Man survived without oxygen for 25 minutes thanks to controversial rescue
It was on a very hot August day in 1983, when Ray Parrish, a 35-year-old commercial diver, went to work in the middle of the muddy Mississippi River around Destrehan. His mission: go down to the bottom of the river, nearly 90 feet down in pure darkness, to find and hook up cables to a new tug that sank on her maiden voyage. On top was a barge and crane waiting to pull her up.
"This boat had a whole lot of sand and mud around it and it was too much to get anything underneath the bow," said Parrish, who now lives in California.
