Thailand Soccer Team Still Awaiting Rescue From Cave

[Mystic Wanderer]

The soccer team and their coach went missing June 23rd and were found several days later in a cave where they sought safety from a flash flood.
Once inside the cave, it filled with water leaving them all trapped with little space to avoid the water.

Experienced divers have brought food, water, and blankets to the team while they teach the boys how to dive in hopes of getting them out.

This morning it was reported that a Navy Seal diver died trying to get supplies to the team, showing how dangerous this rescue mission is.

Thank you for your service, Sir. May you rest in peace.  

Pressure is mounting on Thai authorities to bring forward a rescue plan for 12 boys and their coach trapped deep inside a flooded cave in northern Thailand, after the death of a former navy diver and a drop in oxygen levels underground.

Officials initially thought they could keep the boys and their coach in the cave where they are trapped for up to four months, until waters dropped sufficiently for them to be able to walk out.

But the death of a rescue team member, and the realization that oxygen levels have fallen to potentially dangerous levels, appears to have forced a reassessment of the situation.

Thai Navy SEAL chief Rear Adm. Aphakorn Yoo-kongkaew said oxygen levels in the cave had dropped to 15%, a level that one Thai medic said posed a serious risk of hypoxia, the same condition that causes altitude sickness. It was too dangerous to leave the boys much longer, Yoo-kongkaew said, despite the risks involved in attempting to bring them out.

"We can no longer wait for all conditions (to be ready) because of the oppressive situation," he told journalists Friday.
"We originally thought the young boys could stay safe inside the cave for quite a long time but circumstances have changed. We have limited amount of time." He did not say how long they could survive with current oxygen levels, but he said getting more oxygen piped into the boys was top priority.

The SEAL commander spoke just hours after former Sgt. Saman Kunan, a Thai ex-SEAL, died at 2 a.m. Friday (2 p.m. Thursday ET), as he returned from an operation to deliver oxygen tanks to the cave where the boys are located.
The 38-year-old ran out of air while underwater, an official said.

The boys, members of a youth football team, and their coach have been trapped in the labyrinthine cave at the Tham Luang Nang Non complex for nearly two weeks, unable to navigate their way out of a series of narrow passages after floodwaters forced them to take shelter on a rocky ledge.

The huge operation to rescue them involves dozens of Thai Navy SEALs, and experts and volunteer divers from parts of Europe and Asia, as well as Australia and the US. Billionaire inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk said Friday engineers from his SpaceX & Boring Co. were heading to Thailand to see if they could help.

Read more of this story and watch a video here:  Source

Craig Sawyer, who is an ex-Navy Seal and leads the fight in child trafficking, tweeted this last night. He was a lead diver with the Seals, so I pray he can help. 

Craig Sawyer ?‏ @CraigRSawyer 15h15 hours ago


I’m smoked after a month of travel & undercover ops here in Asia. Was finally heading home out of Bangkok today, but diverting back to Chiang Rai now to see if there’s anything I can do to help those trapped boys. Was a Lead Diver in SEAL Teams. Maybe I can help. Pray 4 them!

Let's all pray, meditate, or do whatever you do, to lift up these rescue workers, and for the safety of the soccer team getting out safely.

[Mystic Wanderer]

Update:
I woke up to see a report that four of the boys have been removed from the cave successfully.  Great news!  Thank you to the team of experts who helped save their lives.    

4 boys safely pulled from Thailand cave as second leg of rescue mission to begin in 10 to 20 hours originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

Four of the 12 boys trapped with their soccer coach in a cave in Thailand for 16 days were successfully extracted by divers in an hours-long subterranean rescue mission that has gripped the attention of the world, according to the Thai Navy SEALs.

The international effort to save the group has paired elite divers in "buddy teams" with the remaining eight boys and their coach.
Chiang Rai provincial Gov. Narongsak Osatanakorn said the second part of the mission to rescue the others would begin in about 10 to 20 hours after authorities reconvene to assess conditions in the cave and get a briefing on how the initial rescues went.


PHOTO: An ambulance leaves the Tham Luang cave area after divers started evacuating the 12 boys and their football team coach trapped in a flooded cave in Khun Nam Nang Non Forest Park in the Mae Sai district of Chiang Rai province on July 8, 2018. (Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP/Getty Images)

The first four boys saved, described as the weakest of the group, were removed from the cave a few minutes apart, immediately placed into ambulances and rushed to a hospital in Chiang Rai, Osatanakorn said. He said all of the boys were healthy.

Fighting floodwaters, rapidly dropping oxygen levels and racing against an impending monsoon rainstorm, the rescue operation began at 10 a.m. local time when 13 international divers entered the cave, 10 of them headed to the chamber deep inside the underground labyrinth in northern Thailand. Some nine hours later, the divers emerged from the mouth of the cavern with the first rescued boy and were quickly followed by the second, authorities said.


PHOTO: An ambulance leaves the Tham Luang cave area after divers evacuated some of the 12 boys and their coach trapped at the cave in Khun Nam Nang Non Forest Park in the Mae Sai district of Chiang Rai province on July 8, 2018 in Thailand. (Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP/Getty Images)

The operation to save the once-stranded 13 appeared doubtful just days ago as rescuers from Thailand, the United States, Australia, China and Great Britain brainstormed to find a way to remove the soccer team despite facing treacherous conditions and having to train boys, who did not know how to swim, to perform the most perilous type of diving even for the most experienced Navy SEALs.

The high drama in Thailand's longest cave even drew help from American billionaire businessman Elon Musk, whose SpaceX designers set aside their rocketship venture to build a "kid-sized" submarine to free the trapped boys.

Authorities said at a press conference Sunday morning in Chiang Rai province that they made the decision to rescue the boys as oxygen drops and the threat of monsoon rains approaches.


PHOTO: An ambulance leaves the Tham Luang cave area after divers evacuated some of the boys among a group of 13 trapped in a flooded cave in Khun Nam Nang Non Forest Park in the Mae Sai district of Chiang Rai province on July 8, 2018 in Thailand. (Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP/Getty Images)

At 10 a.m. local time, 13 foreign divers and five Thai SEALs entered the cave to begin the operation. Two divers will escort each of the kids out of the cave.

"We have a fraction of a second to help them come out," provincial Gov. Narongsak Osatanakorn said.

It will take five hours for rescuers to reach the boys from the entrance of the cave, and six hours to bring back the boys, including an hour break time. Ten divers headed to chamber 9, where the boys are located, while the others will be located along the difficult route out of the cave system.

Watch a video on the Source Page

[Mystic Wanderer]

Update: 

More rescued today.  A total of 8 boys have been rescued, with 5 remaining.  Some people are calling it nothing short of a miracle that they got them out.  PRAISE BE TO ALL THAT'S HOLY! 

8 boys rescued from cave in Thailand as operation resumes for 2nd day originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

Dive teams in Thailand rescued four more boys from a flooded jungle cave Monday and were confident they will also be able to save the remaining four boys and their adult soccer coach still trapped in the cavern.

Chiang Rai provincial Gov. Narongsak Osatanakorn, speaking as the second day of the rescue mission got underway, predicted that all 12 of the boys on the soccer team and the coach will be safely brought out of the labyrinth where they went missing 17 days ago.

"I insist that all 13 will be safe and sound," Osatanakorn said.

Rescuers are hustling to bring the Wild Boar soccer team members out of the Tham Luang Nang Non cave before heavy monsoon rains forecast for the area strike, which could flood the cave again.

"We thank the God of the rain. Asked for there not to be rain," Osatanakorn said at a news conference Monday.
After the first four boys were brought out of the cave to safety Sunday, rescuers had planned to take a 10- to 20-hour pause to replenish the cave holding the remaining boys with oxygen and give the team of 18 divers who have been leading the boys on a perilous journey to safety a chance to rest.

However, the rescue effort resumed a few hours earlier than planned on Monday, and about six hours after it started, divers emerged with the fifth rescued boy in tow about 5 p.m. local time.

Over the next three hours, they brought out three other boys, a source close to the operation told ABC News.
The Thai Navy SEALs confirmed on their Facebook page on Monday that eight members of the Wild Boar soccer team had been rescued.

"Hooyah," the SEALs Facebook post reads.

Osatanakorn said Monday's mission lasted nine hours, about two hours less than the rescue operation Sunday.

He described the four boys rescued Monday as "safe and sound" after they made a treacherous trek out of the bowels of the cave in "buddy teams" escorted by elite divers through narrow crevices and floodwaters that required the use of scuba gear.

After the retrieval of the boys Monday, Osatanakorn said the rescue mission in on pause again for about 20 hours to replenish the cave with oxygen pumped in from the outside and to allow divers to rest.

Go to the Source Article to see pictures and watch a video.

[Mystic Wanderer]

They are all free!   Hats off to the Seal Team who pulled them out!    

CHIANG RAI, Thailand, July 10 (Reuters) - All 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped for more than two weeks deep inside a flooded Thai cave have been rescued, a Thai navy SEAL unit said on Tuesday, a successful end to a perilous mission that has gripped the world.

"The 12 Wild Boars and coach have emerged from the cave and they are safe," the SEAL unit said on its official Facebook page.
The "Wild Boars" soccer team and their coach got trapped on June 23 while exploring the cave complex in the northern province of Chiang Rai after soccer practice and a rainy season downpour flooded the tunnels.

British divers found the 13, hungry and huddled in darkness on a muddy bank in a partly flooded chamber several kilometres inside the complex, on Monday last week.

After pondering for days how to get the 13 out, a rescue operation was launched on Sunday when four of the boys were brought out, tethered to rescue divers.

Another four were rescued on Monday and the last four boys and the coach were brought out on Tuesday.
Celebrations will be tinged with sadness over the loss of a former Thai navy diver who died last Friday while on a re-supply mission inside the cave in support of the rescue.

The last five were brought out of the cave on stretchers, one by one over the course of Tuesday, and taken by helicopter to hospital.

Three members of the SEAL unit and an army doctor, who has stayed with the boys since they were found, were the last people due to come out of the cave, the unit said.

So good to post a happy ending to this nightmare.  Cheers!  

Read more and watch a video here: Source