I know what it’s like to worry, says mother of British rescue diver
Yohannes Lowe, Victoria Ward and Francesca Marshall
THE mother of one of the British divers who found the missing Thai football team said she was “immensely proud” of her son but worried for his safety as he prepared to go back into the caves.
Jill Volanthen, of Saltdean, Brighton, said it was “wonderful” when her son John, 46, reached the 12 boys and their coach in the Tham Luang cave network, but warned “it’s not all over yet”.
“If you’re a mother, you know what it’s like to worry about your children, no matter how old they are,” she said.
“I’m proud of the boys. I hope they get them out as soon as possible, but it’s not looking that way at the moment as it depends on the height of the water. It is monsoon time and while we have the sunshine they have the rain. His father died nine months ago but he’d be so proud of him. I want him to come home so I can give him a big hug.”
Described as the diving world’s “A Team”, Mr Volanthen and colleague Rick Stanton, 56, were called in by Thai authorities last week along with fellow British caving experts Robert Harper, from Somerset, and Vern Unsworth.
Mr Volanthen and Mr Stanton were yesterday described as unassuming heroes by friends and colleagues.
Mr Stanton has been a firefighter in Coventry for a quarter of a century, while Mr Volanthen, who began caving when he was in the Scouts, now works as an IT consultant in Bristol after studying electronics at De Montfort University, Leicester. It was Mr Volanthen’s voice that was heard on a video released by the Thai government, asking the footballers: “How many of you? Thirteen? Brilliant.”
One of Mr Volanthen’s colleagues at Hub Network Services, the internet company he founded 15 years ago, said he had always shunned the limelight.
“He wouldn’t like the attention and he wouldn’t want people talking about him,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “I have spoken to him in the last 24 hours and he initially wouldn’t even say that it was him who had found the boys – his voice on that video.
“The concern was that he was going to go down to find a cave full of dead boys, which happily wasn’t the case, but he said the job was far from over. He said he’s got a lot of work to do and didn’t know when he’d be back.”
Mr Volanthen and Mr Stanton are both volunteers with the South and Mid Wales Cave Rescue Team and in 2011 the pair set a world record for the longest cave dive, penetrating 5.5 miles (9km) down a system in northern Spain. In February 2014 they were asked by the Norwegian police to help recover the bodies of two cavers who died more than 100m underground in a caving network know as Steinugleflaget in Norway.
Mr Stanton, who began diving at the age of 18, was awarded an MBE in 2003 partly for his attempt to rescue French potholer Eric Establie, who got trapped in the Draggonniere Gaude cave system, in the Ardeche region, in 2010.
He was also involved in a high-profile rescue of British soldiers who had been trapped by flooding inside the Alpazat cavern system in the Central American jungle in 2004.
Alex Daw, a station commander at West Midlands Fire Service, described Mr Stanton as “a natural born hero”.
“If I was stuck in a cave somewhere and couldn’t swim or know how to get out the one person I’d want coming to get me is Rich Stanton,” he said.