Christopher Lemons

This highly specialised form of diving involves living in the claustrophobic confines of a decompression chamber for up to 28 days at a time, commuting daily to the sea-bed in a diving bell, and working at depths of up to 900 feet for 6 hours at a time.

In September of 2012, a freak failure of the dynamic positioning system of the vessel he was working under, resulted in the umbilical which provides him with breathing gas, light and heat being severed completely. He was left on the seabed, in complete darkness 300 feet below the surface, with only the 5 minutes of breathing gas he carried in the emergency tanks on his back, and no way to protect himself from the freezing temperatures.

It took his heroic rescuers over 40 minutes to come back and fetch him, and his miraculous survival story has baffled experts ever since. His extraordinary story was subsequently immortalised in the hit Netflix/BBC documentary ‘Last Breath,’ a version of which is currently being developed into a Hollywood movie starring Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu and Finn Cole.

Chris was born in Edinburgh, raised in Cambridge, and now lives in the South of France with his partner and two daughters.

Chris is happy to tailor his address to align with your specific theme or requirements, which may include focusing on the safety aspect and lessons learned from the accident, the human and emotional elements involved, or a more generic oversight of the offshore and saturation diving world. Chris can offer you an insight into the relatively unknown world of saturation Diving, where those involved spend weeks on end confined to a compression chamber, whilst being lowered each day in a diving bell to the murky depths of the ocean floor to do their work.

He will also talk you through the lead up to that fateful day in 2012 and give you a very personal account of his thoughts and actions when he was left stranded 300 feet down in the icy darkness with no heat, no light and only 5 minutes of gas left to breathe, with his rescuers over 40 minutes away from being able to get to him. Chris offers an acute, honest and emotional testimony of what goes through one’s mind when seemingly counting down the minutes to death, and how surprising and revealing one’s response to such a situation can be.

He also tentatively explores how staring death in the face can focus the mind on life, as well as force you to contemplate the very finite nature of time here on earth. Chris also discusses the practical and physiological reasons which may have contributed to his miraculous survival. He moves beyond the miracle and communicates how teamwork, preparation, training, procedures, drills and practice played a huge role in his recovery and survival, and the way in which these are implemented can benefit your sphere of work or life.

Chris is also delighted to engage in question and answer sessions on any of the subjects related above.