Chris Lemons

Christopher Lemons is a motivational leadership and crisis management speaker with a gripping story to tell.

An experienced commercial diver for over 18 years, Chris specialises in deep-sea saturation diving, primarily within the oil and gas industry. This highly specialised form of diving involves living in a decompression chamber for up to 28 days at a time. Each day, he commutes to the sea bed in a diving bell and works at depths of up to 900 feet for six hours at a stretch.

However, in September 2012, he faced a life-threatening situation when the dynamic positioning system of the vessel he was working under failed, causing his breathing gas, light, and heat supply to be completely severed. Stranded 300 feet below the surface in complete darkness, with only five minutes of emergency breathing gas, he faced freezing temperatures.

Chris’ miraculous survival, thanks to the heroic efforts of his rescuers, left experts astonished and changed the course of his life as he knew it.

His remarkable story was documented in the popular Netflix/BBC documentary Last Breath. The Hollywood movie version of Last Breath starring Woody Harrelson, Simu Lui, and Finn Cole, was released in the US in February 2025 and in the UK in March 2025.

Contact Great British Speakers today to book Christopher Lemons for your next event.

Type Of Talent

After DinnerBusiness & FinanceExploration & MilitaryHigh PerformanceKeynoteLeadership & TeamworkMotivationalResilienceSpeaker

More About Chris Lemons

Chris Lemons | Speaker

Chris is an experienced keynote speaker available for public speaking engagements. He customises his speeches to suit specific themes, such as safety lessons from his accident, the emotional aspects of his experiences, or providing an overview of the offshore and saturation diving world.

He offers valuable insights into the relatively unknown world of saturation diving, where divers spent extended periods confined to compression chambers and regularly dive to great depths.

Chris Lemons | Keynote Topics

Leadership and Maintaining the Chain of Command
Chris discusses how strong leadership plays a vital role in all spheres of the work he does. From a robust chain of command, right through to individual leadership whilst working on the ocean floor, Chris is able to share how clear-cut but objective governance and accountability is key to the safe and efficient running of complicated and inherently dangerous operations. He describes how this same structure of leadership played a pivotal role in saving his life, and how you can use these methods to enhance the organisational culture within your workplace.

Crisis Management and Emergency Response
What happened to Chris is the very definition of a crisis, not only to him personally but to his crewmates and the reputation of the company. He discusses how detailed preparation, effective leadership, an effective chain of command, and proper training allowed the team around him to remain calm under extreme pressure.

Procedures and the Power of Drills and Practice
Chris works in a world where procedures, checklists, training, and drills are not just essential his work, but to the preservation of life itself. He communicates how these are used to allow him and his colleagues to safely work and live in a dangerous environment, but also how they played an essential role in allowing his crewmates to act with the calm assurance needed to pull him back from the brink of death.

Risk
Chris discusses how, despite the inherent dangers involved with working in such an extreme environment, the risks are calculated and managed to make them acceptable, identifying hazards, dynamic risk assessments, and management of change are fundamental in making one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet into the safest form of diving. Chris explains how this is implemented, and how the lessons learned can apply to your sphere of work or life.

Incident Investigation
Following his life-threatening incident, it was essential that a far reaching and detailed investigation was conducted. Chris can recount the processes that the company went through to ensure that this was not only completed in as comprehensive manner as possible, but also in a fashion that was sensitive to the needs of those involved, as well as protecting the public image of the company.

Resilience and Overcoming Adversity
The very nature of Chris’ work requires a character and mindset that is resilient and attuned to overcoming adversity. The ocean floors are possible the most inhospitable working environments on the planet, and simply to commute there requires Chris and the team to overcome numerous obstacles. Chris discusses how this resilience has been forged not only through adversity, but by fostering a culture and mentality amongst the team which allows them to problem solve quickly and calmy.

Teamwork and Workforce Diversity
Chris’ work, and survival, rely heavily on the strength of the teams he works within. From the three-man unit that ventures to the depths for its working days, to the hundreds of colleagues supporting that unit onboard the vessel and ashore, their successes and failures are very much defined by their ability to work cohesively as a team. Chris discusses how diverse teams are brought together to work towards their singular goals, and how this diversity works in their favour when channelled and managed effectively.

Death
Chris’ extraordinary brush with death gave him an opportunity to contemplate his own mortality. He shares how, in accepting the inevitability of his own death in those final conscious minutes on the seabed, he was able to find a sense of calm, and reflect on what was most important in his life. The miracle of his survival gave him an acute sense of what death really means, and he is able to reflect with audiences on how these insights are as important in life, as they are when facing death.

Chris Lemons Deep Sea Diver Survivor leadership risk resilience speaker book at agent Great British Speakers

Chris Lemons | Workshops

Chris also offers a variety of standardised or bespoke workshops which can take the form of a small group breakaway session, or a larger half-day programme. These workshops use Chris’ incredible story as a springboard for discussions and interactive exercises tailored to your individual requirements.

Chris Lemons | Example Workshops

– Working on autopilot: the power of drills, practice, and procedure
– Leadership under pressure: decision making in a crisis
– Tighten your teamwork: organisational behaviour and the importance of a diverse workforce
– Diving deep: emergency response, incident investigation, and accountability
– Relying on resilience: how people react to a crisis and overcome adversity

Chris Lemons | Past Speaking Engagements

Chris has spoken at various prestigious events and for organisations such as BioMarin, BP, HSBC, The Royal Geographical Society, Shell UK, and more. He is open to doing Q&A sessions on the topics he covers in his speeches.

To hire Crisis Management Leadership Speaker Chris Lemons email Great British Speakers at [email protected] or call +44 1753 439 289

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Testimonials

I can say with absolute conviction – Chris Lemons is a phenomenal speaker. His story is more than just an edge-of-your-seat survival tale; it’s a masterclass in leadership, teamwork, and the razor-thin margin between disaster and triumph. If you care about safety, decision-making under pressure, or simply want to be captivated by an extraordinary real-life experience, Chris delivers like no other. Highly recommended!
Bjorn Hojgaard, CEO of Anglo-Eastern Univan Group

Chris is a remarkably powerful speaker with a tremendously valuable story. He also happens to be a genuine gentleman. Highly recommend.
Robin Sharma, #1 Bestselling Author of The 5am Club

I’ve had the honour of hearing Chris’ story on several occasions now, each time with a fresh angle or nuance. Articulate, knowledgeable, and surprisingly dispassionate (given his subject matter), he is able to spin a riveting yarn which will have the audience gripped. It’s an incredible story of survival, told with genuine flair by its humble protagonist in true edge-of-your-seat style.
Dr. Oliver Firth MBBS, Bsc, MRCGP

Thank you so much for speaking to the Shell Energy network this week – it was a great presentation and we’ve had so many comments about it being the ‘event of the year’.
Rebecca Watson, Finance Advisor, Shell

Chris is a very friendly, down to earth, and engaging speaker whose story is hard to believe. He took the audience of 160 through the story of that fateful night in a clear manner, using clips from the Netflix documentary to emphasise the story at certain points. Prior to the event, we had discussed with Chris the themes we wanted him to focus on in his talk, and he was very accommodating with this request.
Global Life Reinsurer

Chris joined us in Kuala Lumpur for our annual conference designed to bring together OPITO’s global network of training centres, industry partners and colleagues. We received overwhelmingly positive feedback on Chris’ presentation and ability to translate the importance of safety training into the real-life emergency situation he experienced while diving in the North Sea back in 2012. His humble delivery, sense of humour and lived experience of the challenges of working in a remote and hazardous environment really resonated with our audience and we wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him.
Alex Spencer, Director, OPITO

In a challenging time period during the COVID-19 pandemic, DeepOcean wanted to bring in a key note speaker from our industry that had a fascinating story to tell, could draw parallels between their own experiences and the global pandemic lock-down and who could connect and resonate with our onshore and offshore communities. Boy did Chris deliver! His presentation was funny, engaging and deeply touching.
Erik Bergh, HSEQS Director, DeepOcean

When we had a preliminary conversation and learned that Chris generally speaks for 90 minutes, we were taken aback a little bit. In this age, you have to be of good character to captivate an audience for more than 20 minutes! We envisioned a mutinous crowd ahead of us. He convinced us to give it a try and we did not regret that. Chris is an outstanding and engaging speaker. He speaks professionally to a large (500+) corporate audience like ours. In addition, he has excellent support material (graphics, video) that makes it varied. Last but not least, the video of the dramatic events underwater gave our participants such goosebumps that they were on the edge of their seats for the entire narration, and it was quiet as a mouse. Especially for an audience with a technical background, the technical-oriented introduction about the ups and downs of a commercial diver gives depth to the story. That information allows the story to be better understood. And those details also create the bond with the audience because they can identify with them. Perhaps this text is still a bit cryptic, but I don’t want to give away any spoilers. That is why I say: trust that this is a story you want to share with any audience because it is dramatic, incredible, and hopeful at the same time. There are enough ‘hooks’ (angles) in the story to connect certain conversation themes for the participants: for example safety, cooperation, dealing with fear or ethical questions. Those themes can be further elaborated in an afterword (e.g. interview with Chris on stage) or in other forms (conversation between participants in small groups). There a link can be created to: what does this mean for me?
Hilde Arns, TenneT Operations Offshore

We were thrilled to welcome Chris Lemons as our keynote speaker. Working with Chris has been an absolute pleasure—his professionalism, enthusiasm, and seamless approach made the entire process effortless. His gripping presentation offers a rare glimpse into the world of saturation diving, combined with his miraculous real-life survival story—brought to life with breathtaking real-time video and audio footage. His journey is a testament to performing under pressure, teamwork, resilience, and overcoming adversity. Through his experiences, he highlights the critical role of drills, procedures, and workforce diversity, delivering powerful insights that inspire and resonate across industries. Don’t miss this unforgettable session!
Jennifer Guy, Partner Marketing and Events, POQ

Our society represents an extremely specialist allied health profession. Clinical perfusionists are responsible for keeping patients alive by artificially taking over the role of the heart and lungs. We deal closely with aspects such as oxygen delivery and cerebral protection which is the reason why we invited Chris to speak at our annual congress. Chris was eloquent and engaging throughout. He had clearly researched our profession and was highly respectful to our knowledge and expertise, allowing him to tailor his presentation to make it all the more relevant to his audience. It is a truly remarkable story and Chris does an amazing job of bringing to the stage.
A Nichols, Clinical Perfusion Scientist

We had the great pleasure of having Chris speak at our General Assembly, to which we invited all the member companies of our association. His testimony as a feedback from experience touched the audience very much. Several aspects were important to us through the conference we wanted to organize: the preparation of the interventions (to anticipate), the organization, the definition, the implementation of the means and the strength of the “collective” (shared vigilance). It is with simplicity & humility that Chris knew how to address these aspects and “captivate” the public with his story. I can only recommend him for your professional and associative seminars. Congratulations and many thanks to him!
Maxime Lomme, MASE Hauts-de-France

Chris delivered an enthralling account of his dramatic personal experience at our recent Scottish Society of Anaesthetists Winter Meeting in Aberdeen. His story not only offered a fascinating description of the world of emersion diving but Chris was able to blend his unique experience with the core physiology which was of particular interest to our meeting attendees. Thank you!
Dr. David Nesvadba, NHS Grampian

Chris is a truly inspirational and humble chap. His story is a shining example of triumph in the face of immense adversity and one that demonstrates the importance of training and teamwork. No one from our conference had a bad word to say and in fact wanted to hear more than what Chris fitted into his 2-hour slot.
Brett Ward, Fendercare Marine

In front of a packed room at Aberdeen’s Union Kirk, Chris captivated the audience with his live retelling of the events that changed his life in 2012, the inspiration behind the critically acclaimed Netflix documentary, ‘Last Breath’. Having previously delivered the presentation all around the world, including just recently to medical professionals in Australia, it was an honour to welcome Chris back to Aberdeen on behalf of SPE Aberdeen. Thanks to Chris Lemons for taking the time out of his busy schedule to deliver his incredible and powerful presentation and offering a unique insight into his story.
Society of Petroleum Engineers