The Great Cave Rescue

by James Massola

  Patrick’s article—from the AFP’s point of view—didn’t fairly explain why the Australians had ceased their diving operations. The AFP dive team specialises in search and rescue operations, the retrieval of bodies and evidence search. Its training focuses on open-water situations in low- or even zero-visibility water and, much like most of the US contingent and the Thai Navy SEALs, the team simply didn’t have the right kit for the type of cave-diving that Tham Luang required. Specialist cave divers use side-mounted slimline air tanks, which allow divers to slip through narrow openings. The AFP’s much bulkier air tanks had to be worn on their backs, so it was impossible for them to go any further than chamber 3—because of the pinch points that they would confront further into the chamber.1

  But they were still making a valuable contribution. For close to two weeks, since their arrival on 30 June, the AFP team had helped carry huge amounts of equipment into the cave—including air tanks, industrial pumps and pipes—as well as snack bars and ration packs, bottled water and cooked rice and chicken (tightly wrapped in plastic) for the rescue workers.2 In doing so, like everybody else in the dive teams, the men had risked electrocution from the live electrical wires powering the pumps in the cave, and had also suffered broken bones, infections and a diminished supply of oxygen in the cave system.

  The relationship between the AFP and Australian media organisations had been poor for years. Now, according to the AFP, Patrick’s article appeared to confirm everything that was bad about the Australian media.

  Previously, the AFP briefings that were available to journalists had been eagerly attended by media from all around the world, and hadn’t over-emphasised the Australian contribution to the rescue. Much like the US military personnel, the Australians were careful not to colour outside the lines by offering more information than the Thai military and government officials had released. These AFP briefings were in English, which made them very useful once the media contingent swelled to the point where there were insufficient Thai interpreters and fixers to translate for international journalists. Now, however, they mostly dried up. The AFP’s sensitivity over the article demonstrated just how tense things were as the days ticked by and everyone waited for the ‘go’ order.

  Weeks later, a member of the AFP’s senior management team would veto their divers participating in any interviews with authors and journalists about the rescue. It was a classic AFP own goal. Instead, they published on the AFP website a little noticed ‘insiders’ account’ of what had gone on inside the cave and so missed an opportunity to share details of their important role with the Australian public.

  In the end it didn’t matter; the Australian government’s official involvement was about to be eclipsed by an anaesthetist from Adelaide and a retired vet from Perth.

  Maybe Elon Musk was just bored. Of all the sideshows and distractions that occurred while the Wild Boars were trapped in the cave, none was stranger than Musk’s offer to help. Like millions of other people, the billionaire jetsetter famous for his big-picture thinking was riveted by the plight of the boys trapped in the cave. But the serial entrepreneur and co-founder of PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX also has a singular talent for self-promotion, plus the ego, financial might and engineering chops to think he might be able to help. So Musk did what any 40-something billionaire inventor would do—he took to Twitter and suggested that one or several of his companies might be able to help rescue the boys from the cave.

  ‘I suspect that the Thai govt has this under control, but I’m happy to help if there is a way to do so,’ he wrote on Twitter on 5 July. Urged on by his millions of followers, Musk’s tweets kept coming, suggesting his tunnel-boring company might be able to help, or that a pressurised air tube could be used.

  On 6 July, while acknowledging there were many complexities to the rescue that needed to be appreciated in person, he said representatives from SpaceX and The Boring Company were heading out to Thailand to see if they could help. A SpaceX employee who happened to be on holiday in Thailand was despatched to Mae Sai.

  On 7 July, after receiving ‘good feedback from cave experts in Thailand’, Musk said he was ‘iterating [sic] with them on an escape pod design that might be safe enough to try. Also building an inflatable tube with airlocks. Less likely to work, given tricky contours, but great if it does.’

  Then, on 8 July, the day the rescue mission began, Musk announced he was in Los Angeles working with a SpaceX team on a mini submarine that would be built in another eight hours, and would then be flown to Thailand. He promised to ‘continue testing in LA in case needed later or for somewhere else in future’, once again prompting dozens of tweets from adoring fans—and more than a few critical ones from people such as US psychologist John Grohol, who accused him of narcissism and of leveraging the situation for his own self-aggrandisement.

  ‘If I am a narcissist (which might be true), at least I am a useful one,’ Musk shot back, and the stream of tweets, including videos of the mini-sub being tested in a pool in LA, continued.

  Behind the scenes, Thai authorities had been divided about whether the charismatic entrepreneur actually had anything to offer the rescue effort. Some officials seemed awestruck that he had even noticed Thailand, and encouraged his effort to find a solution for safely rescuing the boys from the cave, thinking it would generate news value—as if there wasn’t enough interest already from the world’s media. Others, such as rescue mission chief Narongsak, were dismissive: ‘Even though their equipment is technologically sophisticated, it doesn’t fit with our mission to go in the cave,’ he said on the final day of the rescue.

  Privately, Narongsak was contemptuous of Musk’s impractical proposal for a mini submarine. He had initially approached a friend who worked in one of Musk’s companies and suggested they might have the 3D mapping technology that could help chart the cave. But that idea didn’t work out. Instead Musk and his team settled on constructing the mini submarine, which would use part of a SpaceX rocket. But it simply wouldn’t be able to bend through at least two V-shaped points in the tunnel that ran through the cave. It wasn’t even close to being practical.

  In any case, the rescue mission would soon be underway.

  Craig Challen and Richard Harris have been cave-diving mates for years. Challen, a retired vet from Perth, and Harris, an anaesthetist from Adelaide, are members of the Wet Mules, an Australian diving club that takes its cave-diving—but not themselves—very seriously. These two expert cave divers are well known in their tight-knit community, and Harris’s specialist skills as an anaesthetist, diving medicine physician and retrieval specialist doctor marked him out as someone uniquely qualified to assist in the rescue.

  The pair have travelled the world doing what they loved, deep diving into some of the most difficult and challenging caves in the world, but never letting their egos get the better of them. While the rescue effort in Thailand was hotting up, Harris and Challen were preparing for a cave-diving expedition on the Nullarbor Plain in South Australia. A bit of fun, a couple of mates taking time off to do what they love.

  But a day before the pair were due to depart, messages came from the British divers, asking Harris to fly to Tham Luang cave and assist. Naturally, Harris wanted his dive buddy along, so he called Challen. Instead of heading out to a cave on the Nullarbor, the pair flew to Thailand.

  Once they arrived on 5 July, Harris was immediately involved in helping devise the rescue strategy for the boys. The British divers wanted to sedate the boys before diving them out; to them it was not negotiable—they wouldn’t undertake the rescue otherwise. A terrified boy underwater could panic and drown, taking his would-be rescuer with him.

  That’s where Harris came in. Was it safe? Would full-face masks, which would allow the boys to breath normally, work? Could they find ones small enough to fit? Back and forth, the discussions between the divers, Harris, and the Thai medicos and authorities continued. In case the worst happened, immunity from prosecution was negotiated and granted to both the Austra
lian and British divers.

  Before 7 am on 8 July, Thai army officers began putting up roadblocks on the muddy road that led to the base camp and turning back media vehicles. The early risers had managed to reach the area where their laptops, powerboards and plastic tables had been left and a few other journalists managed to slip through. But after nearly two weeks of enjoying a prime position right in the middle of the Tham Luang main rescue operation centre—which had grown and grown as media from around the world arrived—it was time up.

  It was amazing it had lasted as long as it had, really, given the tight control the Thai military had maintained on the operation. Look one way, from the media’s seats, and you could see relatives (though not the parents, who were more shielded, keeping their daily vigil in another tent). Look the other way and you could see divers in their full kit walking to and from the cave.

  The volunteer cooks fed the hungry journalists, who would spend up to eighteen hours a day on site. While one might have expected an entrepreneur or two to set up stalls and start charging exorbitant sums for pot noodles, everything was free—from the coffee to the chicken rice to the clean underpants.

  It was remarkable. Later, it would emerge that the King himself had helped meet the needed daily requirements for supplies at the cave, and had done so with a minimum of fuss, away from the spotlight.

  The only complaint was the mud, which was thick, ever-present, and superheated your gumboots by around midday each day while you sat at your desk.

  But the media’s dream run wasn’t to last.

  Around the camp, orders were bellowed out over loud speakers in Thai and English. All media had to move about 1.5 kilometres down the road to an open-air car park outside the Pong Pha Sub District Administration Offices, seat of the local government. Something was definitely afoot.

  Soon after midday, Narongsak Osatanakorn fronted the cameras. Saving the Wild Boars was like winning a war, he said—and that war consisted of three battles: ‘Now, we won the first battle, that is the searching for the boys. The second is the most difficult one—to do the rescue. The third one, caring for them at the hospital, is the most easy one.’ The conditions for a rescue would be best over the next three to four days, he said, while the water levels in the cave were stable. But they were still racing against time because the monsoon rains were all but certain to finally arrive in the next few days.

  No airshaft through to the boys had been found, and the latest estimate from authorities was that if the boys were to be left in the cave, they might be stuck until January, or even February, before they could safely walk out. Oxygen levels in the cave were still running down, too.

  All the signs were pointing to one solution only: the boys would have to come out the way they had gone in, through the mouth of Tham Luang, diving and swimming their way to freedom with the help of their rescuers. It was the closest Narongsak had come to confirming what the plan was, and what would happen next—but in typical fashion, he held back from explicitly confirming it. There was still too much to work out—and too much that could go wrong—for the mission chief to speak in absolutes.

  The Americans were in no doubt about what needed to happen. All the situational data indicated that diving the boys out was the only viable option. They were sure the plan would work, but they were equally sure that some of the boys would die on their way out of the cave.

  The Thai Navy SEALs arranged a meeting with the Interior Minister, Anupong Paochinda. During the meeting the Americans laid it out on the table. Major Charles Hodges, the US Mission Commander, was blunt.3 Twelve boys and their coach were trapped in Tham Luang cave. The rain was bearing down. If the Thais didn’t approve the mission now, the monsoon would decide the Boars’ fate. They would be trapped, beyond rescue for months, and possibly condemned to die in the cave. It would be a disaster.

  The Americans also recommended that Skeds®, a sort of rescue stretcher, be used to help with the boys being transported in the latter stages of the rescue, after they were out of the water.

  As Narongsak spoke to the media that Saturday afternoon, 7 July, Harris and Challen were already on their way into the cave to visit the boys at Nern Nom Sao. Earlier that day, Mallinson and Jewell had talked to the boys about what would happen when the rescue effort got underway. Meanwhile, the Euro divers—Mikko Paasi, Ivan Karadzic, Claus Rasmussen and Erik Brown—and a team of Thai Navy SEALs were busy staging more cylinders deep inside the cave, to be used by the rescue teams.

  When they met with Harris and Challen, the Boars accepted the rescue plan without argument.

  For the two Australians, the actual first dive to Nern Nom Sao had not been too difficult. As Challen would later say, ‘cave diving is what we do, so the dive wasn’t in and of itself that bad. We can handle ourselves in that environment, that’s all right, but I just can’t stress how bleak the outlook was for those kids in there.’4

  That one day of reconnaissance was enough for the pair.

  What worried them was having to bring a ‘living, breathing little tiny person’ out alive. None of the divers had trained for anything like this mission before.

  But, the boys were in relatively good spirits, despite the impact the dark and the damp had had on them after fifteen days trapped in the dark, and eager to get out. The food they had been eating had begun to repair the damage done to their slender bodies—some of the smaller boys now weighed as little as 30 kilograms—but they were still cold in the cave.

  Harris and Challen had brought with them medical instructions in Thai that explained what was going to happen the next day. And, along with Dr Pak, Harris had also assessed the health of the Boars and whether they were strong enough to be evacuated. Each member of the team would be sedated before they were removed from the cave, so they would not be able to eat anything the night before the rescue operation began.

  At that point, the plan was to bring out six boys on the first day of the rescue, so six of the boys fasted on the Saturday night. But it wasn’t the weakest boys who would come out first, or the strongest ones, as has been suggested. Instead, Harris and Challen left it up to the boys and coach Ek to decide who would come out first. Remarkably, as the boys would later reveal, they made their decision based on who would face the longest journey home on his bike.

  After fifteen days, it’s understandable that the Boars had not grasped how big a deal their ordeal had become. After all, they didn’t have access to the wall-to-wall coverage playing out in newspapers and on websites and television and radio stations around the world.

  But to not have realised, at the very least, that there was a sizeable rescue party waiting for them outside the cave—and that they might need medical attention, if they ever got out safely—showed a charming naivety about the peril of their situation.

  That Saturday afternoon, after the media had been moved from the operation centre to the car park down the road, rehearsals began. The hours were ticking down to the ‘go’ order and, for the divers, nothing could be left to chance.

  For Ivan Karadzic and Erik Brown, both of whom are based in Thailand for much of the year, the rescue mission would be the culmination of an incredibly tough week. Their involvement in the final rescue mission underscored how they had gone from outsiders to key players in the space of just a week.

  Seven days earlier, after flying up from southern Thailand and arriving at the cave, the Euros had initially been regarded with suspicion. No one really knew who they were, or what they could do. As Karadzic tells it, ‘It was obvious that we are not super welcome. There is a feeling that this is a military operation and they weren’t ready for these unknown civilians. And I can understand this. So for the first two days we just stay there in full equipment and waited. Sometimes we got asked cave-specific questions.’

  Eventually, all the Euro divers—Karadzic, Brown, Mikko Paasi and Claus Rasmussen—were integrated into the US command structure. And then things started to happen for them.

  ‘The reason we got activated is
, I believe, we stopped being the stupid civilians in the corner, we were part of the US team. Because we had different strengths, we are trained cave divers, that’s our strength. The US guys were stronger than us.

  ‘The first walk into the cave was incredibly strenuous, 90 minutes. We carried 20 kilograms and were totally exhausted. But the US guys had no problem lugging 100 kilograms of stuff in, they were like supermen. So they helped us, and we could then help them with cave-specific stuff.’

  Brown remembers being on edge for those first two days before he could start diving. ‘We hadn’t been inside, we were sitting in our wetsuits twelve hours a day, but for those first couple of days that we were there, no one but the Thai Navy SEALs went in. As they narrowed down the plan, they asked if we could go in.

  ‘We got labelled the Euros, even though I’m Canadian.

  ‘So we started working on the cave lines [the guide ropes that would run through to Nern Nom Sao], cleaning them. And we would go in with our two tanks, and carry three more strapped between our legs.’

  By Friday, 6 July, the Euro divers were pretty sure they would be called upon to help carry out the rescue.

  The rescue rehearsal on Saturday afternoon was time-consuming, but necessary, ironing out many of the small kinks in the rescue plan. It also gave the divers and the Thais, for example, another chance to check and double-check that when someone referred to one of the nine chambers along the escape route, everyone was referring to the same location. There would be little light, and no signposts on the route out of the cave, and even the tiniest mistake could be fatal.