IRISH DIVER: IT WAS A MIRACLE

A CLARE-BASED diver who was involved in this week’s thrilling cave rescue arrived back to Ireland to a hero’s welcome this week.

Belgian-born diver Jim Warny, who has lived in Ireland for 15 years, travelled to Thailand following a request for expert international assistance in the rescue effort.

Greeted by his fiancée and his father to rapturous applause on Friday, Mr Warny said he felt fortunate to have been able to help. ‘It is a truly amazing miracle that, through all of those people involved in the rescue, those boys got to go home to their families.’

He added that it was ‘bittersweet’ that Saman Gunan, a former member of the Thai navy Seals, died while placing spare air tanks along the route.

Mr Warny – who cave dives ‘on a weekly basis’ – said that ‘conditions were certainly harsh’ inside the Thai cave. ‘Visibility in the water was quite bad. The true heroes of the operation are those boys who endured way more than us,’ he added.