TRAUMA FEARS FOR THAI BOYS RESCUED FROM CAVE
‘Journey not over’ as distress may take months to present itself
The rescue of a dozen boys from a flooded Thai cave ended a two-week ordeal that most seem to have weathered with astonishing mental and physical resilience – at least for the moment.
Despite days trapped in the gloom of a cramped, partly flooded chamber, the youngsters’ psychological state is “very good” and “free from stress”, Thongchai Lertwilairatanapong, Inspector General of the Public Health Ministry, said yesterday.
The upbeat assessments were surprising given that the boys and their football coach survived for more than a week in pitch darkness on a narrow ledge – with the passing days marked by hunger and fear that they might not be found.
When they eventually were rescued it involved an extremely hazardous journey – guided to safety one by one, using underwater breathing equipment, through a series of long, flooded sections of narrow tunnel.
Despite the positive health assessments so far, experts said they would all need to be monitored closely for signs of psychological distress that could take months to manifest itself.
“Their journey is not over yet,” said Jennifer Wild, a clinical psychologist at the Oxford Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma.
“It’s possible after an ordeal such as this that similar cues will bring back feelings or memories from the trauma ... being in the dark, being in rooms when the doors are closed, having a scan such as an MRI and possibly swimming,” Ms Wild said.
“In the weeks after such an ordeal, it is common for people to have unwanted memories, feelings and flashbacks,” she said. While such symptoms usually clear up after a month, any protracted difficulties could indicate post-traumatic stress disorder, she said.
The boys are expected to spend a week in hospital in Chiang Rai followed by six months of psychological monitoring.
Doctors said the quarantine period was necessary to ensure they had not contracted any infection from inside the cave, but parents wearing protective gear were allowed to visit the first group on Tuesday.
Even after they are fully reunited with their families and discharged, their recovery will remain an ongoing process – especially in the short term.
“They may become fearful, clingy, or jumpy,” said Andrea Danese, a psychologist at King’s College London.
“They may fear for their safety; they may become very moody or easily upset – or, in contrast, become detached or numb,” he said.
The boys – all members of the same football team – may have been helped during their ordeal because they were already a unit rather than a group of strangers.
“The important things will be helping each other, returning to school and getting back into their community,” said Boonruang Triruangworawat, director general of the Thai Heath Ministry’s Mental Health Department.
Ms Wild said that the boy’s youth and collective spirit could also play to their advantage in terms of processing what they had been through.
“If they can view the ordeal as an unusual adventure rather than dwelling on how the event could have cost them their lives, they will be more likely to have a good emotional outcome,” Ms Wild said. “If they dwell on what could have happened, they’ll have a harder time.”
When the governor of Thailand’s Chiang Rai province said on Tuesday that rescuers had “achieved the impossible”, he was not exaggerating. The search operation initiated after 12 members of the Wild Boar football team and their coach went missing inside the Tham Luang cave on June 23 was a leap in the dark. And extracting them once they had been located was a race against time and nature as rains threatened to render any action impossible. The death of Saman Gunan, a retired Thai Navy Seal, as he was installing oxygen tanks inside the tunnels underscored the dangers lurking in the cave.
The international co-operation, with specialists flying in from the UK, the US and Australia, throughout this crisis was heartening. But as Thai Navy Seals wrote on their Facebook page after the last of the boys was safely recovered, we will long wonder if this was “a miracle, a science, or what”. Prominent figures, including Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, have sent their congratulations.
Everybody wants a picture with the boys and invitations have been extended to them to attend the football World Cup final in Moscow. The boys are too frail to travel, but the heightened attention they have garnered comes with the risk of dissolving into neglect over time. This, sadly, is what happened with the Chilean miners, who got trapped 700 metres underground for 69 days in 2010. After their rescue, they were invited to football matches and chat shows; there was a book and film about them. But where are they today? Many of them are still suffering from post-traumatic stress and some struggle to step into the sunlight. Eventually, interest in these boys, too, will taper away, but the boys themselves will continue to require support and care. There is a long life ahead of them: making it as free of stress from the ordeal they have been through should be the priority of authorities and well-wishers. There may be denunciations of their coach in the future for leading the boys to the cave, but persecuting him would be unfair. They have all endured enough. It is now for the rest of the world to appreciate that they are not a spectacle.