ANOTHER WIN FOR WILD BOARS
Four more boys are sprung from watery Thai cave
Four more young soccer players were pulled from the flooded cave in Thailand Monday in another highstakes rescue, joining four teammates evacuated a day earlier but leaving another four and their coach still inside.
The rescued youngsters are in relatively good health with “high spirits,” Public Health Ministry deputy director general Jesada Chokdumrongsuk said Tuesday in Thailand, as a third rescue operation began for those still trapped.
“The kids are footballers, so they have high immune systems,” said Chokdumrongsuk, noting that two of the kids are being checked out for possible lung infections.
The rescued boys are between the ages of 12 and 16.
“Everyone is in high spirits and are happy top get out. But we will have a psychiatrist to evaluate them,” Chokdumrongsuk said.
Monday’s rescue came more than two weeks after 12 boys from the Wild Boars team and their 25-yearold coach were trapped by rising waters while exploring the Tham Luang cave complex on June 23 — and a week after they were finally found.
A former Thai navy SEAL died Friday when he ran out of air while delivering supplies for the rescue.
Monday’s extraction lasted nine hours — two hours less than the previous day’s rescue — and began five hours ahead of schedule, rescue operation director and Chiang Rai province acting Gov. Narongsak Osatanakorn said, crediting the more than 100 workers taking part in the operation and the experience they had gained from the previous rescue.
“Every factor remained positive — the weather, water level, the stranded boys’ strength, yesterday’s outcomes and all related plans,” he said.
Two elite divers — from a team of five Thais and 13 foreigners — escorted each boy, holding the youngsters’ air tanks as they navigated the treacherous 2¹/2-mile cave passage aided by guide ropes and extra tanks placed along the route.
The boys wear several wet suits to keep their emaciated bodies warm in the waters, one diver told CNN.
It takes about three hours to get through the underwater portion of the cave until they reach the dry section where water was pumped out, Channel NewsAsia reported. They walk and climb the rest of the way.
Monday’s evacuation began at around 11 a.m. local time, with the first boy carried out on a stretcher just before 4:30 p.m. and the other three taken out over the next two hours.
Officials had yet to release any of the rescued boys’ identities, but reports have named those saved Sunday as Mongkol Boonpiam, 13, Nattawut Takamsai and Prajak Sutham, both 14, and Pipat Bodhi, 15.
Even the boys’ families, who have been staying near the cave, told CNN that they hadn’t been told who was out and who was still trapped.
Officials said they were delaying reuniting the boys and their families out of concern for the mental health of those parents whose boys are still inside and also so doctors can make sure they have no communicable diseases, The Guardian reported.
Osatanakorn said Monday that the doctors were still deciding when to reunite the kids with their families.
“It could be a visit through transparent glass rooms. We are discussing this with doctors at the hospital,” he said.
But the rescued boys have received at least one visitor — Thailand’s prime minister, Prayut Chan-o-cha, who stopped by Monday.
The rescuers have been evacuating the weakest boys first, so those removed Monday were all in better health than those the day before, according to Osatanakorn.
The four rescued Sunday were conscious and asking to eat their favorite spicy pork and basil dish, but so far had been given only runny foods, such as diluted porridge, he added.
The rescuers needed at least another 20 hours to recuperate and restock the cave with air tanks, Osatanakorn told reporters.