Sorry to all our mums and dads
Thai cave lads apologise for not warning parents about trip
MEMBERS of the Thai football team miraculously rescued from flooded caves have apologised to their parents for not telling them they were planning the trip.
The 12 boys and their coach were speaking publicly for the first time since they were plucked to safety.
One player said: “I’d like to say sorry because I didn’t tell them I was going to go into the cave. I only told them I was going to play football.”
Another said: “I put a torch in my bag because if I told them I was going to the cave I would not have been able to go in.”
One of the lads said he expects a telling off and thinks he deserves it.
Their coach Ekkapol Chantawong, 25, revealed they made the plans on Facebook for the “educational visit” into the caves after footie practice.
The team, who said they tried to dig their way out, laughed when an interviewer asked if they thought they had “dug their way to England” after they heard the voices of the British divers who found them.
At the press conference yesterday Adul Sam-on, 14, described being discovered as “magical”.
RISKY
The youngest of the Wild Boars team, 11-year-old Titan said: “I was weak and I was hungry.”
The lads had only cave water to drink. They lost an average of almost 9lb in weight during the ordeal.
They are finally going home after getting the all-clear from medics.
Doctors released the boys from hospital a day early yesterday after they each gained around 7lb.
The lads, all in team kit, had a kickabout before the media conference in Chiang Rai, north Thailand.
They had only planned to be in the Tham Luang caves for an hour but were trapped by rising floodwater.
They were found by the Brit divers 10 days after vanishing. Food and other supplies were then taken in.
No other exit was found so bosses of the international rescue bid took the risky decision of diving the boys out of the network of flooded caves.
The last rescue was 18 days after the ordeal began. All 13 survived but a diver died on the way back from laying oxygen tanks in the tunnels.