Featured Image Credit: Jakey/YouTube
A scuba diver recorded what he thought were his final moments on Earth after he was left stranded in the ocean for more than six hours.
Jacob Childs considered himself a pretty experienced diver, but nothing could have prepared him for the day he went out with a crew in 2016 for a dive off the coast of Queensland, Australia.
Childs was set for the dive at the Althea Wreck, approximately 30 nautical miles north-east of Bundaberg when the worst happened.
At about midday, Childs was separated from his crew and began to drift with nothing more than the equipment on his back.
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In an interview with ABC, Childs explained how he 'missed the rope' which led from the boat into the water.
He continued: '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.'
Almost immediately an air and sea search for the lost diver was underway.
Incredibly, Childs used his Go-Pro to capture harrowing footage of what he thought would be his final moments on this planet as he lay stranded in the middle of the ocean.
In the video uploaded to YouTube he calmly says: 'So that's it. The sun goes down they won't do nothing. That's a wrap on old Jakey.'
The sky continued to darken and Childs' hopes of being rescued continued to dwindle until he was miraculously rescued at about 6pm.
Speaking to ABC Childs said 'it's a long time to spend by yourself'.
Childs recalls hearing helicopters around him, but they couldn't spot him. Footage even shows the planes flying past him as Childs gets more agitated.
Explaining this to ABC he said: 'Apparently there were a lot of boats out there but I didn't see any of those ... all I had seen and heard was a trawler which I tried swimming towards.'
On of the things that struck viewers was just how calm Childs was in his recordings. He recalls being 'nice and warm' in his wetsuit and not too tired thanks to his float.
He wasn't even overly worried about spending the night at sea, saying: 'I think it's just one of those things ... if you've got to do it, you've got to do it.'
And if you thought the experience put him off diving, you'd be wrong. When asked about if he fancies another dive, Childs responded: 'I'll be in the water tomorrow probably.'
Childs has posted six parts of his footage of the incident to his YouTube channel, leaving viewers in awe.
One commenter wrote: 'Floating in the ocean alone, sun going down, unsure if you’ll ever get home… & 10x more chilled out than I am when I’m stuck in traffic'
Another viewer explained how he comes back to Childs' video often: 'I always come back to this video. Something about the way he just starts to accept his faith so peacefully has always stuck with me. So glad he got saved.'
