“All these floodlights start coming over the hill and the water is rising… It’s rising noticeably.”
The remaining 100 staff contained in the cave frantically ran for the exit and emerged lower than an hour later, including the last three Thai naval soldiers and a medic who had spent much of the previous week keeping vigil for the trapped boys.
Boys from the Wild Boar football team took part in three daring rescue operations that began on Sunday morning.
An elite team of 19 divers was involved in ferrying the boys and their 25-year-old coach along a roughly 3.2-kilometer path away from the muddy slope, where they took shelter from the surface world.
The first 4 appeared on Sunday, the following 4 on Monday, and the ultimate five around 8 p.m. local time on Tuesday evening.
The operation required the boys to learn to breathe using diving masks and traverse narrow, jagged tunnels.
During the ultimate mission, because the three Seals and the doctor made their way through the human rescue chain that had formed within the cave, each section began to cheer and applaud. Rescuers likened it to a Mexican comfortable wave that lasted until the doorway.
Rescuers within the chain spent greater than eight hours a day standing on a tiny patch of wet, muddy ground, waiting for his or her turn to pass the boys along a treacherous path. “If certainly one of these people doesn’t do their job properly, the stretcher will fall,” said one diver.
The journey from chamber three to the cave entrance initially took about 4 to 5 hours, but after per week of drying and clearing the mud path with shovels, it was reduced to lower than an hour.
The twelve boys, wearing scuba tanks and every attached to an adult diver, needed to submerge for many of the journey, but every time they stepped onto patches of dry ground they were carried on shiny red Sked stretchers.
Everyone left the cave on stretchers, still wearing their respiration masks. We spent most of last week clearing the 1.5-mile path from chamber three to the doorway.
13 individuals are recovering in hospital in Chiang Rai, the capital of the province of the identical name.
Thongchai Lertwilairatatanapong, an inspector on the Ministry of Public Health, told a news conference that certainly one of the people rescued on Tuesday had a light lung infection and was currently being treated. The official described the condition of the last group nearly as good.
The official said the 4 rescued on Sunday began eating normal meals, while those that were brought in on Monday, also in good condition and with none infections, were expected to resume normal meals by the tip of Wednesday.
The parents of the 4 rescued on Sunday could visit them, but given that they kept a distance of two meters from the boys and wore aprons to stop infection.
According to doctors, the boys shall be observed for per week within the hospital and for an additional week at home.
Regarding their mental health, Thongchai said doctors haven’t observed signs of stress, but a team of psychologists will monitor the situation to make sure the boys, their coach and their families are stress-free.
Their dramatic rescue operation dominated headlines in Thailand.
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ochra made a televised statement thanking everyone involved within the mission who “shared their knowledge, manpower and equipment.”
Official aid got here from Britain, the United States, Japan, Laos, Burma, China and Australia, in line with a government document. There were also volunteers from Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Ukraine and Finland.
A senior Australian police officer confirmed the degree of international cooperation “in a really hostile environment”.
“It’s amazing what a person can do. There are extraordinary people doing extraordinary things,” Glenn McEwan, the Australian Federal Police’s Asia manager, told reporters in Chiang Rai.
“…We are honored to have been a part of it. “The safe return of the Wild Boar football team to the arms of their loved ones is the good news of the year.”
The Guardian, Reuters, Kyodo
This article appeared within the print edition of the South China Morning Post as: the pumps fail after the last boy is released
