Diving Facts

There is a village in Ireland called Muff, and they have their own diving club.

A killer whale's heart beats 30 times a minute under water, 60 times a minute on the surface.

Harrison Okene was the ship's cook on the Jascon-4 when it capsized in 30 meters of water off Nigeria's coast in May 2013. All 11 of his crewmates died. He survived 60 hours alone in a 4-foot air pocket - in total darkness, in freezing water - before rescue divers arrived to collect bodies. When a diver swam through the flooded cabin with a headlamp, a hand reached out and grabbed him. Okene was alive.

In 2017, marine biologist Nan Hauser was diving in the Cook Islands when a 50,000-pound humpback whale began pushing her. For 10 minutes it tucked her under its fin and nudged her toward her boat. She thought it was trying to kill her. Then she saw the 15-foot tiger shark below. The whale had been shielding her the whole time. 28 years studying whales. It had never happened. Caught on camera.

Chris Lemons was a saturation diver left alone on the North Sea floor in 2012 when his umbilical - supplying gas, heat and light - was severed by a drifting ship. He had about five minutes of emergency gas. Colleagues found him around 30 minutes later, unconscious on the seabed. Two rescue breaths brought him back, with no lasting brain damage.