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- [00:02]
Isabel Stanley
Seriously popular. It's the week before the accident, and Christopher Boodram is struggling to sleep. What were the nightmares about?
- [00:16]
Christopher Boodram
More or less death.
- [00:18]
Isabel Stanley
Usually Christopher's dreams are placid and unremarkable. But this week they become twisted and dark. One night he hunts a wild pig, the turtle into a baby when he slaughters it. The next, he sees a woman's dark shadow evaporate from her body in a hospital bed.
- [00:41]
Christopher Boodram
Then as the night before the accident. Now I had a nightmare where my wife and children were kidnapped and I had to go and rescue them. And I took on machete from home and drive across. And the location of this hospital or center is. Is the office of LMCs.
- [01:11]
Isabel Stanley
LMCs, remember, is the contractor that employed Christopher and the other divers.
- [01:17]
Christopher Boodram
And I jumped. I burst in and I had to slash and cut my way through them to find my wife and kids. I got them. We got Tintaka. And escape.
- [01:33]
Isabel Stanley
Christopher jolts awake in a cold sweat. He shakes his wife and tells her that he can't get back to sleep.
- [01:40]
Christopher Boodram
She is a very spiritual woman. She prayed with me and I was able to go back to sleep.
- [01:48]
Isabel Stanley
So Christopher pushes the bad dreams from his mind, and by the next morning, he's forgotten about them. It's a normal day, but his real nightmare was about to begin. In February 2022, Christopher was one of five divers that was sucked into an underwater oil pipeline 60ft beneath the surface of the Caribbean Sea. He managed to drag himself out over the course of three long, dark hours. But the other four men didn't come out alive. Ever since I came across this story last summer, I've wanted to speak to Christopher. He's the only living person who knows what happened inside that pipe. And in February 2025, after weeks of conversations with his lawyer about the story, I finally get my chance. Christopher agrees to speak with me, and he has a lot to say. I'm Isabel Stanley. You're listening to Pipeline. Episode two, the Fifth Man. The first time I see Christopher Boodram in person, I'm waiting nervously in his lawyer's office in San Fernando, the town where our divers lived. Despite having spent the last five months looking into his story, reading hundreds of pages of official documents and watching hours of footage, it's hard to know what to expect. I know a lot about the worst day of his life. But at this point, I know very little about Christopher himself. I needn't have worried when he walks into that office. He greets me with a broad smile and firm handshake and Before I know it, I've learned the names of all his children and he's given me a rundown on Trinidad's most dangerous sharks.
- [03:55]
Christopher Boodram
Yes, the bull sharks are more dangerous because of they tend to be in more murky waters. Trinidad.
- [04:02]
Isabel Stanley
And he's brought someone with him, his wife, Candy. She and Christopher have known each other since they were children.
- [04:09]
Christopher Boodram
We basically grew up together. We went to the same school, lived in the same village, even attend the same church.
- [04:17]
Isabel Stanley
Candy is a nurse at San Fernando General Hospital and a mother to their five children, two of whom they adopted after her sister passed away last year. Was it love at first sight?
- [04:28]
Christopher Boodram
No, it wasn't.
- [04:32]
Isabel Stanley
Talking to Candy, it's easy to see how hard they've both worked for their family.
- [04:36]
Christopher Boodram
When we now start off, it was very hard because I came from very poor. Both Kandy and I came from very poor backgrounds. So we were just working. And I was like, to be honest, a loose cannon at that age.
- [04:55]
Isabel Stanley
But things changed when Candy had their first child.
- [04:58]
Christopher Boodram
I realized that she was taking care of my son. I realized, you're playing the fool, but you need to take care of your family. And that's when I start getting serious with my life. And that's where he actually started to settle down in jobs, hold on to jobs. And then he started doing more courses that would lead to this diving career.
- [05:20]
Isabel Stanley
You must have been proud. I mean, if it was. Yeah.
- [05:23]
Christopher Boodram
Especially knowing our humble beginnings.
- [05:27]
Isabel Stanley
Christopher's love of the ocean meant that a career as a professional diver was a natural fit.
- [05:32]
Christopher Boodram
I was born and grew up in the sea. Spearfishing was my forte, so I realized that I'd get fit. And after finding out and realizing that I have a passion for diving, it was an easy transition to get into the commercial aspect of it.
- [05:52]
Isabel Stanley
And diving was a good line of work. To be in Trinidad's oil industry meant the commercial diving work was lucrative. It was a career in which men could forge better futures for their families. As friendly and relaxed as Christopher is when talking about his childhood and his romance with Candy, in his eyes I can see a slight wariness. It's unsurprising, given he knows soon I'm going to ask him to relive that day, the day inside the pipe. And eventually we have to talk about it. Christopher remembers that day, Friday 25th February, 2022, perfectly, every second of it. Like our other divers, he wakes early, gathers his diving kit and drives to the dock.
- [06:51]
Christopher Boodram
Six o' clock in the morning, we headed out. The place was overcast, rain was falling. Place was cold, so I put on my wetsuit while the badge was going out.
- [07:07]
Isabel Stanley
When the divers arrive at Berth 6, the platform where the leaking pipe is, they have a meeting where they discuss safety and the work for the day. The pipe they're working on is a U shape. It starts at Berth 6, goes 60ft down to the sea floor and then along and back up to another platform 1200ft away, known as Berth 5. The section our divers are repairing is 15ft underwater. So they put on their scuba gear and head down, popping up through a hatch into the air filled room that has been fitted around the leaking section of pipe. The room is called a habitat. It's tiny. It's an 8 foot by 8 foot box with metal walls and a light hung from the ceiling. There's a noisy compressor running continually pumping fresh air into the room. The pipe is in the middle and there's a platform around it that the men can stand on. So when they swim in, they take off their scuba gear, hang up their oxygen tanks and get to work. Everything goes smoothly and after their lunch break, they're onto their final tasks for the day. Kaz Jr. Is supervising the men from above the water, but he comes down into the habitat to see how they're getting on.
- [08:30]
Christopher Boodram
While we're in a confined space, he would come in from time to time and see if we all right, make sure everybody in a right working and mental capacity.
- [08:41]
Isabel Stanley
One of the last things they have to do is remove a plug from the pipe. The plug has been in place throughout the project. It's inflatable, like a big sturdy balloon. It fits inside the pipe to stop gases from the oil below escaping into the habitat. To remove the plug, our divers have to deflate it by loosening a series of valves to let the air out. But the valves are done up tightly and they realize that they need another wrench. Kaz Jr. Offers to go and fetch the wrench.
- [09:16]
Christopher Boodram
He went get the castle wrench, gave it to me and I hand it Dr. Rishi.
- [09:23]
Isabel Stanley
Rishi begins to release the valve on the inflatable plug. Kaz Jr. Is wearing a GoPro. That's where the recording you heard last episode comes from. And he captures what happens next on.
- [09:36]
Christopher Boodram
His camera as Rishi release the valve for the air to come out. And I saw the water just start to rise. So I say, yo, this thing filling up? Let me get out of here. Stop all the way out of here.
- [09:54]
Isabel Stanley
All chaos breaks loose. The habitat is filling up with water fast. Christopher is still standing on the platform in the Middle of the room. But the water is nearly touching his feet and it's still rising. He doesn't have time to think. He jumps, hoping to swim out of the Habitat and back up to safety.
- [10:17]
Christopher Boodram
Zeichom. Instead of feeling gravity pulling me down, I actually felt like the water just come up and meet me. All I remember doing is holding onto the platform inside the Habitat. It was just like a hard, hard suction force pulling.
- [10:41]
Isabel Stanley
Christopher is holding onto the platform, desperately trying not to let go.
- [10:45]
Christopher Boodram
I hold on for as long as I could hold on and crunch up into the fe dust position from there. After that, I remember getting hull through the pipe, Passing through that pipe at unbelievable speeds. You know, I feel like if while in a car and driving down the highway or the freeway, that's how I felt moving that type of speed.
- [11:21]
Isabel Stanley
He doesn't where he is or what's happening to him.
- [11:25]
Christopher Boodram
It's only when I reach the elbow of the pipe and I feel that a kind of scoopy feeling coming up and I realize, wait, is the pipe, you know, I start to wedge my body as much as I can to stop myself from being propelled further into it.
- [11:45]
Isabel Stanley
He's pulled 60ft down and reaches the bend in the pipe known as the elbow, where it starts to run along the sea floor. And he's showing no sign of stopping. He's being pulled further and further along the horizontal stretch.
- [12:00]
Christopher Boodram
Chucking myself against the pipe, I felt one or two things passing and hitting on my shoulder, on my foot, on my hands.
- [12:09]
Isabel Stanley
Christopher is holding his breath, but his lungs are burning.
- [12:12]
Christopher Boodram
I was ready to just give up, you know, because out of breath, you're. Your throat does. Does fight, but your body, your lungs does fight. Your muscles start to contract. You just hear a noise coming in your throat, your muscles contracting and trying to force you to open your mouth to breathe. And you're fighting against that.
- [12:43]
Isabel Stanley
Just as he feels he cannot hold on much long.
- [12:51]
Christopher Boodram
I just feel like the water stopped and I just get. I couldn't hold the urge to breathe anymore. And I just gasp for breath. I catch my breath. I made some very, very deep, deep breaths and I catch my breath, catch my breath. I catch my breath. Now.
- [13:21]
Isabel Stanley
When he finally comes to a stop, he's half submerged in oily liquid, but there's a bubble of air above his head. Air that was sucked into the pipe from the Habitat along with him so he can breathe.
- [13:35]
Christopher Boodram
But to me, I wasn't even sure if I was alive. And these hell, because I've been pitch black in peeing and hearing screaming and bawling. To me that was hell. If you read the Bible or mostly any biblical book and explain healthy, it'll tell you that in fire, my body was burning all over. I'm peeing all over. Pitch black.
- [14:03]
Isabel Stanley
As he gulps in more air, the pain kicks in. It's visceral and everywhere. So intense that he can't pinpoint where his injuries are.
- [14:13]
Christopher Boodram
My whole body tingling with numbness, so I can't see. First of all, I can't really feel the extent of damages that I have. I just feeling pain and I can't identify where the pain really coming from.
- [14:36]
Isabel Stanley
He scans his body first his face.
- [14:40]
Christopher Boodram
You're trying to open your eyes, it burning, your nose, your lungs, everything burning.
- [14:47]
Isabel Stanley
Then his torso.
- [14:48]
Christopher Boodram
My hand was pinned behind my, my back, here, shoulder. It felt like it was broken. I couldn't move it, I couldn't shake it, I couldn't do anything with it.
- [14:59]
Isabel Stanley
And then his legs, my ankle, left.
- [15:03]
Christopher Boodram
Ankle too felt broken and all too.
- [15:07]
Isabel Stanley
He can hardly move. Remember, the pipe he's in is only 30 inches wide. Imagine now you're lying flat on your back, arms stiff by your side and you have to hold your body up as if you're doing a half sit up to keep your head out of the water.
- [15:25]
Christopher Boodram
I can sit 90 degrees in the pipe. The pipe was too small for that. So I would have to be like about a 15 degree angle.
- [15:35]
Isabel Stanley
Now take your hands and count three fists from your nose. That's how little air Christopher has above him.
- [15:42]
Christopher Boodram
I had to tell myself, calm myself down, say, Chris, being here already, there's nothing you could do, right? If you ain't dead, you're alive. And if you're alive, we have a chance to survive. We have our chance to get out of here. And I start to push forward.
- [16:07]
Isabel Stanley
The pipe Christopher is trapped in is old. It's been in and out of use for decades at a time, since the 1970s. Christopher knows it well. Over the years he's worked on countless sections just like it. He knows that the insides of this pipe are encrusted with residue from decades of oil production. And he knows that with each breath he may be poisoning his body with toxic fumes. Time is everything. He has to move, he has to try and get out of the pipe.
- [16:43]
Christopher Boodram
So I started drag, pulling myself forward. Thank God I was generally fit to be able to put my body through that level of stress. I was using my right elbow and my right foot to pull forward and drag myself.
- [17:01]
Isabel Stanley
At this point, Christopher doesn't know what's happened or if the other men are in the pipe with him. He can hear people shouting, but he doesn't know who or where they are. The pipe is made of thick metal and sound is ricocheting everywhere.
- [17:17]
Christopher Boodram
I also started here, like screaming and bawling in the background. Inside the pipe, you can't really. It hard to discern direction because everything echoing, plus your ears is like if a grenade now blew up next to your ears going, yeah, but just ringing off.
- [17:41]
Isabel Stanley
He cools out.
- [17:42]
Christopher Boodram
Oi, oi. Who is that boy? Who is that boy? It's me, it's me. I say, me who? He said, cars, boy. Cars. I say, oh, gosh. Cars, tanks, boy inside the pipe. Damage inside the pipe. He said, yeah, Chris, me too. I said, what? He said, yes. I in the pipe too. He said, chris, help man. I help, man. I'm peeing, I can't move. I'm peeing. I'm peeing. I can't move. Chris. I said, Cause I comment my coming. I push and I push and I move and I force myself to reach there. I reach there. Touch for three hands. We sure love something.
- [18:42]
Isabel Stanley
Faisy is Christopher's nickname for Faisal.
- [18:53]
Christopher Boodram
Say Yousef, say, yeah.
- [18:59]
Isabel Stanley
Christopher starts to gather the other men, figuring out where they are in the pipe and how serious their injuries are. They're spread out. They've all come to a stop in slightly different places.
- [19:10]
Christopher Boodram
So we're blacks.
- [19:12]
Isabel Stanley
Blacks is Rishi's nickname.
- [19:21]
Christopher Boodram
Pass over blacks there. I said, black's dead. He said, no, he don't think so. He said he feel like if black was breathing, but he said he can't move to move him.
- [19:37]
Isabel Stanley
Faisal tells Christopher that Rishi is hurt but alive. Christopher decides they have to leave him where he is and come back for help.
- [19:45]
Christopher Boodram
I say, all right, all right. We gotta go and come back for blacks. Cause we can't drag you all. Are we damaged and injured?
- [19:54]
Isabel Stanley
Some of the men start to panic.
- [19:58]
Christopher Boodram
And say, we, Daddy. I said, nobody. Don't say that. Don't say we dead. Your mother power do say, we die. We dead here. We not coming out of here telling all that. We coming out of here. I said, watch me. I'm gonna pray for. Pray to pray. Say yousef prayed, man. Yousef prayer break, man. God's brake, man. Feisy break, man.
- [20:26]
Isabel Stanley
As they pray, Christopher desperately tries to come up with a plan. When the men were sucked into the pipe, their SCUBA kit that they had taken off to work, including their tanks of air, was pulled in with them. Faisal managed to find one of Their tanks. So he's using that to take occasional breaths of clean air. But the other men are breathing in fumes. Christopher has no idea if or when a rescue will come. The one thing he knows is that their air supply will soon run out. He knows they have to try and get out themselves.
- [21:02]
Christopher Boodram
I say, all right, we put into each other, shoulder right, and push and pull each other.
- [21:12]
Isabel Stanley
So Christopher has the men grouped together. They form a human chain, looping their feet under each other's shoulders so they can move as one. And the order was you and then Kasim and then.
- [21:27]
Christopher Boodram
And then Fazee. Okay, yeah.
- [21:31]
Isabel Stanley
They're ready to move, but there's a problem. They don't know which way to go. Christopher knows. All the men know that the pipe they're in is connected to two platforms. A birth six, where they were sucked in and where the pipe is open to the habitat, and berth five, where the top of the pipe is sealed off. Their only hope of escape is to go back to where they were sucked in at birth 6. If they go the wrong way to birth 5, they'll be trapped inside the pipe. So in searing pain and blind in the pitch black, Christopher tries to remember whether he was sucked into the pipe head or feet first. When you were traveling through the pipe, you thought you had gone in head first, but then when you met the others, you set off in the. In the other direction. How did you decide that was the. The way to go?
- [22:36]
Christopher Boodram
I came in head first, so exit is the direction. The exit will be foot first. And Yusuf, Faizy, and Kazim Jr. All said to me, no, Chris the positive is the next viral.
- [22:56]
Isabel Stanley
But the other men disagree with him.
- [22:58]
Christopher Boodram
Yeah, but I. I feel like if I come super my. My head now. I feel like I come super my. My arm. I get something from my hand. I said, I. Sure. They say yes. I say, all right, but, you know, if you go in the wrong direction, we dead right. I say, chris, the direction you want to go is the wrong direction. All right, majority wins at the end of the day. And we went to the other direction where they believe was the right direction.
- [23:33]
Isabel Stanley
Christopher doesn't know it yet, but the other men have just saved his life. Having chosen a direction, they set off. They're all lying on their backs in the pitch black, straining their necks to lift their heads out the oily water to the air pocket above them. They scrabble against the sides of the pipe with their hands and feet, trying to push themselves along.
- [23:57]
Christopher Boodram
Everybody went in the same direction, pulling and I dragging them Fellas. And every so often, I stopped because I exhausted, in pain.
- [24:12]
Isabel Stanley
They move agonizingly slowly, taking breaks often for Youssef and Kaz Jr. Who are more injured. Christopher urges the men on all.
- [24:22]
Christopher Boodram
You had to help me too, said Faiz, you're pushing. He said, yes, but I'm pushing. I said, you say, fight and do it. Could do. He said, but you start doing it, boy. I said, kaz, you could move. He said, kris, I tell you, I can't move, boy. Everything hurting me, I feel like if I paralyze. I said, well, I'll push with man. I'll push with man. I'm coming out of this.
- [24:45]
Isabel Stanley
Then as they move through the pipe, they come across a lifeline, another oxygen tank.
- [24:53]
Christopher Boodram
Can't be. Keep breathing in this air where we're breathing right now. This is going to knock you out. We need to start taking a little sip of this air.
- [25:02]
Isabel Stanley
Christopher tells Faisal and Youssef to share Faisal's tank, and he and Kaz Jr. Share the other. Every so often, the men take a gulp of the clean air, and they settle into a painful but hopeful rhythm. Then Christopher notices something.
- [25:23]
Christopher Boodram
We start to move a little easier, and it's had to become harder for me to hold my neck up to get air.
- [25:35]
Isabel Stanley
The water in the pipe is starting.
- [25:37]
Christopher Boodram
To rise, so I use my hand and measure from the top of my nose to the pipe to know how high the water is. And I asked Faizy to do the same thing because he was the last. And he took us about a foot here. I tell him we're about 8, 6 inches here.
- [25:52]
Isabel Stanley
Christopher knows that means they're reaching the edge of the air pocket.
- [25:57]
Christopher Boodram
This thing getting deeper. We had to stop.
- [26:02]
Isabel Stanley
Ahead of them in the dark, is an unknown length of pipe, completely full of oily water. The men only have two air tanks between them. If they want to swim through the water, they'll have to share the tanks, passing them back and forth every few seconds. But if the water goes on too long, there's a chance their tanks will run out and they'll all drown. Christopher, at the head of the human chain, wants to scout ahead to see how far the water goes before they all try to go through.
- [26:34]
Christopher Boodram
And I went in, I went in swamp for maybe about three, four minutes in the water and realized it's just water and water and a distance. With the experience that I have from diving, I know I wouldn't be able to carry somebody through that without they having oxygen and I have an oxygen.
- [27:05]
Isabel Stanley
As he goes, he realizes that the water goes on too long to bring the injured men through, even if they could swim that far. Christopher fears Kaz Jr. Who he calls Small Kaz, wouldn't be able to stay calm enough to manage passing the air.
- [27:19]
Christopher Boodram
Tank back and forth because Small Kaz was panicking a lot. It would have been a great, great, great chance if I hand him the oxygen he may not have handed back to me.
- [27:35]
Isabel Stanley
So he returns the other men and prepares to do something unimaginable.
- [27:40]
Christopher Boodram
I see all that. We can go forward soon. We stop, we prayed, calm them down.
- [27:51]
Isabel Stanley
Just imagine the horror of this moment. After the initial hope of moving forward together, of finding an extra tank, sharing the oxygen, Christopher realizes there is no way they can all continue. He has to make a decision.
- [28:08]
Christopher Boodram
And then I told them, I said, listen, I need to go and get help. Steam here. Waiting for somebody to come and rescue me may not happen.
- [28:19]
Isabel Stanley
At this point, Kaz Jr. Starts to panic again.
- [28:23]
Christopher Boodram
Kaz was like, Chris, do one leaf man, do one leave my heart.
- [28:27]
Isabel Stanley
And then so does Yusuf.
- [28:29]
Christopher Boodram
Yusuf started to say, chris, don't go now by oh God, only Vivi Chris by say Yusuf, Fatou go. Nobody might come by.
- [28:39]
Isabel Stanley
Faisal realizes he is right.
- [28:42]
Christopher Boodram
Faisy was calm and he understand that that was the only way to do this. I tell Faiz, I said, faiz, you know what to do, you know you have to do. I go on. I had to go and you know, hoping fights you go keep them calm.
- [29:02]
Isabel Stanley
But Kaz Jr grabs Christopher's foot and he won't let go.
- [29:07]
Christopher Boodram
The longer we stay inside the air debate and the less oxygen in our tanks, the more carbon dioxide poisoning we gain, more toxic air we breathing. And at any time this could just render we unconscious. So we had to. I had to leave. And then I say, I can't do this no more. I can't stay here with Aliyah. I say, listen, I need to go and get help. Staying here waiting for somebody to come and rescue me may not happen. Fat Bohogo. Nobody might come by. I need to reach outside. They come back in with a rope and some tank and how to get out of here. I'll bring my help. And the hardest, hardest thing I had to do was to kick off that man.
- [30:14]
Isabel Stanley
This is clearly the most difficult part of the story for Christopher to tell. He has to stop often clenching his fists, tears in his eyes. These were his friends, his brothers, as he calls them. They had worked together for years, spent countless hours on boats or hanging out together after work. And he has to kick Kaz Jr. S hand from his foot. He has to leave them all behind. Fueled by his guilt and his promise to come back with help, Christopher takes one of the air tanks and leaves his friends with the other. He plunges into the water once again.
- [30:58]
Christopher Boodram
I just start to move with all the strength I have in mind to just move, swim, swim, swim.
- [31:10]
Isabel Stanley
But as he swims, pushing himself as hard as he can, his tank runs out.
- [31:16]
Christopher Boodram
Sucking it, my lungs forcing to pull. If I'm in this, I can't pull no more. Lego the tank. And I just had a swim again. And I fighting up and I swimming and I swimming while I swim. And I feeling. I feeling to see if I feel anything inside the pipeline. All of a sudden, I feel like I was gonna black out. My body started to get weak. I started feeling my chest again, pulling in. And then at the last second, I just feel that tank in my hand.
- [31:55]
Isabel Stanley
Another oxygen tank. The mouthpiece of this one is filled with oil. But after a few attempts, he manages to draw air.
- [32:04]
Christopher Boodram
Get you a breath. And I just keep going forward, going forward. All of a sudden I feel like if I back out of the water, but I'm not totally out of the water. It's like the pipe was halfway filled.
- [32:23]
Isabel Stanley
Christopher has made it to another air pocket.
- [32:27]
Christopher Boodram
And then all of a sudden, I start to hear Faizy voice. Faisal voice. See Christopher. Christopher will wait for mana. Christopher.
- [32:41]
Isabel Stanley
Faisal's voice sounds close, like he's followed Christopher further through the pipe.
- [32:46]
Christopher Boodram
If I was a car, we had fair boy. I stop cause the air pocket end again. I suffice the commensal. He say, yeah, coming. I'm coming.
- [32:59]
Isabel Stanley
Faisal tells Christopher he has air in his tank and asks him to wait for him. But Christopher is starting to feel faint from the fumes. He can't stop.
- [33:09]
Christopher Boodram
I don't know how long I'll be able to stay conscious. I'm gone.
- [33:14]
Isabel Stanley
So Christopher presses on, swimming through the water, thinking Pfizer was just behind him. As he swims, Christopher feels another tank. The third he's found. It's full. It's another lifeline.
- [33:29]
Christopher Boodram
I went back in the water, swam a little way, and then I felt the elbow.
- [33:37]
Isabel Stanley
His heart leaps. The elbow, remember, is where the pipe bends to go up to the surface from the sea floor. All Christopher has to do now is swim upwards to the top of the pipe and safety. Except he still isn't certain that he's gone in the right direction.
- [33:56]
Christopher Boodram
I reach elbow. I stop and I pause. And I said, jesus, Lord, I hope this number six bird six. If this was bird five. I dead.
- [34:09]
Isabel Stanley
But he has to swallow his fear. He has to keep going.
- [34:13]
Christopher Boodram
I started to go up the pipe, swimming, kicking, scraping the walls, slippery with oil. So attraction. So it was a fight to reach up there. And I reach up now I feel the top of the water.
- [34:35]
Isabel Stanley
He reaches the top of the pipe and squinting through the burning oil in his eyes, he can just about make out an opening. He's gone the right way. He's reached the top of the pipe inside the habitat that he was working in earlier.
- [34:50]
Christopher Boodram
So I reach up there now, trying to open my eyes to see what's going on and casting nothing. Because in my mind's eye there pitch black, all the lighting was sucked, you know, or damaged or whatever.
- [35:07]
Isabel Stanley
The compressor that was pumping oxygen into the room while they worked is still running. So it's full of air. Christopher can breathe, but there's a problem. He is just far down enough inside the pipe that he has no hope of pulling himself out on his own. Imagine you're paddling in a deep swimming pool and you want to climb out, but the sides are too high above you. You can't reach the edge to pull yourself up. And there's no one there to help.
- [35:36]
Christopher Boodram
Him while they fighting to hold my body weight up and trying to find something to hold on to. And I try reaching the top of the pipe and I reach up, I reaching, reaching the edge height, what is about four feet from the water line to the top of the pipe. To pull my body out of that with one hand and one leg was so difficult, nearly impossible for me. I felt that chain coming down from one of the chain blocks we were using.
- [36:16]
Isabel Stanley
He grabs it, hoping he can use it to make a ladder of sorts.
- [36:20]
Christopher Boodram
And I make a knot on it and hook up my foot on it. I didn't have that shrink. I tried for maybe hour, half an hour or something trying to do that. I had no perception. At times I felt like I spent a whole day there, not two and a half hours or three hours. I felt like it was the whole day I was inside there.
- [36:46]
Isabel Stanley
He starts panicking, banging on the pipe, hoping anyone above the water will hear him and come to rescue him. He can't believe he's made it so far and there's no one there to help.
- [36:56]
Christopher Boodram
So I started bawl and cry and asked people for help. Ask the Lord why I bring my sofa and I can't come out from here. Then I hear in and we defend his voice. Somebody in here. Somebody in here could barely hear it.
- [37:16]
Isabel Stanley
But you're hearing it, he sees a light. A figure appears. It's a diver named Ronald Ramutar. And Christopher knows him well.
- [37:26]
Christopher Boodram
So I say, who's that boy? He said, yes, boy, it's me. Please get my Utah. He tried to pull me up twice, and he couldn't make it. My mama whole body drenched down in oil. So just to get a hold on the man at this point, that time he tried twice, and then he said he going back and get help to get more people. I said, no, don't leave me. Don't leave me. You can't leave me.
- [37:59]
Isabel Stanley
At that moment, another diver called Corey comes into the chamber. Together, they manage to drag Christopher out.
- [38:14]
Christopher Boodram
And he was like, chris, you're good. I said, no. But I said, that boy down inside here, boy. All you have to go and rescue them. Ten men down there. All you have to go and rescue them. Say, all right, but let me get you out first.
- [38:31]
Isabel Stanley
So Corey guides Christopher through the hatch in the bottom of the Habitat, out into the sea and swims with him to the surface.
- [38:39]
Christopher Boodram
I pulled my pony on the boat. Eventually I had to take the pee in for it to get Mark.
- [38:44]
Isabel Stanley
There's a crowd of people around him, and he's telling everyone that will listen to go into the pipe and to rescue his friends.
- [38:51]
Christopher Boodram
I saw Michael.
- [38:53]
Isabel Stanley
Michael is Faisal's son.
- [38:55]
Christopher Boodram
First person I saw was Michael. I said, michael, go and get your father. Your father in the pipe. Go and get your father. He in the pipe. He not too far behind, man.
- [39:08]
Isabel Stanley
Remember, Christopher heard Faisal just behind him inside the pipe.
- [39:12]
Christopher Boodram
I said, michael Effin Farabai. He immediately left, and I think he went new water, and he went in the water. I said, like, I gotta go back there for myself. And I tried to get up and pull my back down, and you turn over, you in shock. You can't go back nowhere.
- [39:28]
Isabel Stanley
Christopher wants to go back into the pipe himself, himself to pull out his friends. He promised them he wouldn't leave them there.
- [39:35]
Christopher Boodram
I said, why? Nothing. No shock money, man. And I'm in the pipe. A lot of Britney, man. Oh, no. And you say, all right, we're gonna work on it. And I said, you can't go nowhere. You need to go straight to the hospital. Don't worry about them fellas. We're gonna unsave them. I say, all right.
- [39:55]
Isabel Stanley
So Christopher goes to hospital.
- [39:59]
Christopher Boodram
When I reach to the hospital, to be honest, after seeing my wife and my brother there, I just now let go comfort after seeing my wife there. So now I know that, okay, she here she will make sure everything is good and safe with me.
- [40:20]
Isabel Stanley
When Christopher gets the there on Friday evening, he finally relaxes. He's fulfilled his promise to his friends to go and get help. He's told everyone where they are.
- [40:31]
Christopher Boodram
Then I tell myself, okay, I did my job, came up, tell him the guy's in the pipe. Tell him Faizy right behind. Thinking Faizy was right behind.
- [40:43]
Isabel Stanley
He spends the next three days in intensive care. No one tells him anything that's going on outside in an effort to help him rest.
- [40:51]
Christopher Boodram
And after a few days in intensive care is when I really find out eventually.
- [41:00]
Isabel Stanley
Three days after being pulled from the pipe on Monday, Christopher is given his phone back.
- [41:07]
Christopher Boodram
It's only after that when I find out now I demanded more phone from my wife. She ended up giving it to me after. It was like a whole style information that's dropping, you know, boom.
- [41:21]
Isabel Stanley
That's when he finds out his friends haven't joined him in the hospital. Despite what Christopher told the rescuers, his friends are still exactly where he left them. They're still inside the pipe and they've been there for three days.
- [41:38]
Christopher Boodram
So only maybe until the third or fourth day I get to find out that these guys haven't been rescued yet. And that hit me so hard because I couldn't understand.
- [41:57]
Isabel Stanley
Agony and guilt descend on Christopher. He would have gone back into that pipe himself if he could, but he couldn't. Because what Christopher doesn't know yet is that there was nothing he could have done to save his friends. Soon after he was taken to hospital, men arrived at birth six. They were under strict orders not to let anyone dive into that pipe. And they had guns. Next time on Pipeline.
- [42:30]
Christopher Boodram
We realized they were serious and there was more than one of them with firearm. They had a lot of coast guard, they would fire and we backed down. He just was laughing the entire time.
- [42:40]
Isabel Stanley
At this point you're desperate for answers.
- [42:43]
Christopher Boodram
You scared but now anger is consuming you. They need to go to jail. They need to go to jail. They cannot run this operation. They cannot run this operation. Yeah, right.
- [43:00]
Isabel Stanley
We have contacted Paria and the Trinidad Coast Guard for comment and have not received a response. Pipeline is presented by me, Isabelle Stanley. This produced by Bella Soames. Sound design is by John Scott. Additional reporting by Andy Uring. Additional production by John Rogers and our executive producer is Jamie East.