Diver Chris Lemons has recalled the extraordinary story of how he cheated death after being stranded on the bed of the North Sea with just minutes of oxygen supply left.
Lemons, a saturation diver, was left almost 100m below the sea surface and survived for 35 minutes laying unconscious after his oxygen supply was cut off by his vessel.
Explaining how he came to be left on the sea bed in a "terrifying" ordeal, Lemons told GB News: "It was quite a while ago, 2012, but essentially I was working on the bottom of the North Sea about 90m down, and the ship above us, which we're attached to by an umbilical - which provides you with an infinite supply of breathing gas and hot water and everything else you need to survive in that obviously very inhospitable environment - basically lost control of its positioning system and started to move away from where we were and drag us along.
"And unfortunately that umbilical cord of mine got caught on a metal outcrop, and I became an anchor to an 8000 tonne vessel. There was only going to be one winner in that situation, obviously, and that umbilical ends up snapping, and I'm left on the bottom with just the emergency supply that we carry, a couple of tanks on our back."
Chris Lemons recalls how he was 'left for dead' at the bottom of the North Sea
GB News / Dogwoof / Last Breath
Revealing how the emergency supply provided him with less than 10 minutes of essential oxygen, Lemons described how it was an urgent rescue mission for his colleagues to recover him, which took them "almost 40 minutes".
Lemons said: "I had six, seven or eight minutes worth of breathing gas, and unfortunately it took them nearly 40 minutes to come back to my position and be able to to rescue me. So I ran out of gas.
"It was seven or eight lonely minutes down on the bottom, and I was rendered unconscious for 30, 35 minutes, we think, before I was brought back to a breathable environment. Miraculously, a couple of rescue breaths into my mouth, a great kiss on the lips from Duncan, and I came to and was fine."
Praising the incredible work of the vessel crew and his colleagues who rescued him, Lemons admitted he was a "very lucky boy" to have survived with no complications.
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Lemons admitted: "It's extraordinary teamwork and resilience and also that 'never say die' attitude that meant I'm able to sit here and speak to you today. Miracle is the wrong word - it was a great set of people that meant I was a very, very lucky boy."
When asked by host Anne Diamond what was going through his mind as he lay at the bottom of the sea, Lemons revealed that after the initial fear dissipated from his body, he was "contemplating his impending death" and the impact it would have on his loved ones.
Lemons told GB News: "In terms of those final minutes, I feel like a bit of a charlatan sometimes because ultimately, I'm sat here absolutely fine, I don't have any right to preach about death, but it's certainly felt like a very unique set of circumstances to almost have the luxury of contemplating what I thought was my impending death.
"Initially I was very frightened, like anybody would be. I think it would be very unusual to say you weren't terrified. But there was a bit of a seminal moment when I sort of did the maths and knew the physics, and I knew that I didn't have very long at all. And I realised quickly that my chances of rescue were basically non-existent.
Lemons told GB News that his 'chances of rescue were basically non-existent'
GB News
"There was no way they were going to be able to get me back to that breathable environment before I ran out of of breathing gas, so that almost calmed me in a sense. I remember the fear draining out of me almost, and it really just turned to to grief - I think in a sense of loss, a real sense of the enormous damage I was going to do to people at home, the people who I love, my parents being told that their son had died before them, the logistics of life.
"I was early 30s, in the process of building a house, having a future, travelling, having kids, and it felt as though that was about to be ripped away in this really strange, ethereal, lonely place."
Explaining the science behind how he may have possibly survived, Lemons claimed that the combination of helium and oxygen gas gave his body the "building blocks of life" to survive for so long.
Lemons explained: "We breathe a helium-oxygen mixture. So it means we're actually breathing just 6 per cent oxygen - but because of pressure and the miracle of partial pressure on the body, that was equivalent to breathing nearly five times as much oxygen as you and I are breathing now.
"So I think that just gave the cells, the tissues, the building blocks of life and enough oxygen to survive for that length of time, and not just to survive, but to survive without any brain damage, which seems just as remarkable."
