Bangkok, 8th July 2018 – The 12 boys and their soccer coach stranded for two weeks in a northern cave complex, are being led out of the cave on foot and by diving with world-class divers including Thai Navy SEALs. The operation started at 10 a.m. on Sunday.
The boys and their 25 year old football coach will wear a full face mask to scuba dive their way out under supervision. Each one will be accompanied by two rescue divers and will follow guide ropes now fixed along the stream from Nern Nom Sao ledge, where the boys and their coach took refuge, to Hall 3—the rescue team’s base.
In the tightest section where only one person can pass through at a time, the oxygen tanks of both the rescuers and the individual boys will have to be detached from their bodies and rolled through the passage. After all of them reach Hall 3, they will be able to walk to the cave’s main opening.
This extraction method involving scuba diving is fast and needs fewer resources than other methods. However, it requires the very high expertise of the rescuers, and the boys had to be trained to dive and swim. Their morale must be high throughout the operation and they must not panic.
