon 4 to capsize, while performing tension tow operations of the tanker,” he said

Mr Okene told The Nation: “I was dazed and everywhere was dark as I was thrown from one end of the small cubicle to another.

“I made my way out of the toilet, groped through the dark into a place I imagined was the officers’ rest room.

“From there I moved to engineers’ office. I wasn’t seeing, I was just feeling my way with my hands.”

As he waited, 30 metres under the sea, water began rising in the cabin. Mr Okene took two mattresses from the beds and sat on top of them, hoping to stay afloat in his small prison.

Hungry, cold and tired, he became aware of the sound of marine life swimming through the bowels of the ship. Then he heard loud noises as the fish – he thought they could be barracuda or sharks – started thrashing around, fighting over something big. He feared it was the corpses of his colleagues, and armed himself with a plank in case any animals swam into his space.

“At that point I was very scared,” he said. “I said: ‘So this is how I am going to die?’ What would happen to my wife? So she will become a widow? I don’t even have a child yet. What about my mother and everybody I love – so I will never see them again?”

Back on the mainland, Mr Okene’s family had heard about the accident – except for his wife, Akpos, who had lost her mobile phone earlier that day.

But his older brother did not want to break the news to their mother, so instead concocted the story that there was a family meeting in Lagos – so that he could tell her when she was surrounded by older relatives.

“As we were going to Lagos his elder brother kept talking on the phone, in codes and in hushed tones. I was curious but he assured me it was just business discussions,” Mrs Okene said.

“I did not know that he was involved in an accident at sea, and that’s why they were dragging me to Lagos.”

Out in the ocean, a search and rescue team had been sent to locate the remains of the men. They swiftly found ten of the 11 bodies, and were not expecting to find anything more.

“Then I heard a sound like anchor dropping again,” Mr Okene said. “I also heard sound of paddling and divers’ craft moving around the boat. I heard a hammering sound from afar.”

Wadding through the room, he found more tools, including a hammer. He began to strip the wall of the cabin until he got to the steel body.

“I started using the hammer to hit the wall to attract the divers. I heard them moving about. They were far away from where I was. I did that for some minutes and stopped. After a while, the sound died.”

Mr Okene thought that he would not be discovered, but the rescuers returned and the freezing cook jumped into the water, swimming through the ship to get the attention of the diver.

“I touched his head and he was shocked. He was searching and I just saw the light, so I jumped into the water. As he was shocked, he stretched out his hands.”

Mr Okene said he heard voices from the diver’s speaker shouting: “There is a survivor, he is alive.”

Paul McDonald, a member of the rescue crew, said: “All on board could not believe how cool he was when being rescued.

“The divers put a diving helmet and harness onto him. It was amazing to be part of this rescue.”

Mr Okene explained: “At that point I knew there was nothing I could do for myself. I just had to wait and see.”

Having been underwater for so long, he had to be brought up slowly and put in a decompression chamber. Arriving at the surface at 7pm on Tuesday, he thought he had only been trapped for 12 hours.

“When we came out, I saw the stars in the sky and I thought I must have been in the water for the whole day. I thought it was the Sunday evening.

“It was after I left that I was told that I had spent over two days there,” he said.

Last week West African Ventures said it had called off the search for the remaining crew member.

In a statement the company said: “Our divers performed an extremely difficult and dangerous task in the most testing of conditions.

“We are grateful for their professional service, as well as the contributions of many other personnel who gave all their efforts to this challenging recovery operation.

“Mr Harrison Okene has been brought to the surface safely and he continues to respond to treatment.”

Source: The Telegraph