Lost divers swimming in offers

Two men were rescued and promptly drowned in a sea of cash, writes Sam Bowring.

Two divers spent 19 hours bobbing about on the Great Barrier Reef, substantially more time than they'd paid for. They drifted 15km away from their chartered boat to where they were eventually rescued last Saturday morning. I mention boring details such as the day it happened because I'm disturbed that by the following Monday, they'd reportedly earned 1.1 million bucks selling their story. Guess it pays to strike while the iron's wet.

Something I've heard about near death experiences is that they give you a new appreciation for life. Suddenly food tastes better, dewdrops on a petal look more beautiful, and World of Warcraft becomes more fun to play (as if that was possible). Sounds almost worth it! To think how much time I've wasted trying to get high on drugs, when all I really needed was to fall from a balcony and land miraculously on a baby, or get stuck in a tree amongst a stampeding herd of bison.

I can only imagine that when the diving couple found themselves in dire straits and wondered if they'd ever see the light of a new day, they came to realise what's really important in life: money. And if they could opportunistically profiteer off their own bad sense of direction, well thank God for a second chance.

Now I'm not clambering up too high on my high horse. If I suffered through some kind of life threatening situation, which the media leapt upon like rapist wombats after a New Zealander, and someone offered me a boat-load of money just to tell them I did something dangerous by mistake, well sure - I'd take it.

What I do find distasteful is that these days, this kind of profiteering seems to be a matter-of-course. The media trumps up something, a shonky agent leaves the woodwork like a fast talking boll weevil, and you wind up doing an exclusive interview with a cruddy tabloid news program like A Current Affair asking you probing questions like, “So how did it feel to be lost at sea surrounded by sharks and sea snakes?”

It's a cynical age we live in. Lucky I guess, or I wouldn't have anything to write about. Not that I get paid that much for this. Maybe I should go spend some time in the ocean.

Nineteen hours ought to do it.