More details of the Thai cave rescue
Well worth reading. When the Times sticks to straight reporting, sometimes it does a very good job.
I learned details I hadn’t known before. For example:
10,000 people participated, including 2,000 soldiers, 200 divers and representatives from 100 government agencies…
More than 150 members of the Thai Navy SEALs, outfitted with improvised equipment sometimes held together with duct tape, helped create the escape route…Overseas military teams brought search-and-rescue equipment. The Americans provided logistics, while British divers navigated the most hazardous stretches…
Tham Luang Cave is a rare place where a person can become completely isolated. There is no GPS, no Wi-Fi, no cellphone service. The last known survey was conducted in the 1980s by a French caving society, but many of its deepest recesses remain unmapped. Spelunkers consider the cave one of the most challenging in the world…
The 30-strong American team, which was integral to the planning, recommended that each child be confined in a flexible plastic cocoon, called a Sked, which is marketed as a rescue stretcher and is a standard part of the Air Force team’s gear…
“They just had to lay there and be comfortable,” said Major Hodges, the leader of the American team…
At one point, the plastic bundles containing the teammates were placed on the hoses for the water pumps, which acted as an impromptu slide. Rope lines hoisted the soccer team aloft so they could swing past particularly craggy parts of the cave. In one leg of the escape, the cocoons were placed on floating stretchers, and Thai frogmen pushed them along.
Much much more at the link, including diagrams, drawings, and photos.
I have read just the basics about the rescue. I remain perplexed as to what a “Thai Navy SEAL” is. It’s like trying to figure out what a Thai Green Beret might be.
When I first read a SEAL had died, I assumed it was an American. Apparently not.
And who comprised the American team mentioned above?
This whole “trapped in a flooded underground cave” thing exceeds my fear of heights!
Great story! Thanks.
“I think I’ll go with “miracles” for $200.”
The heroism and ingenuity of the people who conceived this rescue and the men who carried it out boggle the mind.
“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god!”
At times like this, anyway.
Although life of human justifying all the cost and price went for their rescue mission.
But the question here what if Tai authorities or whoever been in charge puts, install gate of that cave entry telling its not allowed to get in due to seasonal have rain (Monsoon rains )?
Will people still go there and trapped like these boys?
How much the gate will cost if installed before this indecent?
Just little common scenes and thinking…..
“Thank God for toxic masculinity.” Wish I had said it first because it’s so apt. Hat tip to Bill McGurn of the Wall Street Journal.