Double Heroism and a Miracle

When the vessel capsized, some passengers were trapped in their cabins. The vessel's diving instructor, 23-year-old Youssef al-Faramawy attempted to help them as the vessel went over and got trapped too.

More than a whole day later, his uncle, Khattab al-Faramawy, with other divers searching inside the wreckage in darkness, found him and four other passengers trapped and cold, yet alive and breathing from an eight-inch-deep air pocket, in complete darkness, in a cabin. It was a miracle. They were recovered to the surface and taken to a hospital in Marsa Alam.

It was fortunate that all were practiced scuba divers who had no problem using the alternate air sources of those divers who rescued them.

Rescuer Khattab al-Faramawy told that it was a complex mission, exploring the partially sunk liveaboard by the light of their underwater flashlights. They needed to dive 40-feet deep to enter the vessel. Some of the cabin doors were jammed shut.

One of the (Belgian) survivors told the BBC, "We appreciated the meal on board [the rescue boat] and the warm shower. We were shaking with cold before being rescued."

It has been assumed that the shallow depth at which the five survivors were found means there will be no ill-effects from decompression but they were kept in hospital under observation. In fact, one of those survivors reported opening a window [porthole?] in the upturned vessel, to get more air and signal to any possible rescuers, so that part must have been above the sea surface.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian authorities kept them excluded from journalists reporting the disaster. No doubt there will be more information forthcoming in the following months.