The man, whose surname is Wang, thought twice before jumping into the Youshui River in Hunan, China.
It was July 2025, and he had planned a leisurely dive with a friend. Five minutes were enough for the current to separate him from his companion and drag him into a labyrinth of limestone caves, which began nine meters below the surface, where the darkness swallowed him whole.
There, in a small air pocket inside the rock, Wang held out for five days. He ate raw fish he caught with his hands, endured extreme cold, and lost track of time while rescue teams from several provinces dove as deep as 130 meters in search of him, to no avail.
On the fifth day, with only 4% oxygen in his tank, he heard the divers approaching and plunged into the water, waving his flashlight as a last resort. They pulled him out alive, and he walked on his own to the ambulance without accepting a stretcher. And when everyone expected tears or a long embrace, Wang looked at his rescuers and blurted out the phrase no one saw coming: ‘Do you have a cigarette?’ Five days on the brink of death, and his number one priority was to smoke.