Thailand - FOUND ALIVE - 12 Boys And Coach Rescued from Cave, 23 June 2018 #6

[*Verdigris]

This was the work of thousands of people with big hearts, lots of knowledge and experience, incredibly hard work and a drive to help others in need. They came together and worked together under immense pressure because of their dedication and a lifetime of training.

I'm an atheist and not a believer in miracles. I do not believe this was any of the hundreds of gods out there or a miracle. This was extremely difficult work and I give 100% of the credit to all of those who were there. We can see in the videos that it wasn't a miracle, imo. I see people working under intense circumstances with a common goal. Parents not giving up hope. A coach that helped with keeping them calm and warm. Boys who listened to him and learned from him to keep their hope alive.

mir·a·cle
ˈmirək(ə)l/
noun

1. a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.

We can understand how this effort resulted in a positive outcome. Science helped in a major way. Bringing brains together- people that knew the cave, people that knew how to rescue cave dive and all that comes with that, the pump crews, all the divers that helped along the way out, the doctors and nurses. We know how this came to be. We read it, we watched it. We watched a town of caring individuals come together in a time of need to help in their way- from laundry to cooking - it came together because they cared. They had empathy. Before placing blame and freaking out- they worked hard to see it through. It takes a village.

Besides, we don't know which goddess or god to thank - there are hundreds out there and most Thai people are buddhist.

Hi Poppy!❤︎ Don't forget that the expected monsoon rains didn't come.
So Mother Nature deserves some credit, too!
Also the Thai Buddhist monks were there praying daily, for the rains to not come.
And that's where I think the whole "miracle fever" comes in. If it weren't for the race against the monsoon rains, it wouldn't have seemed miraculous (I don't think). If the rescuers could've taken their time to get it all done without quite so much stress, it would have been more like the great success of the Chilean miners.
I obviously agree about all of the incredible people; their specialized skills, brain power, muscle power, determination, and grueling hard work in this nearly impossible undertaking. Of course this was a success because of all of them! (I've also said it numerous times myself througout my posts, in some lovely articulate ways. )
What I, and maybe what the other people see as the "miracle" is that everything came together.
I feel that in addition to all of the splendid hard-work of the people, the fact that the usual monsoon rains were minimal for such an extended period of time, is "miraculous". Saying it was a miracle is also so much easier, and more common than to go around saying it was such an amazing, fortuitous event. Although I have actually said that a time or two as well. And, personally, I like to call the little things along the way, miracle pieces - because that's what they seem to me. And if nothing else, it's just much more fun and inspiring than saying, "gee, what a coincidence."
So anyway, no rain, and the timing of the "dry spell" was highly unusual.
All of those selfless, hard-working, determined fabulous lovely people, but - even with all of them, from what I understand (and fully believe) is that this would not have been possible had the normal monsoon rains poured down.
So in addition to all of the great, many heroes, I am also very grateful that the rains did not come.
In hearing/reading so many people use the word miracle, I feel for you, if it might ruffle your feathers (or your lovely poppy petals) - but I really don't think everyone is going by that textbook definition. They're just happy about it, and saying it's a miracle, considering every single aspect of this endeavor - every one of them coming together, is what made it happen. It seems that if just one aspect were askew, we wouldn't be celebrating these boys, who are now safely out, enjoying their KFC and birthday cake. Otherwise, we'd be watching their funerals. And probably not even yet - most likely it wouldn't have been until after monsoon in a couple of months; before they could've been recovered.
But happilly, everyone and everything came together.

So, it was a brilliantly calculated, skillfully executed, amazingly fortuitous, wonderous event.

And, btw, something else I'm grateful for - is that, somehow Murphy's Law didn't manage to step in and screw this whole thing up! Maybe somebody put a bag over ol' Murph's head, and shoved him into a closet, until this was all over!

 

[*Verdigris]

Thanks again, Gardy for all the great vids and articles!
Is the coach in any of the videos? I suppose not... huh?
I haven't watched them all yet.
On the CNN vid (I think it was) they said the boys are due to go home next Thursday! Well, if they've been shielded from the TV and what's online (as I suspect) these boys are in for a big surprise to find the whole world was cheering them on!
I wonder if all 13, will be released Thursday?

 

[Elainera]

I hope the boys have something to do in there. There’s a decided lack of electronics, books, or toys in the video and pics I’ve seen so far.

One of the boys is drawing and is showing and explaining his work to the camera. (He is drawing the whole group!)

Thanks again, Gardy for all the great vids and articles!
Is the coach in any of the videos? I suppose not... huh?
I haven't watched them all yet.
On the CNN vid (I think it was) they said the boys are due to go home next Thursday! Well, if they've been shielded from the TV and what's online (as I suspect) these boys are in for a big surprise to find the whole world was cheering them on!
I wonder if all 13, will be released Thursday?

Yes coach Ek is also in the hospital video, he's the last one speaking to the camera and telling the world what he'd like to eat

 

[Gardener1850]

On the flight home from the so-called mission impossible, Dr Harris took to social media to praise the hundreds of international experts and volunteers.

“The pressure put on these guys was immense, and they never dropped the ball for a second.”

Mr Challen, a retired vet from Perth, told News Corp the most challenging part of the mission was the age of the boys.

"It was absolutely life and death. We didn't expect to be getting 13 people out of there alive," he said.

"(The) fact that you have got a living, breathing little tiny person that you are in charge of and you are very limited as to what you can do to help them, and it is a two hour journey out of the cave ... it was taxing."

He said the boys were sedated to keep them calm.

"We could not have panicking kids in there, they would have killed themselves and possibly killed the rescuer as well."

Hero divers describe 'mission impossible' as 'unbelievably good'

 

[Gardener1850]

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk inserted himself into the dramatic rescue effort of a Thai boys’ soccer team when he came up with an idea for a kid-sized submarine to transport the teammates out of a cave where they were trapped.

Musk and a team of engineers from three of his companies even flew to Thailand to make their idea come to life. They named it “Wild Boar,” after the boys’ team.

The boys were sedated and escorted out by divers in stages this week ― without Musk’s involvement.

Nor did everyone appreciate his efforts.

“He can stick his submarine where it hurts,” expert caver Vern Unsworth told CNN International.

“It just had absolutely no chance of working,” Unsworth contined. “He had no conception of what the cave passage was like. The submarine, I believe, was about 5-foot-6 long, rigid, so it wouldn’t have gone around corners, gone around any obstacles. It wouldn’t have made it the first 50 meters into the cave from the dive start point.”

The caver concluded that Musk’s effort was “just a PR stunt.”

Thai Cave Rescuer Explains Why Elon Musk's Rescue Idea Wouldn't Have Worked | HuffPost

 

[Gardener1850]

‘We'll get them all out, but there’s a good chance some will die.’

That was the grim warning by British cave diver Jason Mallinson and his colleagues to the Thai authorities as they prepared to rescue 12 frightened and weakened schoolboys trapped two and a half miles deep inside a dark, flooded cave.

But it was thanks to their incredible courage and skill this gloomy prophecy never materialised.

In their astonishing and brutally honest account, much of which debunks the official line and previous reports, the cave divers tell how:

• Plans to leave the boys in the cave until the end of the four-month monsoon season would have ended in certain death;

• An attempt to lay an oxygen pipe was never completed, making a dive rescue inevitable;

• On his final run, Jewell, while guiding a boy to safety, lost his grip on the rope guideline for four terrifying minutes in zero visibility;

• The safety and equipment protocols of the Thai Navy SEALs were ‘completely wrong’ for cave diving and the tragic death of one of them made the authorities realise they were ‘out of their depth’.

Read more:
British diver heroes reveal fears during Thai cave rescue, getting lost underwater and boys' bravery | Daily Mail Online

Also some pictures from the link:

 

[KaaBoom]

CNN just ran a nice segment on the rescue including statements by the boys. As I was watching it occurred to me that 13 will no longer be an unlucky number. A couple of minutes later the commentator said the same thing.

moo

For the record 13 has never been considered to be an unlucky number by most Asian people. The unlucky number would be 4, because it's pronounced similar to the word for "death" in Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese.

Tetraphobia - Wikipedia

 

[Gardener1850]

On day three, with four boys and the coach left to go, the rescuers realised time was running out and that all five would have to come out that day, so Mallinson opted to perform a ‘double run’ for part of the way to get the last boy out – contrary to media reports the football coach was not the last person of the 13 out, but the ninth.

It meant handing over the boy he had guided for 350 yards and heading straight back.

Ireland-based support diver Jim Warney stepped in to assist the boy whom Mallinson had guided out of that first sump to continue the journey.

‘When I took the last child out, the visibility was appalling and you literally could not see your hand in front of your face,’ said Mallinson.

‘We would hold the boy in a way that his face was very close to our own, so that your face would hit the wall before his did. It was quite an ordeal.

'They had some padding on their heads from the wetsuit hood but if the seal on the edge of their masks were to be broken and the mask flooded, they would drown.’

British diver heroes reveal fears during Thai cave rescue, getting lost underwater and boys' bravery | Daily Mail Online

 

[Gardener1850]

Duplicate post. Delete.

 

[Gardener1850]

In an exclusive interview with the ABC's Four Corners program, retired Perth vet Craig Challen explained how he worked closely with his friend and fellow expert cave diver, Adelaide anaesthetist Dr Richard Harris, to medically assess the boys and their coach and get them ready for the rescue operation.

"They [the boys] were pretty unreservedly happy to see us, I think. I can't imagine what it was like for them being in there nine days with no contact," Dr Challen said.

"You would be thinking that it was all over, really. But by the time we got in there, there'd been somebody in to visit them every day.

"They had lots of food. I wouldn't say that it was all that appetising; it's all just ration packs. But we were able to tell them that we were developing a plan to get them out.

"I'm not sure whether they were fully appraised of the fact that it was going to flood and you know what the consequences of that might be."

Watch Four Corners' full report, Out Of The Dark, including exclusive interviews with key rescuers tomorrow, 8.30pm on ABC TV and ABC iView.
More at link: 'Fraught with danger': Australian cave diver confirms boys were sedated

 

[*Verdigris]

Read more:
British diver heroes reveal fears during Thai cave rescue, getting lost underwater and boys' bravery | Daily Mail Online

Also some pictures from the link:

(snipped other pix)
Oh, I still absolutely get terrible knots in my stomach just reading about this incident, even though I know everything turned out beautifully.

Maybe they can start twisting plastc LED rope lights on dive lines? Even in murky water, divers could probably see a bit of a glow? No?
Is that a dumb idea?
I guess even if it might help, or be "doable", it probably wasn't an option.
(Like faliure. )

Anyway - this just makes me so nervous to even think about. Someone said way back in one of the first threads that it reminded her/him of the Poseidon Adventure scene. I was thinking the same thing - and really feel so now. My knees were shaking when I watched that in the theater, and I am very rarely affected by movies. lol. Now I feel the same way reading about this, as it was real. btw - I noticed how the drawings made it look like the boys were actually diving, too.
eta/correct font size, (was kinda big for some reason)

 

[*Verdigris]

For the record 13 has never been considered to be an unlucky number by most Asian people. The unlucky number would be 4, because it's pronounced similar to the word for "death" in Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese.

Tetraphobia - Wikipedia

Here (Japan) in some (most) tall buildings, they don't have floor #4, ...like many hotels in the US, don't have floor #13.
Especially in hospitals here - no floor #4.
We have a rented parking space - they are numbered starting from #1; we have the fourth one in, but it is labeled #5, as in 1,2,3,5,6,7...
I had a loved one die 4/13

 

[Gardener1850]

I just noticed how the boys have numbers behind their heads:

I'm pretty sure those numbers correspond with the order they came out of the cave and were admitted to the hospital.
This is the coach:

He is incorrectly identified as "one of the boys" in the caption but it is is the coach. He spoke and identified himself in the video previously linked. He has a number 9 behind him which matches what the British Divers Mallison and Jewel revealed in the Daily Mail that the coach had not been brought out last as reported by other outlets but was brought out 9th. I'm guessing when it got down to the last 5, the divers knew they had to work quickly because of the rain. Perhaps they sedated all of them at once so none would be aware of when they were getting out. I don't think the coach had any say in the order at all, at least not for the part of when he was brought out. JMO.
Aussie cave diver reveals why Thai cave boys were sedated

 

[Gardener1850]

THE Thai boy pictured in an England shirt while trapped in flooded caves has told how he and his football teammates tried to dig their way out with sharp rocks.

Sompong Jaiwong, known as Pong, was among the last group of lads rescued on Tuesday after a 17-day ordeal.

Aunt Aon Gaekam, who raised the 13-year-old after his dad died and mum left, said he told her they grew too weak to continue the tunnel.

Aon, 37, told The Sun on Sunday: “The boys broke into tears when they realised they couldn’t find a way out. Their coach tried to swim back to find an exit but there was none.

“They had to drink water seeping down the walls and huddle together to try to stay warm.

“During the first couple of days the boys tried to get out by digging a tunnel using rocks.

“They managed to bore a hole into the cave wall about three metres deep but it left them exhausted and they decided to stop.

Some other details (my paraphrase):
The 13 year old Pong says he doesn't remember the dive or being brought out of the cave (due to the sedatives). He woke up in the helicopter on the way to the hospital.
We also learn the boys have not been told about the death of the Thai Navy seal.
They had to take the boys' phones away so they would not look at the news.
They will be allowed to watch the World Cup Final as a treat.
And they have been told they will be flown to England to watch a match.

Read more at link: Thai boys tried to dig to freedom

 

[*Verdigris]

Dear poppyflower
OK, Pops-- according to 20/20 ...looks like we're all wrong --
It wasn't the skill and best-laid plans, and/or a miracle, afterall - it was the Princess of the Mountain who decided the outcome!
Apparently, she was happy, and smiled favourably...

OK, I'll accept that - just so long as all 13 are alive and well now!

Unfortunately, it seems of course she wanted Saman as a sacrifice.
At least his own final mission was successful.
It would have been so much more tragic if it were any other outcome.
btw, his memorial service was so gorgeous. Really elaborate. It's lovely that the King paid the expenses. It was such a beautiful tribute, to honour Saman.
I hope the best for his widow, and will always keep her in my heart.❤︎
It's lovely that she told the boys to not blame themselves.

 

[*Verdigris]

I just noticed how the boys have numbers behind their heads:

I'm pretty sure those numbers correspond with the order they came out of the cave and were admitted to the hospital.
This is the coach:

He is incorrectly identified as "one of the boys" in the caption but it is is the coach. He spoke and identified himself in the video previously linked. He has a number 9 behind him which matches what the British Divers Mallison and Jewel revealed in the Daily Mail that the coach had not been brought out last as reported by other outlets but was brought out 9th. I'm guessing when it got down to the last 5, the divers knew they had to work quickly because of the rain. Perhaps they sedated all of them at once so none would be aware of when they were getting out. I don't think the coach had any say in the order at all, at least not for the part of when he was brought out. JMO.
Aussie cave diver reveals why Thai cave boys were sedated

(bbm)

Gards... are you sure you wanna admit that here on WS?
I noticed it right away But of course, I am actually looking at them, while you are Speedy G, busy busy busy posting these for all of us! And TYVM once again!
So, Coach wasn't last after all?
Well, good on the Dr and divers -- they were fabulous.

 

[Gardener1850]

BBC Audio Documentary (23 minutes): BBC World Service - The Documentary, The Thailand Cave Rescue

 

[KaaBoom]

I just noticed how the boys have numbers behind their heads:

I'm pretty sure those numbers correspond with the order they came out of the cave and were admitted to the hospital.
This is the coach:

He is incorrectly identified as "one of the boys" in the caption but it is is the coach. He spoke and identified himself in the video previously linked. He has a number 9 behind him which matches what the British Divers Mallison and Jewel revealed in the Daily Mail that the coach had not been brought out last as reported by other outlets but was brought out 9th. I'm guessing when it got down to the last 5, the divers knew they had to work quickly because of the rain. Perhaps they sedated all of them at once so none would be aware of when they were getting out. I don't think the coach had any say in the order at all, at least not for the part of when he was brought out. JMO.
Aussie cave diver reveals why Thai cave boys were sedated

I think those are the bed numbers. Although if they filled the beds in numerical order, then that would represent the order they arrived at the hospital.

 

[kkdj]

I think those are the bed numbers. Although if they filled the beds in numerical order, then that would represent the order they arrived at the hospital.

I think #9 looks too young to be the 25 year old coach.

 

[Gardener1850]

(bbm)

Gards... are you sure you wanna admit that here on WS?
I noticed it right away But of course, I am actually looking at them, while you are Speedy G, busy busy busy posting these for all of us! And TYVM once again!
So, Coach wasn't last after all?
Well, good on the Dr and divers -- they were fabulous.

I was too enamored by their adorable little voices and shining eyes to look behind their heads.