Life After Surviving Inside a Capsized, Sunken Tug

A decade ago, Harrison Okene spent nearly three days on the seabed, trapped inside a sunken tug, but he still loves the sea.

By Lidia Goldberg

September 26, 2023

In May 2013, Harrison Okene was aboard Jascon-4, a tugboat he worked on off the coast of Nigeria, when it was hit by a rogue wave that turned the vessel upside down. Within minutes, the tugboat was 100 feet below water on the seabed and Okene was trapped.

The next three days were fraught with fear and patience, as he managed to survive inside an air pocket in one of the ship’s heads. In the dark, he could hear the calls of his colleagues, all of whom were silenced by the water when a rescue diver found him. All eleven of his colleagues perished.

See the moment divers discovered Oneke, alive, below.

Now, ten years after the harrowing event, Okene has become a diver and continues to love the sea. “I have faced a lot of my fears in my life, and I decided to face this once and for all,” he said in an article in The Guardian. “I know it should be my fear, but I don’t need to be scared of water. Because I need to embrace my fear once and for all and be strong. Our happiness, our joy, our future – they are all in our hands.”