HOW THE THAI BOYS WERE SAVED ‘We had the power of love’
‘I felt he was one of my own children and I wanted him to come home’
“NOBODY thought we could do it. It was a world first,” said rescue mission chief Narongsak Osottanakorn following the daring rescue of 12 Thai boys and their soccer coach from deep inside a flooded cave yesterday.
This brought an end to a perilous 17-day mission that gripped the world for more than two weeks.
The “Wild Boars” soccer team, aged between 11 and 16, and their 25-year-old coach became trapped on June 23 while exploring the cave complex in the northern province of Chiang Rai when a rainy season downpour flooded the tunnels.
Arriving at a media centre to a round of applause yesterday, Osottanakorn confirmed that a medic and all navy SEAL divers involved in the rescue mission had also left the cave safely.
Celebrations were tinged with sadness over the loss of a former Thai navy diver who died on Friday while on a resupply mission inside the cave.
“The heroes this time are people all over the world,” Osottanakorn added, referring to the multinational team that assisted in the operation.
“This mission was successful because we had power. The power of love. Everybody sent it to the 13,” he said.
The eight boys brought out on Sunday and Monday were in good health overall and some asked for chocolate bread for breakfast, officials said earlier.
Two of the boys had suspected lung infections, but the four boys from the first group rescued were all walking around in hospital.
British divers found the 13 hungry and huddled in darkness on a muddy bank in a partly flooded chamber several kilometres inside the Tham Luang cave complex on Monday last week.
After pondering for days how to get the 13 out, a rescue operation was launched on Sunday, when four of the boys were brought out, tethered to rescue divers.
Another four were rescued on Monday and the last four boys and the coach were brought out on Tuesday, prompting rounds of spontaneous applause as ambulances and helicopters passed.
International experts set up rescue communications, while Thai villagers flocked to a muddy rescue site to set up food stalls and massage stations.
The missions were also a race against the weather.
Rescuers had spent days balancing the risk of impending monsoons, which could have flooded the cave once again, and the team’s readiness to embark on the journey out, physically weakened by their ordeal.
As news of the boys’ rescue spread, volunteers stationed all over the town burst into cheers and clapped at helicopters flying overhead.
Thai police lining the road away from the cave entrance seemed to lighten up, laughing and flashing a thumbs up at the great number of the world’s media waiting for the last ambulance to scream by after nightfall.
A small group of female volunteers close to the cave site received a round of applause as they walked by the media, and a few waved as photographers snapped their photos.
“I want to tell the coach thank you so much for helping the boys survive this long,” said one Chiang Rai woman wearing a traditional dress, tears brimming in her eyes.
“I remember all of their faces, especially the youngest one. He’s the smallest one and he doesn’t have as much experience as the others... I felt like he was one of my own children and I wanted him to come home.”
Their supporters have included world leaders, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and billionaire inventor Elon Musk, who tasked his team of engineers with building a “kidsized submarine” made out of rocket parts that would be able to move the young boys through the cave’s narrow passageways.
“Leaving here in case it may be useful in the future,” he wrote, referring to the “minisub”, which he has named after the team, the Wild Boars. In an Instagram video, he posted his journey through the pitchblack flooded cave, lit only by a few flashlights.