What is established is that he works underwater, in the waters he described as wanting never to enter again, at a professional level that requires significant training and demonstrated competence. The vow to never return to the sea, made in the dark of the Jascon-4 air pocket and kept for approximately two years on land, has been superseded by a professional commitment to the same marine environment. This is not a small thing. The men who have spent extended periods in life-threatening underwater situations and subsequently worked regularly as professional underwater workers number, in all of recorded history, very few.
## The People Who Brought Him Up
Nico van Heerden, the DCN diver who made the first physical contact with Okene, did not speak extensively to media in the period covered by the available reporting. The account of his reaction — “quite a fright” — comes from the company’s commercial manager, Jed Chamberlain, rather than from van Heerden directly. What van Heerden said in the moment when he realized Okene was alive — the reported exclamation “He’s alive!” that Okene described hearing from inside the wreck — is attributed to van Heerden in multiple accounts of the rescue.
Van Heerden’s subsequent presentation of Okene’s diving diploma, if the account is accurate, represents a kind of professional relationship that is unusual in the rescue context: the person who found Okene alive later witnessed his entrance into the profession of the people who found him. This is documented in the available reporting as a fact, though the specific details of the diploma presentation — the location, the attendees, the words spoken — are not available beyond the fact of the event.