How did The Last Breath’s Chris Lemons survive his ordeal? Plus what it left out of his amazing story

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Currently popular on Prime Video, The Last Breath is a compelling true story about Chris Lemons, a British oil-rig diver. He amazingly survived nearly 30 minutes without oxygen after being stranded on the seabed of the North Sea when the systems on his support ship failed.

During a storm with large waves and strong winds, the ship’s automatic positioning system failed in the movie. While it appeared dramatic, Captain Lemons explained to the Guardian that working in such conditions was actually typical for them. He casually remarked, “We barely even felt it down there.”

When the ship’s alarms went off, the divers had to return to the diving bell immediately. They couldn’t surface because they’d been working at a depth of 300 meters for days, and their bodies had adjusted to the extreme pressure. As Lemons explained, coming up too quickly would cause a fatal condition called explosive decompression.

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As the ship started to drift, it pulled Lemons and the diving bell along with it, quickly trapping him. He struggled wildly, trying to get free and yelling for more cable. He realized that if the drift continued, he’d be pulled into a narrow opening in the structure, and the experience would be incredibly painful, like being scraped against a cheese grater.

Fortunately, the cable broke, though it didn’t seem like good news at the time. This left Lemons with only ten minutes of air and the urgent need to climb to the top of the structure he was working on. His colleagues, Dave Yuasa and Duncan Allcock, would need to find him in the dark to pull off a rescue.

Chris described the scene as complete darkness above him on the water. Realizing he was completely alone, he felt a sense of acceptance, which surprisingly calmed him. The fear and panic subsided as he recognized his helplessness. He curled up into a fetal position, and a profound sadness overwhelmed him.

In the movie, Chris appears to be waving in the footage from the distant cameras, but he was actually unconscious. He theorizes that any movement they observed was simply the natural, involuntary motions of someone who is drowning.

Dave Yuasa successfully rescued Chris after 29 minutes and brought him into the diving bell. There, Duncan Allcock was able to revive him with mouth-to-mouth, even though Chris had been without oxygen for 29 minutes.

Chris described the experience itself as calm. He admitted to feeling like a fraud, explaining that while people still reach out to him after losing loved ones, he doesn’t feel qualified to offer advice because he hasn’t gone through the same thing.

How did Chris survive without oxygen?

Honestly, even the doctors are baffled. The end credits of the movie actually said they couldn’t figure out how he pulled through and healed completely. It’s crazy!

One idea is that the extreme cold caused a near-hibernation state, allowing his body to continue functioning at a very low level. However, he argues that if he’d been that cold, Duncan wouldn’t have been able to revive him so quickly.

After being in the confined space for several days, his blood likely contained more oxygen than usual. According to The Guardian, high levels of carbon dioxide – which he would have experienced from breathing only his own exhaled air – can sometimes protect the brain.

It’s impossible to say definitively, as doctors couldn’t examine him right away. He needed three more days to recover in Aberdeen before they could run tests or provide treatment.

What happened to Chris Lemons after his ordeal?

At the heart of The Last Breath is Chris’s relationship with his fiancée, Morag, who worries about the risks he takes. He’s deeply troubled by the thought of failing her, and this guilt weighs heavily on him as he confronts a life-threatening situation.

The movie ends with their wedding, but sadly, their real-life marriage didn’t last – they’ve since gotten divorced.

Chris now works as a diving supervisor and public speaker, and has a partner and two children – a role similar to the one played by Mark Bonnar in the film. Yuasa still works as a diver with Boskalis Subsea Services, the same company as Chris, but Duncan Allcock has retired from diving.

The movie closely mirrors a true story, as anyone who saw the 2019 documentary Last Breath will recognize. However, a few minor details were altered. Unlike Woody Harrelson’s character, the real Chris Allcock is originally from Derbyshire, not Texas. And while the actor who plays him, Finn Cole, has a full head of hair, the real Chris Lemon is bald. Lemon joked about this, saying Cole’s hair ‘makes complete sense’ for a movie character.

The Last Breath is available to stream now on Prime Video.

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2025-11-06 15:50