What is documented is what Okene found when he reached the bathroom: a space in which the air was still breathable, in which the water level was not at the ceiling, and in which a person could position themselves with their head and at least part of their torso above the water. This was what he had to work with.
## The Four-Foot World
Harrison Okene spent more than sixty hours in a space that was, by the accounts of those who later described it, approximately four feet high — the height of the air pocket that had formed in the inverted bathroom of the second engineer’s cabin. Below him was cold Atlantic water. Above him was breathable air. The space was not large enough to stand in. It was not warm. There was no light.
He had arrived in the space wearing only his underwear. His pajamas or the other clothes he might have been wearing were gone in the chaos of the capsizing.
He has described the ordeal in multiple interviews. The consistent elements across his accounts: the total darkness once his flashlights failed, the cold of the water that surrounded him, the sounds — fish moving through the wreck, unidentifiable sounds from outside the hull — that broke the silence, the hunger and thirst, and the sustained prayer that occupied most of his consciousness during the hours alone.
He found resources to work with. On ventures into the flooded areas of the wreck — moving through the dark water, guided by a makeshift rope he fashioned from torn coverall material so he could find his way back to the air pocket — he located two lifejackets, two flashlights, and, significantly, something to eat and drink. He found a can of Coca-Cola and a tin of sardines.