Last Breath is based on an incredible true story that scientists still can't explain. The survival drama tells the story of Chris Lemons, an experienced deep-sea diver who finds himself in a dangerous underwater situation when he is left alone at the bottom of the freezing ocean without oxygen.
Lemons' story has become the stuff of legend and has already been the subject of a 2019 documentary, also titled Last Breath. The upcoming Hollywood adaptation stars Simu Liu from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Woody Harrelson (Vemon: Let There Be Carnage) and Finn Cole (Peaky Blinders) as Lemons.
Director: Alex Parkinson
Writers: Mitchell LaFortune, Alex Parkinson, David Brooks
Stars: Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, Finn Cole
Last Breath is based on incredible true events that occurred on a deep-sea diving mission in the North Sea in 2012.
The mission involved divers Chris Lemons, Duncan Allcock and David Yasuda, who were carrying out repairs on the seabed about 100 metres below the surface.
To complete this mission, the divers were tethered to a diving bell which was in turn connected to a surface vessel, the Bibby Topaz. The divers were connected by an umbilical cord which provided them with oxygen, warm water, power and communications.
For an unknown reason, the Bibby Topaz’s dynamic positioning systems failed, causing the vessel to drift in rough seas. This dragged the divers working below away from their position, but for Chris Lemons, the situation was much worse.
Lemons’ umbilical cord caught on one of the underwater structures they were working on and ended up breaking completely. This left Lemons with only five minutes of emergency breathing gas in his tank, but no light, heat or means of communication. Meanwhile, the other divers had been dragged away from their position.
The Bibby Topaz was able to deploy a submersible ROV which located Lemons with its camera and showed the man slowly suffocating to death. When the ship's positioning systems came back online, divers were able to pick up Lemons' body from the work site and return it to the diving bell, 30 minutes after his umbilical cord was cut.
The human brain and body cannot normally survive without oxygen for more than six minutes (although there are some exceptions with proper training, such as Kate Winslet's record-breaking achievement in Avatar: The Way of Water).
The divers had assumed the worst, but miraculously, after performing CPR on him, Lemons began breathing again and was soon back to normal, with no signs of brain damage from his ordeal.
Experts remain baffled as to how Chris Lemons was able to survive 30 minutes without oxygen at the bottom of the ocean.
Some theories suggest it may have been due to the ocean temperature, which was around 4 degrees Celsius at diving altitude. This freezing cold may have helped cool Lemons' metabolic processes, which may have reduced his oxygen consumption.
Another factor that contributed to his survival is likely the gas mix that Lemons was equipped with, which was a combination of helium and oxygen. Lemons and the other divers had been living in a diving chamber breathing only heliox for weeks to help adjust their bodies to the conditions of the dive, a process commonly known as saturation diving.
This process would have resulted in Lemons' tissues being highly saturated with oxygen and could have provided him with an additional source of oxygen to survive the extra minutes.
These factors combined are the best solution that experts can provide as to how Lemons survived his ordeal, but there is no doubt that it is a miracle of the modern era.
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