SA diver relives Thai rescue
SA’s quiet hero was part of mission to save the Thai boys
● As the world waited for news of the 12 Thai boys and their football coach trapped in a flooded cave, a Cape Town cave diver was there, capturing their journey to freedom.
Jason Boswell, also a videographer, travelled to northern Thailand to join a team of BBC correspondents covering the rescue.
An exhausted Boswell told the Sunday Times on Friday that he had been working “flat out” with hardly any sleep — only eight hours in over two days — since he arrived in Chiang Rai province a week before.
His Facebook posts painted a captivating picture of the rescue and the efforts that went into bringing the boys to safety.
The boys — aged 11 to 16 — and their coach ventured into the Tham Luang cave in mountainous northern Thailand on June 23. They were trapped when rains caused flooding, blocking their escape and forcing them to take shelter on a muddy ledge.
They spent nine days in darkness until two British divers found them.
However, the escape route was a challenge for even experienced divers. The boys had no previous diving experience so the rescuers trained them how to use a mask and breathe underwater with an oxygen tank.
The boys and their coach spent 17 days trapped in the cave. They are recovering in hospital and had to turn down an invitation from Fifa boss Gianni Infantino to attend today’s World Cup final between France and Croatia in Moscow.
For Boswell, the BBC call-up seemed surreal.
“So something unexpected happened today . . . I received a call to be part of the team covering the rescue operations of the children and coach currently trapped in a cave in northern Thailand.
“As a cave diver I’ve been following this story closely since the news broke and I’m extremely honoured to be able to witness and cover this incredible human story,” he said in a Facebook post.
Boswell was assigned to do camera work for the BBC’s Myanmar correspondent Nick Beake, capturing footage as the rescue unfolded and doing live crossings from outside the hospital where the rescued boys and the coach were being treated.
Beake also interviewed Boswell on the difficulties and dangers of cave diving.
Boswell was also assigned by the BBC to answer readers’ questions on the technicalities of the rescue.
His brief interview on BBC Radio 4 was broadcast while four boys and the coach were still in the cave.
“The fact that they have managed to bring out these eight boys under these conditions is absolutely incredible. I’m sure this has given the team a bolster massively.
“However, I think with a team as experienced as this they do realise that they cannot afford to slip up.
“Fatigue can be such a crucial thing at this point. The conditions these guys are operating under are incredibly difficult.
“Not only are they diving in adverse conditions in incredibly murky water, they don’t know what the flow of the water is, so when they are swimming towards the trapped children and the coach, they [are] going against the flow of the water . . . we don’t know how strong that is and when they come out they have the added psychological stress of having to look after somebody who is not trained in cave diving,” Boswell told BBC Radio 4.
He said that most technical cave divers “are very detail-oriented . . . they plot each and every single detail that could be possibly wrong”.
Another South African diver, Leandro Gerardo, had a hand in the “mission impossible” rescue.
The former Pinetown Boys’ High School pupil left South Africa in 2005 to work and travel overseas after qualifying as a dive technician. Gerardo, 32, who now lives in Bangkok, volunteered to be part of the rescue after his colleagues at Mermaid Subsea Services joined the operation.
He has chosen not to speak about his brave efforts.