‘That’s a wrap on old Jakey’
A diver captured on film what he thought would be his final moments after he became stranded more than 30 miles out at sea.
Jacob Childs was out with a group of divers off the coast of south-east Queensland, Australia, in 2016 when he found himself alone in the ocean.
The 30-year-old had managed to lose sight of the safety rope he was attached to and when he rose out of the water he could see the boat moving away.
He ended up being left alone out in the deep for six hours.
As the sun started to set, he realised that in the dark it would be extremely difficult for anyone to find him, and he started to genuinely consider whether he would end up dying out at sea.
So, he decided to capture his final moments on film, telling the camera: “So that’s it. The sun goes down they won’t do nothing. That’s a wrap on old Jakey.”
Jacob told ABC News at the time: “We took a while to anchor up … which left us [with] several people in different states of readiness. I was one of the first to hop in [to the water].
“It was then 15 minutes before the last people hopped in … in which time we were fighting the current the whole way.
“Then we started to descend down the line. One person was up the top, so I went to swap hands and I missed the rope … so I surfaced alongside to the boat.
“There was no tagline out the back for me to grab on to … by the time the skipper had thrown it out I was already past it.”
Once it was dark, Childs could see rescue teams circling above him, but they couldn’t spot him.
By the time a plane eventually spotted him, he had drifted eight miles from where he had initially been diving.
He told the Express: “It’s a long time to spend by yourself, and it’s a long swim back to shore.
“There’s nothing to judge where you are. All the waves look the same and there’s no land to try and gage yourself against.
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