12 boys and soccer coach found alive in Thai caves after 9 days

[Ooh-Rah]

I’m sure some of you have been following this....

Happy to post that they’ve been found alive! Not out of the woods yet, but this is great news.

Missing Thai boys and football team coach are found alive in a cave | Daily Mail Online

All 12 boys and their football team coach have been found alive after becoming trapped in a flooded cave for more than a week in Thailand.

Chang Rai governor Narongsak Osottanakorn told reporters that Thai Navy SEALs had found the group alive after nine days of desperate searching.

He added: 'We found them safe. But the operation isn't over.

'We will bring food to them and a doctor who can dive. I am not sure they can eat as they have not eaten for a while.

 

[Kraut783]

Good news...I thought they were goners.

 

[Ooh-Rah]

Question is....how the hell do you get them out? That’s a lot of underwater caves to dive thru....

 

[Grunt]

I like those types of stories with this type of ending!

They usually end in a negative way....

 

[BloodStripe]

Question is....how the hell do you get them out? That’s a lot of underwater caves to dive thru....

Im willing to bet they'll try and get them food and water to get their strength up so they can buddy dive them out.

 

[AWP]

I'm glad they've found them, even if they have a lot of work left to rescue them.

Not out of the woods yet,

This is funny. Nicely done!

Thai Navy SEALs had found the group alive after nine days of desperate searching.

Give it a year and an argument will erupt over the first guy to find the students, books, movies, etc.

 

[Ooh-Rah]

This ain't over....

Thai cave survivors will have to learn to dive amid fears rainfall | Daily Mail Online

Twelve boys and their football coach found in a flooded cave in Thailand may have to learn to dive and make some of the swim to safety themselves amid fears of fresh rainfall in the next few days.

Experts had earlier said the 'rake thin' schoolboys may have to survive in the Thamg Luang cave network in the country's north until October when water levels subside at the end of monsoon season.

But with more rain forecast in the coming days, rescuers are now in a race against time to bring the young footballers to safety before levels rise again, with officials considering teaching the boys - none of whom can swim - how to dive.

Teams have been pumping 10,000 litres of water out of the caves every hour - but this is only enough to lower the level by one centimeter.

From the article:
Could they dive out?

In theory yes: but it is an extremely difficult task. Cave diving is already very risky, especially for young boys in a weakened state who have no diving experience.

Tham Luang cave where the boys have been trapped is one of Thailand's longest at six miles and one of the hardest to navigate with its winding and at times narrow corridors.

If they dive, they have no choice but to follow the steps that rescuers took though tiny passageways clogged with mud and silt. That journey takes a healthy - and skilled - Navy SEAL diver about six hours.

Officials said they would attempt to train the boys to use crucial diving gear after they are rehabilitated with food, water and medical support.

'Cave diving is a very technical skill and it's extremely dangerous, especially for an untrained diver,' Anmar Mirza, coordinator of the US National Cave Rescue Commission, told AFP.

 

[Kraut783]

Get supplies and hang out till the water dissipates ? Like 4 months....might be the safer road in the end.

 

[Gunz]

If they dive, they have no choice but to follow the steps that rescuers took though tiny passageways clogged with mud and silt. That journey takes a healthy - and skilled - Navy SEAL diver about six hours.

Jesus Christ.


Also, WTF were they thinking in the first place taking children into a fucking cave system?

A.) Don't leave your child alone in a car.
B.) Don't take children into cave systems during the fucking monsoon

 

[AWP]

You're gonna' have dead kids and SEALs in that cave before this is over.

 

[amlove21]

First of all, do ya'll know how fucking dangerous cave diving is?! Like, just to get there is a testament to those dudes.

Now they're gonna rescue a group of 10 year olds, some of whom can't even swim?! Good fucking god. If they pull this off (wouldn't bet on it) it has to go down as one of the greatest maritime/cave rescues of all time. Not even exaggerating.

 

[Ooh-Rah]

If they pull this off (wouldn't bet on it) it has to go down as one of the greatest maritime/cave rescues of all time.

Agreed. In fact one of the things that has made me near obsessed with this story is taken from some of the discussions about cave diving on this site. The two Brits who found them....bad mother-fuckers. If these kids have a chance, it’s because of these two....

British divers at heart of Thai cave rescue among best in world

Rick Stanton and John Volanthen, among the first to reach the boys, have more than 35 years experience in extreme cave dives and rescues. They are world leaders in cave rescue, and have frequently worked together on major search and rescue operations around the globe.

 

[amlove21]

Any sport that routinely kills the top people in that sport (wing suit flying, cave diving, free climbing) automatically means those top people are freaking insane.

Those two are straight bad as hell.

 

[Ooh-Rah]

 

[Kaldak]

How did they get through the 16ft under water cave?

 

[Raptor]

6 hours?!? Granted, I've never used one, but I figured that even with a rebreather that you'd run out of air before then. That blows my mind, to be honest.

 

[Blizzard]

There has to be a better rescue option than trying to train a bunch of young boys to cave dive, right? They have to be looking at other options.

As was stated, especially after looking at that infographic, what the hell were they doing there in the first place? And how the hell did these divers find them. I get the caves flooded but this is still amazing; there is a section that was too narrow for the divers to wear their tanks! -- holy...!

 

[AWP]

I'll preface this with I'm not a diver and have only read books on cave and wreck diving. All I'm doing is parroting info.

- Removing your tank to squeeze through an area isn't the most basic of tasks in a sport that isn't the most basic of anything.
- An improper kick will stir up silt and totally black out the cave. Experienced divers have missed their line (Hansel and Gretel thing, I forget the term) and died under these circumstances.
- I can't speak to this cave, but dives with 4-6 hour decomp cycles on the way out aren't unusual.
- Some of the kids can't swim, have been underground for over a week, aren't eating well, etc. This makes for one amazingly complicated dive.
- The numbers aren't in their favor. Each case is extraordinary with a ton of risk.
- The guys dragging them out of the cave are going to have to work their asses off.
- To the above, how many are doing this and over how many days? How many of these trips does an experienced diver make before they become a liability? The emotional pull to rescue kids is amazing.
- The margin for error in cave diving is small. The risk matrix for something like this doesn't even exist.

 

[SaintKP]

Wouldn't digging down prove to be just as risky of an endeavor? Not to mention that's a 1/2 mile going down, only 2 open pit mines in the world go that deep and those are miles wide to help with room.

Are there any divers on the board that would be able to offer information? I remember @DC but I haven't seen him post in a long time.

 

[CDG]

What I have been reading is that the kids are going to be stuck there until possibly October. That it's too dangerous to rescue them now, so they just have to wait it out.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/03/asia/thai-rescue-next-phase-intl/index.html