A terrified diver was left swimming in shark-infested waters for three hours after his boat capsized in a strong current.
Cody Love, from Queensland, Australia, was stranded when his vessel suddenly overturned near the Great Barrier Reef.
An extreme sea change saw things take a dangerous turn as he feared for his life before eventually being rescued.
The 24-year-old took to TikTok to show the world just how perilous the situation was.
Cody was trapped and alone in the middle of the ocean – barring the company of sharks, who lurked nearby.
In a clip that was filmed on March 15, which has since been viewed over nine million times, he can be seen treading breathlessly in open water while he lets off a flare in a desperate bid for help.
In a separate clip, he films himself swimming in the ocean, still in full diving gear, before sarcastically saying: “Great day at the Reef," with the bow of his sunken boat bobbing in the distance.
“I had dropped my partner at work and found out the boss didn’t need me that day and, seeing as I had been storing my boat at my partner’s workshop, I decide to head out for a quick half-day trip to refill my freezers," Cody, a mine worker, said.
“I furled up and got the boat ready around 9am and headed out towards one of my regular spots that I have been diving at every weekend for the past six weeks with friends.
"Unfortunately, there were a few sets of waves that came through and the anchor rope got tangled around the propeller, which spun the boat backward.
"Before I could do anything the boat was swamped by waves and began to lean to one side as it filled with water.
"It all happened in a matter of seconds and took me by surprise. At this point, I still had all my diving gear on.”
Over the next ten minutes, Cody frantically swam around trying to collect as many of his belongings as he could from the water.
He said: “After numerous dives around the boat, I soon realised the plastic container with my safety gear in hadn't fallen out and was still somewhere in the front of the boat.
"I then found the packet of safety flares which I started readying and tucking into my wetsuit. This included a red handheld flare for night-time and a red parachute flare for night-time as well.
"At this stage, the anchor rope had become untangled from the propeller and I soon found myself and the boat at the mercy of the ocean – drifting north with the tide."
Despite the two flares releasing plumes of orange smoke for 30 seconds each, neither was successful in getting the attention of passing boats.
Cody then attempted to put an orange safety sheet over his boat to attract the attention of passing planes, but it blew away.
He said: “It had probably been an hour since my boat first capsized.
"After another 30 minutes, I was looking up into the sky and saw a red helicopter flying directly towards me from a distance away. It got closer and closer, before turning away and heading in the opposite direction.
“Seeing that helicopter gave me so much hope that help was coming, then all of that hope was taken away as it turned and flew away.”
Two hours later, Cody became desperate and set off an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) and "hoped for the best" – while drifting into deeper water where sharks were lurking.
He said: "At the particular spot where the boat flipped, we had seen over six big tiger sharks up to four metres in length over the weeks prior to this trip.
"Not much in the ocean scares me as I have spent so much time on the water and underwater – but it was beautiful when I heard the sound of another helicopter and I could see from the distance that is what the Q-air rescue chopper.
“I let go of the boat, swam over and sat below the helicopter as they sent down their rescue diver, he reached me in the water, put the sling around me and we both got winched back into the helicopter.”
Cody was given fluids and checked over by the rescue crew, where he was found to be in perfectly good health.
He has since credited his diving experience for saving his life.
Cody later shared footage on TikTok, where the videos amassed more than 400,000 likes, with people commenting comparing it to the sinking of the Titanic.
