''Last Breath'' is a 2019 British documentary film directed by Richard da Costa and Alex Parkinson. It relates the story of a serious saturation diving accident in 2012, when diver Chris Lemons had his umbilical cable severed and became trapped around under the sea without heat or light, and with only the small amount of breathing gas in his backup tank. Parkinson directed an upcoming feature film version of the documentary.

Plot summary

The documentary uses genuine footage and audio recorded at the time of the accident on the divers' radios and body cameras, supplemented with interviews of several of the individuals involved, as well as some reconstructed footage, to tell the story of the accident. Chris Lemons, along with his colleagues Duncan Allcock and David Yuasa, were carrying out repairs below the surface of the North Sea, supported by the support vessel ''Bibby Topaz''. The vessel's

dynamic positioning system Dynamic positioning (DP) is a computer-controlled system to automatically maintain a vessel's position and heading by using its own propellers and thrusters. Position reference sensors, combined with wind sensors, motion sensors and gyrocompass ...

, supplied by Kongsberg Maritime, failed. This caused the vessel to drift in rough seas, dragging the divers away from the area they were working and eventually snapping the umbilical tether that provided Lemons with heliox to breathe, as well as hot water to heat his suit, power for his light, and a communications link to the surface. He was left with only five minutes of breathable gas contained in the cylinders he wore on his back. For reasons that are unclear to Lemons and his colleagues, but attributed in part to the cold water and having been breathing a gas mix with a high

partial pressure In a mixture of gases, each constituent gas has a partial pressure which is the notional pressure of that constituent gas as if it alone occupied the entire volume of the original mixture at the same temperature. The total pressure of an ideal gas ...

of oxygen, Lemons survived for around 30 minutes while he was located by a remote underwater vehicle and then by Yuasa, who was able to pull him back onboard the diving bell.

Release

''Last Breath'' was distributed in the UK by Dogwoof and was released simultaneously in cinemas and on Netflix on 5 April 2019. In France the documentary was distributed by Arte on 11 September 2019 with the title ''Le survivant des abysses''.

Reception

Reviews of the documentary were mixed. '' Empire'' gave it 3 stars, describing it as 'a great story' but comparing it unfavourably to similar survival documentaries such as ''

Touching the Void Touching the Void may refer to: * ''Touching the Void'' (''book''), a 1988 book by Joe Simpson ** ''Touching the Void'' (film), a 2003 film based on the book ** ''Touching the Void'' (play), a 2018 play based on the book {{Disambiguation ...

''. The '' Financial Times'' awarded 4 stars, and called it a 'powerful documentary'.

References

External links

{{IMDb title, 9056818 2019 documentary films 2010s British films 2010s English-language films British documentary films Documentary films about underwater diving English-language documentary films Films about survivors of seafaring accidents or incidents Films scored by Paul Leonard-Morgan