Thai boys apologise for the fuss
BANGKOK: Before they were discovered trapped in a flooded cave in northern Thailand, the 12 members of the Wild Boars youth football team and their coach drained much of their energy trying to dig their way out. Using stones to carve a large hole, they scraped at the chamber’s ceiling, even as they became emaciated from a lack of food.
“I had no strength at all,” said Chanin Wibulroongreung, 11, at a news conference on Wednesday after the teammates were released from hospital. “I didn’t think about food because it only made me hungrier.”
The Wild Boars’ discharge from a hospital in the Thai city of Chiang Rai capped a remarkable rescue effort in which thousands of people around the globe joined together to extricate them from the waterlogged Tham Luang Cave in northern Thailand.
At the news conference on Wednesday, where they first appeared dribbling footballs to cheers from the assembled crowd, the Wild Boars admitted that they had acted like normal boys. And they wanted to say that they were very, very sorry.
They had not told their parents that they would be visiting the cave, they said. Instead, their families were under the impression the teammates were going out to practice football.
One boy said he had not informed his parents that he was going to Tham Luang because he was sure he wouldn’t be given permission. “I would like to apologise to Dad and Mom,” said Phanumas Saengdee, 13, who recounted how he had secretly put a flashlight for a cave adventure in his bag.
Psychiatrists screened the questions at the news briefing to prevent the boys from having to relive the stress of their ordeal. For 10 days, the Wild Boars had sheltered in a cramped cave chamber, licking condensation off the limestone walls to survive.