Aquanaut

[1][2][3] The first human aquanaut was Robert Sténuit, who spent 24 hours on board a tiny one-man cylinder at 200 feet (61 m) in September 1962 off Villefranche-sur-Mer on the French Riviera.

Missions were carried out in which scientists stayed in the capsule for up to 20 days, in order to study fish ecology as well as to prove that saturation diving techniques in an underwater laboratory, breathing a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, could be safely and efficiently accomplished at a minimal cost.

Eleven crew members died, but Okene felt his way into the engineer's office, where an air pocket about 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in) in height contained enough oxygen to keep him alive.

[12][13][14][15] Three days after the accident, Okene was discovered by three South African divers from a saturation diving support vessel, employed to investigate the scene and recover bodies.

[11][16] After his ordeal underwater he faced and overcame his nightly terrors by becoming a commercial diver himself, earning a International Marine Contractors Association recognised Class 2 certificate.