As a charter member of the Michigan U/W Divers Club and “Dive Mentor” on the ScubaObsessed Pod cast, I was following the daily events around the missing Thai soccer team in the Tham Luang cave in the mountainous northern Thailand and their rescue. Here is an over view of the event and rescue.  

On Saturday (June 23) it was reported that 12 boys and their coach of the Wild Boards youth soccer team (aged from 11 to 16) ventured into the Tham Luang cave in mountainous northern Thailand after soccer practice. There they got trapped when heavy rains caused flooding in the route back out of the cave which forced them to take shelter on a muddy ledge +2 miles inside the cave system.

The boys had biked to the cave along with their coach and when they didn’t return home on Saturday evening, their families reported them missing. Family members have held a vigil outside the complex since then. “There has to be faith. Faith makes everything a success, Thai authorities have remained resolutely optimistic that the group has found shelter on dry ground within the cave, and will be found.

On July 2, after nine days in darkness, two British divers, Mr. John Volamthen and Mr. Richard  Stanton (both part of the part of the South and Mid Wales Cave Rescue Team) found them. They were found looking gaunt but otherwise offering smiles to the divers and appeared to be in remarkably good spirits.

Just reaching the boys and their soccer coach required a six-hour underground journey in strong currents, pitch blackness and treacherous conditions in the cave. The journey required squeezing through two-foot-wide passages and climbing over boulders several stories high.  It has been difficult for even the best divers to navigate the submerged portions of the cave.

Now that they were located, the big challenge was how to get the out of the flooded cave system and the labyrinth of tunnels more than 2.5 miles inside the cave.

Time was critical for they feared that with the anticipated additional heavy rains the area they were in would also flood. As the rescue planning continued the boys were supplied with food, electrolyte drinks, and medicine. Over the time they were in the cave, the oxygen level in the chamber, dipped to 15% percent (normally 21%) so an air hose had been run from the rescue base inside the cave to the chamber where they were in to add fresh air to the chamber.

As part of the rescue plan air and oxygen tanks were being staged through the cave system.

The rescue was not without a fatality. On Friday (July 6), one of the rescuers, a former Thai Navy SEAL diver Mr. Saman Gunan drowned while transporting these air tanks.

The rescue mission started on Sunday (July 8) with divers entering the cave at 10:00 local time and having gotten 4 of the boys out by 19:47 hrs. The mission was paused overnight for air tanks to be replaced along the route but resumed again on Monday

On Monday (July 9) four more were removed from the cave and the remaining 5 were brought out on Tuesday (July 10) and transferred to hospital where the others were.

As a diver I was especially interested in how they were going to extract 13 non-divers from the flooded cave system.

Thai officials had contacted Mermaid Subsea Services in Bangkok, a firm that normally provides equipment for undersea oil and gas extraction. The company was asked to supply diving masks for the kids. Ideally, AGA Divator masks would be used, which cover the entire face and could be specially fitted for children. Each child would be dressed in wetsuits, boots, and helmets.  Sources in the rescue operation said that the boys were sedated ahead of the rescue to prevent them panicking in the dark, tight, underwater passageways.

For the underwater sections, they were strapped to a rescue diver. They readied the mask attached to a tank filled with 80 percent oxygen. Finally, the boys were swaddled in a flexible plastic stretcher, akin to a tortilla wrap, to confine his limbs and protect them from the sharp edged walls. The divers were connected to lines that went to the surface. In all, about 40% of the boys’ journey through the water involved diving and in other parts the water was up to the rescuers’ chests.