Review: The Diver and the Cook by Lasse Spang Olsen

Mark ‘Crowley’ Russell reviews the amazing story that is The Diver and the Cook by Lasse Spang Olsen, published by Dived Up.


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Every now and then the diving world produces something truly inspirational. The case of the rescue of the young Thai footballers springs to mind as one.

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Another, far less well-known, happened in 2013 when a small team of commercial divers pulled off the unthinkable: rescuing a survivor from a shipwreck that had already been underwater for the better part of three days – and without the concerted efforts of a crack team of global experts.

This is the subject of The Diver & the Cook, by Danish filmmaker Lasse Spang Olsen, in which Nigerian sailor Harrison Okene, ship’s cook for the tugboat Jascon-4, is trapped in an air pocket of his capsized boat at a depth of 34m (102ft) in the Atlantic Ocean 20 miles off the Nigerian coast – alone, in the pitch black, with sea creatures starting to nibble on his toes…

Enter the crew of Lewek Toucan, a team of South African saturation divers tasked with investigating the wreckage and recovering the bodies of its drowned sailors. Nico Van Heerden, a relative novice to the industry, lands the job of entering the upside-down tugboat, now partially sunk into the mud of the Atlantic sea floor, aided by his support divers Darryl Oosthuizen and André Erasmus, with the small team managed by Tony Walker from Lewek Toucan’s control room.

Helmet cam footage of the moment Harrison is rescued

The book takes the form of a series of interviews with those involved, brought together by Olsen’s storytelling and interspersed with transcripts of recordings taken from the divers’ helmet cams, detailing the next 11 hours of an experience that must have been almost as terrifying for the divers – particularly Van Heerden – as it was for Harrison, who would not have survived much longer had he not been found.

The story is absolutely gripping, and Olsen tells it well, although he does tend to get a bit repetitive in describing certain situations (yes, we get that the boat is upside down) and overextends the narrative suspense towards the end of the story, given that we know from the outset that Harrison survives.

These are minor issues, however, in the overall context of a tale that will shock even veteran divers. The crew are not shy in detailing a number of potentially disastrous mistakes while navigating a thoroughly unprecedented scenario that was never even intended to be a rescue attempt.

The Diver & the Cook is genuinely moving at times. An accompanying documentary is guaranteed to bring tears to the eyes of many hardy souls when it is finally released.

The book covers the story in more detail, however, and barring a few minor literary clichés, Olsen has produced a very well-crafted, accurate account of an improbable rescue that deserves far more recognition than it originally received – and is well worth a read.

The abridged extract below gives a taste of the adventure…..


A CGI representation of JAcston-4 tugboat capsizing
Recreation of the moment Jascon-4 capsizes

‘The toilet was now on the ceiling, and I was on the floor’

Jascon-4 was a 31.5-metre-long tugboat with a 12-man crew, built to cope with almost any kind of weather, so even though the ship was being battered by huge waves, there was no real danger at this point.

Harrison, the ship’s cook, entered the shared bathroom lined with two large sinks, industrial washing machines and dryers along one wall, and toilet booths along the other. Four sailors from the first shift that morning were already there, brushing their teeth.

While Harrison was using one of the toilet booths, a particularly large wave tipped the tugboat and made the ship heave over. One of the men out by the sinks shouted to Harrison in the booth that the ship was sinking. Harrison laughed and responded with a joke.

‘But a moment later we tipped violently to the left – and then to the right,’ [said Harrison]. ‘And then we flipped over. It was all so fast … before I could even get a hold of the handle of the door, we had turned upside down…. The toilet was now on the ceiling, and I was on the floor – the floor, that just a moment ago had been the ceiling.

‘The next thing I saw was the toilet that fell down. “Boah!” It hit me in the head, and I was bleeding. But I did not care about the wound — all I thought of was how to get out of the booth because now the door was stuck.’

The massive industrial washing machines had fallen onto the floor and hit the men that had been brushing their teeth. One lay lifeless under one of the huge machines while the other two screamed at Harrison to free them from where they lay trapped under the wreckage.

At that moment all the lights went out and the inside of the tugboat went pitch black.

‘Everyone was panicking,’ Harrison continued, ‘and they cried out, saying we were sinking. But at this point there was no water inside the vessel. We had turned upside down, but there was no water … yet.’ Then, the water started rushing in.

‘We could not get out. We did not understand what was happening. We could just feel the vessel sinking. Then the water started coming … from below. It leaked in and started covering our legs.

a commercial diver in a diving helmet enters the door of an upturned boat wreck
Documentary re-creation of Nick Van Heerden entering the upturned boat

The flooding water sent bunks, mattresses, shoes, clothes, tables and chairs spinning around. Refrigerators and machines were thrown about with massive force and bowled the crew members over as the ship was filled by the heavy influx.

‘There were sounds of tearing metal, doors breaking off, air being pressed out through narrow passageways and stairwells, furniture being crushed and men desperately crying out as the ship filled up,’ remembers Harrison.

‘I heard the cries from some of the other crew members, who apparently also had air somewhere in the wreck. “Help, help!”

At first, I was glad to discover that I wasn’t the only one alive. They shouted, shouted, shouted, shouted. And I thought that maybe I could find my way to them, and we could try to get out together. It made me happy and gave a little hope.’

a picture of Harrion Okene, survivor of Jacson-4 tugboat disaster
Harrison Okene, the ship’s cook and survivor of Jacson-4

‘After some time, the voices slowly faded. First one … then one more … and then another. I couldn’t help them. I could hear them die one by one, and I couldn’t do anything.’

Eventually, most of the cries stopped.

A long career as a ship’s cook in the offshore industry had taught Harrison that the only hope for rescue would be from divers. But since divers are often part of the crew on offshore ships, Harrison knew enough about diving to be fully aware that no diver in Nigeria would be able to save him from a shipwreck like this.

Harrison was deep inside the wreck –almost as far as one could get from an exit. It would take any diver a very long time to get all the way in. The chance that anyone would take such a risk was close to zero. That was a fact.

He resigned himself to dying in there.

Mark 'Crowley' Russell

Filed under: Book & Film Reviews, Briefing, Print Issues
Tagged with: Book Reviews, Commercial Diving, Wreck Diving


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