‘I told them fight on, don’t despair’
RESCUED: BOYS TELL OF DARK DAYS TRAPPED IN CAVE
Rescued Thai boys tell of dark days trapped in cave.
‘I was afraid. That I wouldn’t go home and I would get scolded by my mother.’ Chiang Rai
The 12 boys and their soccer coach rescued from a flooded cave in Thailand recounted details of their ordeal yesterday, at their first public appearance, during which they waved, smiled and offered traditional “wai” greetings on a national broadcast.
Doctors, relatives and friends, some in yellow traditional garb, greeted the boys, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach, who wore T-shirts emblazoned with a red graphic of a wild boar.
“Bringing the Wild Boars Home,” read a banner in Thai that used the name of the soccer team to welcome them on the set, designed to resemble a soccer field.
The boys arrived in vans from the hospital where they had stayed since last week’s international effort to extricate them from a flooded cave.
“I told everyone fight on, don’t despair,” said one boy, describing how the group had battled to stay alive during the excruciating days spent in the cave.
Another, Adul Sam-on, 14, recalled the moment when two British divers found the group on July 2. “It was magical,” he said. “I had to think a lot before I could answer their questions.”
That discovery triggered the rescue effort that brought them all to safety over the course of three days.
The order in which the boys eventually left the cave did not depend on the state of their health, said their coach Ekkapol Chantawong. “The ones whose homes are the furthest went first, so they could tell everyone that the boys were fine,” he said.
The group had planned to explore the Tham Luang cave complex for about an hour after soccer practice on June 23. But a rainy season downpour flooded the tunnels, trapping them.
“We took turns digging at the cave walls,” Ekkapol said. But their efforts were to no avail, “Almost everyone can swim. But some aren’t strong swimmers.”
The group had to subsist on water dripping from stalactites in the cave, he added.
“We only drank water,” said one of the boys, nicknamed Tee.
“I had no strength. I tried not to think about food,” said the team’s youngest member, Titan.
Thoughts of their parents also preoccupied the boys, with one admitting: “I was afraid. That I wouldn’t go home and I would get scolded by my mother.”
But the moment was bittersweet, as two of the boys held up a framed pencil sketch of Samarn Kunan, 38, the former Thai navy diver who died while he worked underwater, laying oxygen tanks along a potential exit route.
The boys will spend time as novice Buddhist monks to honour the diver’s memory. “They felt like they were the reason he had to die and his family had to suffer,” said Ekkapol.