Day after day, forest rangers headed into the hills above Tham Luang cave, desperately searching for a tunnel that might lead down to the boys. Now that the Boars had been found at Nern Nom Sao, the shaft hunters were able to narrow down—at least a little—the area they were searching. It remained a thankless, repetitive task, with some teams dedicated to looking for possible new entry points, while others followed up by spending hours and hours in the hot Thai sun carefully lowering a man into a shaft—only to hit a dead end, time after time after time.
The threat of rain still hung over the mountain every day, but largely held off. Every day, at the start of the Boars’ second week in the cave, the weather forecast predicted that the heavy monsoon rains were only a day or two away. But, in a major stroke of good luck, the rains held off throughout that second week—allowing the crucial pumping to continue. By Tuesday afternoon, 3 July, more than 120 million litres of water had been removed from the cave. It was progress, but only that—far more water remained inside the cave. But a monsoon downpour could reverse those gains in a matter of hours. Rescuers also targeted the water that had been seeping through the cracks in the ground, from hundreds of metres above the boys, and into the cave. A team of workers was assigned to find and sandbag the larger cracks to stop at least some of that water getting in, and to give the pumps a better chance of emptying the cave.
Although the idea of leaving the boys in the cave—and resupplying them—for months on end was being discussed, doubts about whether it would be possible were already mounting. While the worst of the rainy season in Thailand usually lasts about four months, the rescuers could not rely on Mother Nature to cooperate. Authorities would later suggest that even if they adopted the ‘wait-out-the-monsoon’ plan, and the rains stopped in October or November, the boys could be stuck in the cave until December or January the following year—an option no one dared contemplate. Meanwhile, however, the SEALs and the international team of divers were proceeding on the basis that a water rescue was the most likely solution. They began ferrying large numbers of air tanks into the cave system, placing them at strategic locations in preparation for a future rescue mission. They also delivered supplies to the boys and their companions in the cave. But there were serious questions being raised by some of the rescuers about whether it was possible to dive the boys out, given their physical state and the challenging and dangerous route out of the cave.
In the days before the rescue mission was launched, Danish diver Ivan Karadzic’s assessment of the boys’ prospects was characteristically blunt: ‘I can’t see any alternative [to diving the boys out] … the pumping is doing something, the water level is going down, but I have no idea how many millions of litres of water they need to pump out, it is probably astonishing. Diving is possible [for the kids], but it is not safe.’
Tactical response diver Matt Fitzgerald, one of six Australian Federal Police officers deployed to the cave, was even more succinct about the dangers of attempting to dive out the Boars. They saw it as the riskiest option of all.
‘It would be terrifying,’ he said at the time. ‘The cave is quite challenging, there is zero visibility, it’s a confined space so it’s a challenge.’ Even so, on 4 July Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan announced the Boars had commenced swimming and diving lessons.
Outside the cave, there was a growing impatience that the rescue had not already been completed—and a growing number of non-experts proclaiming it would all be over in a day or two. But there would be no quick escape for the Boars. And the very real threat that the boys might die during the rescue effort hung heavy on the shoulders of those, like the divers, who knew best. Some calculated that a success rate of 50 or 60 per cent at most might be all that was achievable.
After staying out of the cave on 3 and 4 July, Stanton and Volanthen were back in the water on 5 July and on their way to Nern Nom Sao, fulfilling their promise to return to the boys. Although the 2.25-kilometre journey through the muck and water was slightly more straightforward than three days before, with guide ropes to steer them through subsiding floodwaters, it was by no means easy. It again took them only five hours, and allowed them to gather more information for a subsequent rescue attempt.
In the three days since they had first been found by Volanthen and Stanton, the boys had begun to regain their strength. On the return trip, the British divers brought a duffel bag full of US-provided Meals Ready to Eat (MREs), which were a significant improvement, flavour-wise, over the energy gels—and a hit with the Boars. Their spirits had been buoyed, too, by the presence of Dr Pak and the SEALs, who dedicated themselves to helping the boys regain their strength.
At this point Narongsak Osatanakorn, in his 5 July briefing to the ever-expanding international media contingent, was blunt: ‘Now, we worry about the weather the most. In the past few days we worked against time, but now we work against water.’5 Once the rescue mission was underway—and whichever method was chosen—the boys who were ready would be brought out.
‘It’s not important to bring thirteen [out] at the same time,’ said the governor. ‘They have to train [in underwater diving] for a couple of days, but if you ask if they can dive today, I think they cannot.’
So concerned were the organisers by the looming monsoon rains that they were also calculating how long it would take to clear the rescue teams from the cave if the rains were to hit with full intensity. And there were other setbacks.
Two attempts to install communication cables in the first few days after the boys were found—including a fibre optic cable that can carry both voice and data—in the cave failed, making communication between the operation centre and the forward operating base in chamber 3 more difficult.
But even as Narongsak was declaring the weather the primary concern, Volanthen and Stanton had returned with bad news—the oxygen levels at Nern Nom Sao were approaching only 15 per cent. For human beings to be healthy, the air we breathe must include between about 19.5 and 23 per cent oxygen. Once oxygen levels start to fall, trouble begins even before those levels are reached—your heart rate and breathing accelerates, and your cognitive function and physical coordination both deteriorate. Once the oxygen level slips to below 15 per cent, you can become exhausted doing next to nothing—your judgement becomes impaired, and headaches, dizziness and nausea can set in.
In the confined space of Nern Nom Sao, on the slope where they had taken refuge, the Boars had been breathing the same stale air for nearly two weeks. Various divers, as well as Dr Pak and the three SEALs who had stayed with them since 3 July, had only consumed more oxygen.
And as the rescue operation progressed, a similar problem was developing in chamber 3. Although it was much closer to the cave entrance, not enough fresh air was reaching it through the tight passages, and the dozens of divers and SEALs hiking in and out every day was rapidly making the problem worse. Late on Thursday evening, 5 July, large numbers of oxygen bottles—as opposed to the air bottles, which divers wear on their backs—were delivered to the main base outside the cave and then brought into the cave.
Governor Narongsak then confirmed the cave’s air supply was a serious problem for both the rescuers and the Boars, and suggested the rescuers would try to solve the problem: an oxygen line several kilometres long would be run into the cave to try to replenish the cave with oxygen and restore the quality of the air.
Although the oxygen line never made it through to the boys due to the difficult conditions in the cave, it did help replenish the oxygen in chamber 3.
Thai Navy SEAL Commander, Rear Admiral Arpakorn Yuukongkaew, would later relate during a speech at the Tham Luang Incredible Mission exhibition in Bangkok that ‘we tried to pump oxygen into Nern Nom Sao. PTTEP [PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited] immediately sent us air tubes—like tubes that we use to fill the car tyres. We didn’t succeed though.
‘It would take us two to three days to reach Nern Nom Sao. However, the effort was somewhat useful as the oxygen concentration a
lso dropped in chamber 3 to 13 per cent. We had a lot of people working there so we filled the oxygen there instead.’6
Junk was beginning to pile up in the cave, and the obstacles created by those cables and bottles, like the abandoned communications cables, would add another degree of difficulty for divers as they attempted to thread their way through to the boys on supply runs.
But Arpakorn hammered home the urgency of restoring the oxygen levels in the cave, and getting that oxygen line laid as levels plummeted towards 15 per cent. This, he now said, was the operation’s main goal because ‘the lack of oxygen in the cave is affecting the kids. At first we thought that we could sustain the kids’ lives for a long time where they are now, but now, many things have changed. We have a limited amount of time.’
It was an ominous warning.
On Thursday, as evening approached and the Boars prepared to spend their fourteenth night in Tham Luang cave, four foreign divers and two Thais were preparing for another mission. Their job that evening would be to place air tanks at strategic points within the cave, in the expectation that diving the boys out would become the preferred rescue method. One of the divers was retired Thai Navy SEAL Saman Gunan, a volunteer who had flown up from southern Thailand to join the rescue effort.
No one at Tham Luang cave will ever forget the contribution Saman Gunan made to the rescue effort that night.
Outside Tham Luang cave drops of light rain are falling. A pall hangs over the rescue workers’ main base. The hustle and bustle of heavy equipment being shifted, the soundtrack of the rescue operation for more than fifteen days, continues in the background. Few people are talking.
At the food stalls, which volunteers have staffed nearly round the clock for more than a week, no one is queuing up. Bowls of Thai noodles, soups and stir-fries sit uneaten.
Dozens of journalists sit on plastic chairs at plastic tables, hunched over their laptops, typing, their feet stuck in thick mud, which is slowly heating up as the midday sun approaches. Occasionally, someone gets up and leaves the area to take a phone call or do another live cross to their home country.
Just minutes earlier, Thai officials had announced the news that everyone had been fearing. In the early hours of Friday, 6 July, Sergeant Saman Gunan, 38, a retired Thai Navy SEAL who had volunteered for the dangerous rescue, had died. Such a death had always been a possibility, given the difficult conditions in the cave but, buoyed by the boys being discovered alive and well but hungry, and by the fact that the monsoon rains had held off, there had been a growing sense of optimism at the operation centre.
But Sergeant Saman Gunan’s death brought those hopes crashing back down to earth.
An avid runner and cyclist, Saman had left the SEALs a few years earlier and had been working as a security guard at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport. On 30 June, the day he had flown out to Tham Luang, Saman had uploaded to social media a one-minute video of himself, wearing wrap-around shades as he stood on the tarmac, about to board a plane. ‘Stuff loaded, at Suvarnabhumi and about to fly to Chiang Rai, should arrive at Chiang Rai airport at around 4 pm or so to join the mission at Tham Luang,’ he said. He was travelling with medical personnel and more volunteer divers, and was ready to commit himself to the rescue. ‘May lady luck stay with us. We’ll bring the kids home,’ he finished.
‘See you in Chiang Rai’ had been the message circulated on a group chat among former Thai Navy SEAL officers as the search for the boys had ramped up. Saman hadn’t hesitated when the call for help came.
The previous evening, on 5 July, Saman and his dive buddy, another Thai Navy SEAL, had loaded up with air cylinders and headed to strategic supply points in the cave. The two men completed their mission, but when they were swimming back out of the cave, from chamber 4 to chamber 3, one of the most difficult passages, tragedy struck.
Saman’s vital signs were fading. After hours of slogging through the cold water, he was in trouble, running out of air, and the cold was beginning to beat him. As Saman fought to stay alive, his dive buddy frantically tried to administer first aid in the water, but it was too late. In those final moments, despite the best efforts of his friend, Saman would have faced unimaginable terror. More than 1000 kilometres from his home, where his beloved wife lay alone in their marital bed, he slipped into unconsciousness in the near dark, engulfed by the cold waters of the Tham Luang cave.
Saman’s body was brought to the forward operating base at chamber 3 by the same dive buddy who just moments earlier had tried to revive him. The rescue teams again tried to revive him, but it was futile. His sacrifice cast a long shadow over the rescue workers at Tham Luang cave, and rocked to the core a country that had been avidly following the details of the rescue attempt.
Thai Navy SEALs Captain Anan Surawan later recounted the growing sense of dread in chamber 3 in the early hours of Friday morning when Saman and his companion had not returned from their mission: ‘They should not have taken that long … we waited until 1.30 am.’ It was obvious that something was very wrong.
‘When they lifted Sergeant Saman’s body out of the water, I didn’t want to look because I understood that there had been a loss of life.’
The mood at the base of operations that day was funereal, and the death of the former Thai Navy SEAL sent the rescue workers’ morale plummeting to a new low. But ultimately, rather than deter them, Saman’s death would drive them to complete the mission and honour his memory. As Rear Admiral Arpakorn Yuukongkaew put it: ‘I can guarantee that we will not panic, we will not stop our mission, we will not let the sacrifice of our friend go to waste.’
So in the wake of the tragedy, the rescue workers redoubled their efforts and headed back into the cave, time and time again, to finish the job they had started.
On 14 July, thousands of people turned out for Saman’s funeral in his home province of Roi Et in eastern Thailand. The former SEAL was accorded full honours, as ordered by King Maha Vajiralongkorn and, for his sacrifice, he was promoted to Lieutenant Commander and awarded the royal decoration of Knight Grand Cross (first class) in the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant.
Months later his widow, Waleeporn Gunan, was still grieving the loss of her husband. The pair had planned to have children, but had never quite got around to it as their work shifts clashed and there never seemed to be time. After Saman’s death, Waleeporn revealed that she had asked her husband, who had left the SEALs back in 2006, not to risk diving in the cave, given how long it had been since he had been in active service.
‘He told me that he was going to deliver stuff himself. I told him: “Can you not go?” I was thinking it was far. Moreover, the operation needed specialists and he was not [one].
‘I gave him a Buddha amulet and asked him to promise me he’d keep it with him always. He said okay.’
Once Saman arrived at Tham Luang cave, Waleeporn would recall in an interview with Thai media, he talked about how the kids hadn’t been found yet. ‘He said he wanted to help people there at the cave. And I told him that he shouldn’t dive and I’d like him to stay outside the cave.’ But Saman didn’t listen to his wife’s repeated warnings not to go diving in Tham Luang cave.
Waleeporn recalled vividly the moment she heard the news of his death. It was Friday morning, just after 8 am on 6 July, and a friend who had been following the news called to tell her that someone called Saman had died. Waleeporn began making calls, eventually getting on to a SEAL friend of Saman’s. He asked to meet her, then confirmed the worst. She was speechless. ‘I lied to myself that this isn’t true.’
In the days, weeks and months after her husband’s death, Waleeporn would post pictures and memories of her husband to her Instagram account over and over again. ‘Missing someone who I will never meet is really suffering,’ read one post. ‘I want to close my eyes and sleep and when I wake up in the morning I will see you again,’ read another. Her grief was consuming her, in full public view.
Waleeporn and Saman used to talk about death. ‘I w
ouldn’t be able to live if you died,’ she would tell him.
‘Everyone must die someday,’ he would reply. ‘It’s how you die that counts.’
6–7 JULY: INSIDE
Messages from the deep
At this point the Wild Boars did not know that Saman Gunan had died. In fact, although they had the company of Dr Pak and the three SEALs, they had very little idea of the scope of the rescue mission.
Outside, SEALs and medics were rehearsing rescue scenarios but, inside, the boys were simply focused on building up their strength and fat stores, unsure of what would happen next. They had stopped trying to dig their way to freedom days before. Meanwhile, Dr Pak and the SEALs concentrated on the team’s welfare. The boys were given shiny silver space blankets and plied with energy gels. Dr Pak checked and re-checked them, carefully tending to their minor medical complaints, such as scratches and cuts. He focused on restoring their health and warding off potential lung and other infections after so long in such a dank, foetid atmosphere.
The arrival of the rescue team was also an extraordinary mental relief for the Boars. One of the SEALs had stuffed his wetsuit full of energy gels and space blankets before the swim in and—to the shock of the boys—after handing out what he had brought with him, proceeded to strip off his suit, down to his underpants. He fashioned a small bikini for himself out of some of the space blanket foil, which amused the Boars greatly. As the days in the near dark passed, some patterns developed. The group of seventeen ate together, slept together, shared everything together. To pass the time, the boys played chequers with the SEALs, and hopscotch. Only Titan, the youngest of the boys, refrained from playing chequers because he didn’t want to lose; the SEALs, of course, beat everyone.
The Great Cave Rescue Page 8