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Warning: This article contains spoilers for Last Breath.
If you enjoy stories about overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds, then Last Breath, currently playing in theaters, will likely appeal to you.
Last Breath, directed and co-written by Alex Parkinson, is a dramatic retelling of a real-life saturation-diving incident that occurred off the Scottish coast in 2012. It’s based on the 2019 documentary of the same name by Parkinson and Richard da Costa. This rescue-focused thriller centers on Chris Lemons’ near-fatal experience (portrayed by Finn Cole), a young commercial diver who became stranded on the North Sea floor for almost 40 minutes. He had just over five minutes of breathable gas in his emergency tank and no protection from the frigid underwater temperatures.
“I’m drawn to stories where reality surpasses fiction because they offer incredible insights into the human condition,” Parkinson told TIME. “Chris should have died that night. His story beautifully illustrates the human spirit’s capacity to triumph over adversity.”
The film establishes the context of this perilous event by introducing saturation diving, recognized as one of the most hazardous and isolating professions globally. We are introduced to Chris as he bids farewell to his fiancée, Morag (Bobby Rainsbury), before reporting for duty on the support vessel. This vessel will transport him and his fellow divers—notably, experienced veteran Duncan Allcock () and pragmatic Dave Yuasa ()—to the North Sea location where they will repair a gas manifold more than 300 feet below sea level.
As depicted in the film, the actual job involves spending several weeks aboard a ship inside a pressurized chamber that allows divers to adapt to the extreme conditions encountered while repairing oil rigs and gas pipelines deep underwater. A team of three divers scheduled for a shift descends in a diving bell attached to the support vessel. Two divers then proceed to the seabed, while the third remains inside the bell to ensure their safety. The submerged divers are connected to the bell via “umbilical” cords, which provide essential life support functions, including breathing gas, communication, power, and heated water, allowing them to endure long hours in the depths.
“I was completely unfamiliar with saturation diving and the fact that people live for months in these tiny capsules, working on the seabed. It’s an amazing setting,” Parkinson said, recalling his initial reaction to Lemons’ story. “Then, there’s the accident itself, and this incredible story of heroism.”
On the day of Lemons’ accident, he and Yuasa were working on the manifold, with Allcock providing support from the bell. Suddenly, the support vessel experienced a failure of its dynamic positioning system. This failure occurred during a severe storm, causing the ship to drift rapidly with the waves, dragging the bell along. While Lemons and Yuasa attempted to return to the bell quickly, Lemons’ umbilical cord became entangled on the manifold and eventually snapped, leaving him stranded in the freezing darkness with very little oxygen.
Parkinson states that he was initially drawn to the story by the unlikelihood of Lemons’ survival and the extreme nature of saturation diving. However, he felt that the relatability of Lemons’ emotions in the moments leading up to his loss of consciousness truly gave the narrative its heart. “I’m never going to find myself at 300 feet underwater,” he says. “But when Chris was in that situation in the pitch black with the umbilical broken and his gas rapidly running out, I could immediately identify what he was going through and know what he was feeling.”
Lemons miraculously managed to find his way back to the manifold, climb on top, and secure himself to the structure, but he soon lost consciousness as his emergency gas ran out. What followed was a series of near-successful attempts that enabled the support vessel’s crew to reposition the ship, allowing Yuasa to dive down and rescue Lemons. Although the crew anticipated recovering a deceased body, Lemons regained consciousness in the diving bell after only a few assisted breaths from Allcock. He then resumed his work just three weeks later to complete the project.
“Incredible things can happen when you persevere,” Parkinson notes. “During that intense storm, the crew could have decided it was too dangerous to attempt to regain control of the ship and waited to retrieve his body later. However, their determination is truly inspiring.”
To this day, there’s no definitive explanation for how Lemons survived for such a long time without oxygen and suffered no long-term physical or psychological effects. The most widely accepted theory suggests that a unique combination of depth and temperature created an environment that sustained Lemons’ body, which was saturated with oxygen from the special gas the divers breathe.
“You could argue that Chris was incredibly unlucky for the accident to occur in the first place,” Parkinson says. “But on the other hand, he was extremely fortunate that the right people were in the right place at the right time and acted in the precise sequence needed to rescue and resuscitate him. If any of those factors had been different, he wouldn’t have survived. It’s astounding.”