Heroes and happy faces after daring cave rescue
An assistant coach, an Australian physician, a handful of Thailand’s Navy Seals and 100 determined professional first responders and volunteers were hailed as heroes Wednesday for the daring rescue of 12 members of the now-famous Wild Boars youth soccer team.
Video released Wednesday from the hospital shows the boys making victory signs and waving to ecstatic parents. Family members, some near tears, wave back from behind glass.
The boys were famished and weak when they were found, having lost an average of more than 4 pounds each. But their spirits were high, and the rescue team had brought them nutritional gels to build their strength. They are now eating regular food, and some will be going home in a week.
“Overall, the 13 people are in very good condition,” Thai health official Thongchai Lertwilairatanapong said.
Chaiwetch Thanapaisal, director of Chiangrai Rai Prachanukroh Hospital, said the boys will each be hospitalized for at least a week, then spend the next month at home recuperating.
“Everyone is very strong in the mind and heart,” he said.
The boys and their coach, Ekapol Chantawong, walked into the cave June 23 for what was supposed to be a few hours of exploration.
Heavy rains trapped them there, and it was 10 days before the first rescuers found them.
It took more than a week after that for an international team of rescuers to get them all out. A Thai diver ran out of oxygen and died during preparations.
The group was extracted over three days. Tuesday’s final mission involved 100 people, including more than a dozen divers and Australian physician Richard Harris, who emerged from the cave after caring for the boys to learn that his own father had died.
Expert divers guided each boy for several hours,
2 miles of the labyrinth.
Some sections involved diving, and the boys wore wetsuits and facemasks while their companion divers carried oxygen tanks.
“The world just needs to know that what was accomplished was a once-ina-lifetime rescue,” said Derek Anderson, a U.S. Air Force rescue specialist who was with a team of Americans.
“Coach Ek” has drawn praise for his efforts to keep the boys alive for the al- navigating more narrow, twisting, than dark most 10 days they were trapped in the cave before being found. They drank only water that dripped from the walls, not the murky brew that trapped them. He taught them meditation to calm them and ate a smaller share of the few snacks they had brought in.
For some of those kids, the more than two weeks stranded deep in a flooded cave was just the latest challenge.
Coach Ek and three of the boys have no nationality. They are from tribes in an area around Mae Sai known as the “Golden Triangle,” where borders have shifted and passports don’t exist.
The boys will be returning to their homes and schools as kings. They even have an invitation to Sunday’s World Cup final game in Russia, though for medical reasons they are unlikely to attend.
“We did something nobody thought possible,” acting local Gov. Narongsak Osatanakorn said. “It was mission possible for team Thailand.”
Contributing: The Associated Press