First four soccer players rescued from Thai cave
Fox News reports that the first four teen soccer players have been rescued by Thai SEALs from their cavern prison;
The conditions of the boys were not released, but the head of joint command center coordinating the search said he met with the children and described them as being in “perfect” health and called today’s mission the “best situation.”
“The operation went much better than expected,” Narongsak said about the rescue, which began at 10 a.m. Sunday local time.
Officials estimated the first phase of the rescue would take 12 hours, giving the divers six hours into the cave and back.
Sunday’s mission, however, took 7 hours and 40 minutes.
Saman Kunan, a retired Thai SEAL has lost his life during the rescue mission;
The deceased volunteer rescuer, identified as Saman Kunan, 38, was returning at about 1 a.m. from the chamber where the boys are trapped when he ran out of oxygen, passed out and died. Kunan had left the SEALs in 2006 to work at Bangkok’s airport as an emergency rescue officer.
For the cave rescue, he was part of a team trying to establish an air line to the chamber where the children and their coach are holed up. Kunan’s body will be flown to his hometown of Roi Et for a royally-sponsored funereal, the king of Thailand announced.
They should bury the soccer coach alongside him…alive.
Category: Dumbass Bullshit
Ditto that about burying the Coach!
I dont get the coach hate. He made a mistake and in a world where people have become so risk adverse as to not even try, I find it admirable that he kept his kids alive long enough to be rescued.
I mean hell, some of the stuff my scoutmasters had us do growing uo was dangerous as fuck and absolutely forbotten these days.
Of course im not following this story all that close, so he could be a total fuck up and really should have known better…
I have this theory that what actually started the whole thing was the soccer team was having practice near the cave when one of the players kicked the ball, and it went into the cave entrance and got lost. Thai soccer teams are like the Marines; they never leave a ball behind…
When I send my kids to soccer practice, I don’t expect to see them trapped in a cave on the international news.
“They should bury the soccer coach alongside him…alive.”
I don’t know if I would go that far but I think a severe thrashing would be in order.
If I were the coach I would be worried about what that deceased divers buddies may do to him. I guess they might leave him in the cave.
From what I read, the coach led the boys into a marked “DANGER- DO NOT ENTER” area of the cave complex; he previously had entered the cave from that posted location a year or more earlier.
Rumor has it that two more have been rescued.
I saw this last night, that one teen had been rescued, and was happy that the rescue was getting someone out alive. The coach made a mistake in taking those kids spelunking during the rainy season, yes. At least there are kids coming out alive now.
A good start, and of course hoping for a successful conclusion. Fair winds and following seas, Mr. Kunan. There may be a more noble way to pass, but I can’t think of one.
RIP for the lost Thai Diver, Godspeed to him and God Bless his family.
Praying for the safe return of all of them, including the Coach.
As best I can tell this Coach managed to keep all of those young men together and alive for 9 days in a cave filling with water.
It is hard if not impossible to defend the Coach’s decision to take them in the cave. Its easy to cast hate bombs from the cheap seats.
Notwithstanding his decision, he seems to have done a remarkable job at keeping everyone safe and alive all on his own.
People who have no experience and/or qualification at underwater cave diving have no business on the rescue team.
I will restate my aforementioned position that the rescue teams will now fight over who gets credit for saving everyone.
Speleology has been a passion of mine for all my life. Most of the people involved in this rescue operation have no business being there. Being a Navy SEAL has absolutely nothing to do with qualifying a person to rescue anyone from a cave.
The last idiot I was involved with who’s bloated ego thought he was qualified to rescue people ended up killing a man. He avoided me at all costs from that moment on.
I am happy to report he also died a few years later many said of quilt and substance abuse. I was honored to piss on his grave.
Ego’s and attention whores will get someone else killed if someone does not run most of these idiots off.
Story I am getting is that the cave is open to all during the dry season for the first 700 meters, but going past that is kind of a local rite of passage all the local kids do. The team went in (a week before the rainy season was due to start), went a bit beyond the marked safe area, but then the sudden unexpected storm trapped them there. The coach led them further in until he hit safer, dryer high ground. Realistically, he sounds like the recipient of a bad break – which he he has since handled well. We all carp about the people who scream if their kids aren’t cocooned off from the real world, risk, etc… this is what sometimes happens.
Watched a special on Nature or some such, following a group training for cave diving. The specialized gear alone would cost a fortune. I quickly learned I have zero desire to do anything like it.
Oh, the dive class? Four students- three adventurous civilian divers, and one from the local Police Department who’s job would be to retrieve the ones who didn’t make it out alive.
I would think the SEAL types know their limitations, and leave the technical aspects of the dive to the pros. Experienced cave divers are on site, according to the news.
I agree with you about qualified cave divers vs Navy SEAL’s. Nothing against SEAL’s, but that’s not something the train for. Cave diving is a highly specialized endeavor, possibly the most dangerous sport in the world. It’s a world of double, and even triple redundancy, and safety precautions. I trained as a cave diver but quit after someone experienced panicked, pulled out their reg, and tried surfacing through hundreds of feet of limestone. He died pressed against the cave ceiling.
Watching Fox this morning I saw former US Navy SEAL’s, spelunkers, but no highly qualified cave divers.
British divers at heart of Thai cave rescue among best in world
The Guardian Link
I understand there are about a dozen civilian Euro divers there, all told.
Great.Thanks. What I was referring to were those invited as guest ‘experts’on Fox this morning. I’m glad they have cave diving experts of such quality doing the actual rescue.
Not being a rescue diver or having any experience whatever with such things, I must defer to those who do know. The coverage this morning was most informative. Sounded like the guys who are doing the diving are the ones who are especially trained for it. Also sounded like what we (the US) is doing mostly was providing equipment and other vital kinds of assistance to those divers but not in the water.
One of our retired military types did say that the diver who died did so on a test run – specifically looking for problem areas. Had other things to do today but got hooked on watching. Fascinating.
You are absolutely right re: cave diving & cave rescue, and the comment about Thai Navy combat swimmers.
I suspect the Thai SEALs (which are no joke, they based their version of BUD/S on the USN program @ Coronado, and the physical punishment is DIRECT and BRUTAL, along the lines of what was once the norm @ USN BUD/S during the Vietnam era) were called in for publicity’s sake: ‘We’ve got the toughest divers in all of Thailand on the case!’
Never mind, as was stated above, that combat swimmers are…combat swimmers. Not cavers and not cave rescuers. There are MAJOR differences.
Their physical and mental conditioning might make them an ‘ok’ choice. But when I read that the fallen Thai Navy SEAL was into extreme sports, bells and whistles started going off in my head. THE LAST type of person you want transiting that cave network with limited O2 is an ‘adrenaline junky’. Adrenaline is your enemy on an op like that.
So I think the Thai SEALs were brought on with a ‘Dog & Pony show’ type mentality on the part of the higher ups, and unfortunately a solid former Thai SEAL paid for that dog & pony op with his life.
The Brits on the scene are hands down the best cave rescue guys in the world. Calm, collected, and unflappable. If anyone can get all those kids out safely, it’s those Brit cave rescue types.
In a year or so, Hollywood (s**t be upon them) will make a movie with a cast of thousands about a group of idiots trapped in a cave. The heros will be three of the trapped idiots (a muslim, an illegal immigrant, and a lesbian) and the villains will be Navy SEALS, police, and ICE agents.
I agree, bad luck on the part of the coach, but hen that happened, he kept them all alive.. RIP to the Thai Seal… they’re badasses on a par with our Seals, (except they live on Spicy food)….And glad hey’re leaving this to the experts, I hope they get all the kids out alive, and God Bless em all
I am an experienced caver and found the system known as Otter Hole Extensions in S Wales which floods and closes each tide. It is wet and extraordinarily muddy and the tide water is as think as gravy. It also has a restricted entrance of bedding planes lower than tide level. I have swum in many times, but due to the nature of the place it can shut for long periods in a storm. We can go into survival mode and unplanned stays are preplanned with food and kit dumps It takes around 18 hours to get to the end of the cave and back. I don’t dive but used to help the divers get the kit in.
Cave diving is never a safe sport and relies much on the person. I knew one or two who passed doing it. Nobody should venture underground without proper lights and equipment and they did not have that. How the hell they got down a pitch without climbing kit is beyond me but I would say it exceeds the comfort zone regrdless of the rain storm. The coach made a bad mistake but let’s not dwell on it, he kept the boys alive. He has probably been punished enough as it is and will be even more so when he discovers someone died in the rescue. I guess he will be in court for something like reckless endangerment. Maybe 3 months suspended prison sentence would be right and so he can go back and teach his boys,seems he is a good guy.
Great job from the divers to motivate and teach the boys and get them out and hopefully the rest will follow.