June 19, 2013

"Okene likely holds the new record for most time spent trapped underwater."

"As the ship settled on the ocean floor, the water stopped rising."
For the next 60 hours, [Harrison] Okene—who was without food, water, or light—listened to the sounds of ocean creatures scavenging through the ship on his dead crewmates....

Okene’s salvation—the air bubble—was trapped because the overturned boat acted as a sort of diving bell....

Humans require 10 cubic meters of air per day. So for Okene to continue breathing for 60 hours, he needed 25 cubic meters of air.... But Okene was breathing at 100 feet, or 30 meters, below the surface of the water. For every 10 meters a person descends, one atmosphere of pressure is added....

12 comments:

JackOfVA said...

There's excellent evidence that three sailors survived 16 days in the capsized Battleship Oklahoma after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Whether this meets the definition of "underwater" I don't know.

There's a 1995 newspaper article with more details:

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19951207&slug=2156455

JackOfVA said...

Not sure what happened to my first post, so here it is again.

There's excellent evidence that 3 sailors survived 16 days in the capsized battleship Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor.

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19951207&slug=2156455

Ignorance is Bliss said...

For the next 60 hours, [Harrison] Okene—who was without food, water, or light...

Well, strictly speaking, he had plenty of water...

( Just not drinking water. )

KCFleming said...

" Dozens of other friends and family members thank God and Jesus for looking out for Okene, though perhaps a hat tip to physics is in order, too."

In the religion of atheism, "physics" is their word for miracles.

Hat tip to oxygen!

BarrySanders20 said...

He heard ocean creatures scavenging the remains of his crew mates. Creepy!

Lyssa said...

I cannot bear to read any more about that guy. Just imagining what it must have been like down there for him, just waiting in the dark, for that long, is just too horrible to contemplate.

YoungHegelian said...

Can you imagine what the recovery diver thought when out of the watery darkness a hand grabbed his shoulder?

Maybe he can write a novel now called "Zombies from the Deep".

edutcher said...

Listening to the underwater fauna chowing down had to be the worst.

If that guy is ever sane, it will be a miracle.

JackOfVA said...

There's excellent evidence that three sailors survived 16 days in the capsized Battleship Oklahoma after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Whether this meets the definition of "underwater" I don't know.


It does.

Icepick said...

For the next 60 hours, [Harrison] Okene—who was without food, water, or light—listened to the sounds of ocean creatures scavenging through the ship on his dead crewmates....

That's a little too Samuel Coleridge Taylor for my tastes....

Astro said...

Ted Kennedy was unavailable for comment.

David said...

How did they find him? Who made the call to continue looking for survivors? Or was it just luck.

Someone other than a physics prof deserves some credit here.

Strelnikov said...

I don't know about that. Some of the Titanic passengers have under water for quite a while.