'I was devastating myself, through my mind, just picturing my girls and my son growing up without me, and my wife, you know, not having a husband to support her... I wasn't thinking about sharks or anything like that, until I hear this splash?'
The splash was a seal that Thompson described as 'an angel' that came to help him.
'It was a medium-sized harbor seal,' Thompson said.
'The seal would go under water and he came up and nudged me, like a dog comes up and nudges your leg.
'Did it know, like hey, this human is in trouble, hey keep going dude?' he pondered.
After being pushed along by the seal, Thompson said he felt motivated to reach the oil platform
'You gotta make it to the platform because you have no choice,' Thompson said.
'It started getting brighter and I'm just like, I'm crying. And I'm like, shouting at the sky,' he said.