Thai cave boys head home
Happy and healthy, the 12 members and coach of the Wild Boars team showed off their footballing skills to an appreciative crowd before revealing, for the first time in public, the gripping details of their Thai cave rescue.
The boys, aged 11-16, and their coach, Ekapol Chanthawong, 25, spoke of the moment when British divers discovered them cowering in the dark after 10 days and described how they had scraped at the walls of the cave with rocks in a desperate attempt to escape.
The team was finally discharged from hospital yesterday, just over a week after they were extracted from the flooded Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand in a perilous diving operation that had the world on edge for more than a fortnight.
But before they were allowed on to their longawaited taste of home cooking, the young team spent more than an hour answering questions – vetted by a psychologist – describing their ordeal and how the experience had changed their lives.
Speaking at a press conference in the town of Chiang Rai, in a room oddly decked out like a football field, the boys paid tribute to Saman Kunan, 38, the Thai navy Seal who died during the rescue, and they confirmed they would become novice monks in his honour.
The coach, known as Ake, said they felt guilty about his death.
In a touching moment, the youngest of the team, Titan, 11, stood in front of a portrait of Kunan to pay his respects.
‘‘Thank you for your sacrifice,’’ he said.
To an enthralled audience, the team described the first moments of fear and confusion as they realised they were trapped by rapidly rising floodwaters on what they had intended to be a one-hour exploration of the cave.
‘‘We realised we were trapped on our way back,’’ said Ake, adding that they had initially tried to swim out.
When that failed, they debated whether to go back or forward and decided to retreat further inside the cave in the hope of finding another exit.
‘‘I was really afraid at that moment,’’ said one of the boys. - Telegraph Group