Soggy pizza and long hours of waiting – 4 years since the Tham Luang cave rescue

“There were times when kilometres underground standing in waist-deep water, we’d be eating a piece of soft pizza in a break… two guys from different countries, different cultures.”

Four years ago, yesterday, the last group of four football players from the Chiang Rai Mu Pa (Wild Boar) team were brought out of the Tham Luang Caves. It took three days, a massive international rescue team, a risky plan, and a lot of luck to bring all 13 members of the team out, alive. Between July 8 and July 10, 2018, the world waited to see if the impossible rescue would be possible.

The 12 teenagers and their football coach, had been stranded deep inside the flooded caves after venturing in 17 days before for a quick post-training day excursion. They went in, torrential monsoonal rain followed and they were trapped. Figuring they were going to be inside the cave for little more than an hour, they had taken a few bottles of water in. And that’s it.

Now, some new footage has emerged, taken by some of the Australian police crews who flew to Thailand to be a part of the international rescue mission. The six Australian Federal Police divers shared some of their stories and video.

“It was totally black. You put your hand on your mask and you can’t even see your hand.”

Last week, the University of Bristol awarded 2 British cave divers with honourary degrees after recognising their heroic efforts in the rescue. Linda Wilson, Vice-President of the University of Bristol’s Spelaeological Society, nominated John Volanthen, from Bristol, and Rick Stanton, from Coventry, for their honorary degrees.

The two experienced cave divers were the first to find the team on July 2 at 10pm. By their admission, it was a serendipitous moment. They also admitted that, after spending some 10 minutes with the team and promising they’d return with food and rescue, they put their masks on and slowly submerged into the blackness, pondering the impossible task of getting them all out alive.

In the documentary “The Rescue” the two men revealed that they thought the 12 boys, aged between 11 – 16, and their 23 year old coach were doomed. When they emerged from the caves with the good news, the world sighed a gasp of relief. But the rescuers knew all the hard work was ahead of them.

In an interview with NPR, Stanton said the entire situation at the mouth of the Tham Luang cave was chaotic as divers started pouring into Chiang Rai from around the world.

“Complete chaos – there were hundreds of people. There was obviously the Army there, the police. But lots of volunteer local people had all come to help. Everyone wanted to be part of it – but, I mean, without being too critical, maybe a lack of coordination of all these hundreds and hundreds of people – and so just completely chaotic. ”

But a highly risky, and controversial, plan was conceived. And with some more flooding rains on the way, the timing of the rescue was forced onto rescuers by the weather.

Adelaide anesthetist Dr Richard Harris played a pivotal role, coming up with a cocktail of drugs that would be administered to the 13 young men to sedate them so they could be carried out by divers. None of the boys had any diving, even swimming, experience and rescuers knew that the chances of bringing them out conscious would be impossible. Dr Harris admitted on an ABC TV program that he first thought there was ‘zero’ chance the plan would succeed.

On a winter Canberra afternoon, Senior Constable Kel Boers answered a call he would never forget. He was asked if he could dive. He was told about the mission. Days later they would join the other divers from around the world trying to figure out how to extract the team.

From July 8, for the next three days, using a risky plan to sedate, then carry out each of the team members.

He also took a camera in with him. Long lines of rescuers were strategically located along the nearly 4 kilometres of cramped, craggy, flooded cave network. Each had specific tasks – some monitored the oxygen tanks and usage for the swimmers, other would administer the sedation and re-administer sedation of the 13 young men. Others were on standby to take over if there were problems.

The boys were carried out sedated, oxygenated, and strapped to a stretcher, after being hauled through tiny rock openings by specialist divers. It would take a wrong turn, contact with a rock, a hiccup with the sedation, and the boy strapped on the stretcher would surely die. A lot was hinging on everyone doing their job and everything going to plan.

Kel Boers says there were many hours when nothing happened at all, waiting in complete, damp silence.

“Once we got into the cave and we sat and waited for the first one to come through the nervous energy was terrible, you could have cut it like a knife.”

“There were times when kilometres underground standing in waist-deep water, we’d be eating a piece of soft pizza in a break… two guys from different countries, different cultures… that selflessness of people from all over the world, coming together for one collective purpose. It’s hard to believe that 4 years have gone by so quickly.”

July 8: The extraction started and the first four boys were brought out and sent to the hospital by helicopter in Chiang Rai. The boys had to wear sunglasses to protect their eyes from the light.

July 9: Four more boys were rescued.

July 10: The last five boys, including their 23 year old coach, plus the Thai army doctor and navy divers who went to stay with the trapped boys, were brought out safely.

“They all thought they had to ride their bikes home when we got them out”.

SOURCE: Nine Network Australia