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Harrison Odjegba Okene survives 3 days at bottom of Atlantic
He survived off just one bottle of Coke, all he had to sustain him during the trauma.
Okene really thought he was going to die, he told the Nation, when he heard the sound of a boat engine and anchor dropping, but failed to get the attention of rescuers. He figured, given the size of the boat, that it would take a miracle for a diver to locate him. So he waded across the cabin, stripped the wall down to its steel body, then knocked on it with a hammer.
But “I heard them moving away. They were far away from where I was.”
By the time he was saved, relatives already had been told the sailors were dead.
Okene kept faith with the psalm he recited, that promises to “give thanks in your name, Lord,” at a service at his Redeemed Christian Church of God.
He was rescued by a diver who first used hot water to warm him up, then attached him to an oxygen mask. Once free of the sunken boat, he was put into a decompression chamber and then safely returned to the surface.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
