This is unbelievable. A tugboat capsized in the Atlantic and one crew member survived for days in an air bubble, 30 metres below the surface, and was rescued in time. Wow. Just wow.

http://www.businessinsider.com/man-survives-underwater-for-2-days-2013-6

It would be so easy to give up and die of fear and despair in a situation like that. Wow.

This is truly an amazing tale. But I am confused - just how deep was he? The reference to 30 meters is evidently in this statement in the article: "He thought he was at the bottom of the sea, although the company says it was 30 meters below." The way I read it, they are saying he was not on the sea floor, but 30 meters above that level.

In any event, he was significantly deep, since he required decompression, although he was also submerged for an extremely long time. My dive tables never included a dive of that length! And if he was down 30 meters, that is quite deep for scuba. Most of my dives have not been that deep....

I read that to mean he was 30 meters below the surface. Not knowing how deep the water was in the tugboats location, he was probably well above the sea floor.

Wow. I don't even want to imagine the horror of that. Not only to be cold, and tired, and hugry, and unsure of where/what you are ... but to hear your friends being eaten by the sealife? Talk about sensory deprivation as well.

I'd be moving to the Sahara about now.

I don't have a protocol for decompression on air with that much time at that depth. The last protocol I have (several years old) is only for heliox, but it would require about 30 hours to decompress from 100 fsw. I would expect that twice that (the 60 hours given) would be appropriate on air. That would make a 30 m depth seem reasonable. It sure would be nice to know. It would be nice to know if the dive company had tables for air, found them somewhere or if they made it up on the fly. Most likely, I would think, they called home and someone went to the archives to find them.

Respectfully,

Jerry

At that depth not even the spare are system would have worked.

This persons will to survive and ability to stay calm under pressure (literally) is impressive.