Everyone assembled for that rescue rehearsal in the car park at the Tham Luang Rescue Operation Centre—generals; admirals; the rescue chief; the SEALs; US, Australian, Chinese and other officials; and, of course, the divers themselves. For 90 minutes they all talked through the rescue, step by step. Plastic bottles were used as stand-in props. Bottles with blue tape on them were used to signify the cylinders containing regular air the divers would use. Green-taped bottles signified oxygen cylinders, which would be used for the Boars. Red-taped bottles were used as stand-in props for the boys themselves.
The entire rescue mission was then role-played, step by step, two or three times, as Karadzic recalls, and several problems with the rescue plan were identified and fixed. This way, everyone would know exactly what everyone had to do and the rescuers could ensure—as much as possible—that the right number of cylinders would be placed in the right spots for both the divers and the boys.
The decision to have the boys breathing from oxygen tanks was another measure designed to head off a potential disaster. Using a higher concentration of oxygen, rather than just regular air in the tanks, would ensure the boys’ blood was saturated with oxygen so, if the worst happened and a mask came off, it would give the divers a critical extra five minutes to get their heads above water. It also ensured that, even if the boys were cold and their breathing was weak, they were getting enough oxygen through their systems to keep going and survive.
The divers then travelled to a nearby local school swimming pool and practised, with the help of young volunteers, the process of actually diving and rescuing children in the water of the cave. These sessions were crucial to the last-minute fine tuning of the rescue plan. Calls had already gone out to the international diving community to find small wetsuits and full-face masks for the boys to wear on their way out, and this equipment was tested at the pool. Even though it had been decided which divers would bring the boys out and who would be positioned at key points along the exit route, all the divers were involved in the practice sessions. For example, some members of the rescue team, such as Karadzic, weren’t familiar with the full-face masks the boys would use; the straps had to be pulled tight to ensure they would fit over the faces of the smallest boys.
Meanwhile, the back and forth continued over when to give the go-ahead order. Narongsak had asked the divers to devise and propose a plan. The Americans had made their case and were certain it was time. The British divers, who would lead the rescue mission, were ready to go, as were the Thai Navy SEALs and the support teams, including the Australians, the Chinese and various other nationalities.
As the public face of the rescue, Narongsak was popular with the local people but he still faced internal challenges and was, to some extent, politically weak. The Thai Army and Navy were heavily involved in the rescue, the national government was monitoring developments closely and the King himself had taken a close interest in the situation: each day, staff from the royal household visited the cave to find out what the rescue teams needed, and the subsequent deliveries would take place away from the cameras.
The commander of the Thai Navy SEALs, Rear Admiral Arpakorn Yuukongkaew,5 who had authority over all the divers on site, had also urged the divers to formulate a rescue plan, as he would later recall: ‘I talked to diver team and told them to come up with a plan and I’d propose it to “the top”. This was crucial because I told them: “If we don’t do anything, we have nothing in return.”
‘We couldn’t wait too long. If the oxygen dropped to 12 per cent the kids’ condition would be worse. Moreover, the cave would be full of water. We thought if we began the operation and it was 50 per cent successful, it was still better than nothing.’
But for all the involvement of the national government, the military and the royal household, Narongsak was under no illusions about what could happen—both to the Boars, and to him personally. ‘The worst-case scenario was included in our plans but we believed in our well-thought and well-planned mission. We were also lucky that our rescue operation was successful, otherwise my situation would be so different.
‘Whatever happened, it would be me to take full responsibility as I was in charge of the operation. There was no way to avoid the responsibility.’
The weather forecast indicated they had a three- or four-day window for the rescue. The divers were primed and ready to go. They had rehearsed and finessed the plan as much as they could.
Narongsak may have formally given the order to begin the rescue, but in reality that assent had to be given by the higher echelons of Thai society. The government of Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha had approved it. The King fully supported the rescue operation. It was time.
But if it all went wrong, the chief of the rescue mission would carry the can.
8 JULY: INSIDE
Sunday, 10.08 am
Sunday, 8 July, began like any other morning in Tham Luang cave. The Wild Boars woke early, as they always did, in the dark. The air inside the cave was humid, but as they entered their sixteenth day perched on Nern Nom Sao, the boys were still feeling the cold despite the space blankets and extra clothes they had been given.
After being trapped for so long, the sandy bank on which they were perched felt smaller than ever. Of course, it was still only 5 to 6 metres wide, and about 20–25 metres deep, from the water’s edge to the back of the cave, while the slope, at various points, was as steep as 30 degrees. They must have felt as if the walls were closing in on them. The novelty of energy gels and Meals Ready to Eat had worn off, and the conditions in the cave—the darkness, the smell and the constant chill—were wearing them down.
The day before, some of the British divers as well as Richard Harris, the Australian doctor, had visited and given them a detailed account of the rescue plan, which of course had been accepted by the Boars’ families, despite their fears that it could end in disaster and tragedy.
The boys were desperate to see their families again, to go home, sleep in their own beds. They were ready to be kids again, to stop being brave, to breathe fresh air, ride around on their bikes, play football and see their friends at school. The day had dawned with the promise of all these things and more. It was time.
After fasting in preparation for the rescue, six of the boys had woken up hungry. But the rescue divers faced dawn that morning with a faint feeling of dread. Men like Rick Stanton and John Volanthen, Chris Jewell and Jason Mallinson, Richard Harris and Craig Challen, had all been in this situation before. They’d participated in some of the riskiest, most extreme cave rescues the world had ever seen. They’d lost friends and undertaken salvage operations; they’d helped bring back the bodies of the dead. Maybe even cried afterwards, when it was all done. They’d also saved lives, brought people back to the surface—people who’d had no hope of being rescued. These guys were the best of the best.
The diving itself may not have been the most technically difficult, the most arduous, or the deepest they had ever experienced. But nothing like this had ever been attempted before; usually, by the time help arrives, it is already too late. There was no base line against which to measure themselves. And no one in the rescue team had ever undertaken a mission like this before, with many millions of people watching, hoping, praying they would succeed.
But other divers in the rescue team had far less experience, even none at all, in undertaking a high-risk rescue with such a precious, vulnerable cargo.
The mission had been approved by the Thai King and the government, and reviewed by teams of experts. In theory at least, it had a good chance of succeeding. But there were so many factors that could go wrong at any point; they couldn’t anticipate everything. And the worst-case scenario—that some or even all of the boys would lose their lives—had been war-gamed again and again. If one of the boys woke up, panicked and ripped off his mask in an underwater section of the cave, he could endanger the life of his rescuer, as well as himself.
Everything possible had been done to prepare for the rescue mis
sion. For the boys, there were special wetsuits that would ensure they didn’t lose too much body heat on the journey out as well as full-face masks to fit the smallest of them. The oxygen and air cylinders had been placed at strategic points in various chambers throughout the cave.
But for all their careful preparations, most of the rescuers expected multiple casualties. Rear Admiral Arpakorn Yuukongkaew expected some of the boys would die on the way out while Major Charles Hodges put a figure on it, assessing that only eight to ten Boars would survive the rescue. Mallinson was confident he would be able to play his part and help get the boys out, but he ‘was not fully confident of getting them out alive’. And as Challen would later recall, ‘it wasn’t dangerous for us but I can’t emphasise enough how dangerous it was for the kids. It was absolutely life and death. We didn’t expect to be getting thirteen people out of there alive.’1
Richard Harris was perhaps the most pessimistic of all. He would tell a conference in Melbourne, Australia, in late September, ‘Personally, I honestly thought there was zero chance of success. I honestly thought there was no chance of it working. We set up a system for some feedback to come back after the first one or two kids [began their dive out] to me. If they hadn’t survived the first sump, which was the longest one but not the most difficult one, I was going to say that’s all I can do and walk away at that point.’
Still, no official estimate had been made of how many of the boys would survive the rescue attempt. How could such a thing be calculated? It was time to go.
In the days before the rescue mission began, work was done behind the scenes by men like Josh Morris and Thanet Natisri to get the ‘dive them out’ option over the line with the Thais running the mission.
The pair acted as emissaries between the foreigners and the Thais, sharing key pieces of information at opportune moments between the divers and high-ranking Thai military officials—some of whom were unaware, on 5 July, just how bad the air supply had become.
It was the deteriorating air conditions that was one of the key reasons the rescue went ahead when it did.
After final meetings were held outside the cave, with Thai officials checking every last detail of the plan, the rescue mission finally began at 10.08 am on Sunday, 8 July, when a team of thirteen international divers entered Tham Luang cave. Heavy rain had fallen overnight and, later that day, it would fall again, but at this hour the skies over Mae Sai were grey and threatening rain, underlining the urgency of the rescue mission.
The thirteen divers—Rick Stanton, John Volanthen, Chris Jewell, Jason Mallinson, Richard Harris, Craig Challen, Claus Rasmussen, Mikko Paasi, Erik Brown, Ivan Karadzic, Jim Warny, Josh Bratchley and Connor Roe—are some of the best cave divers in the world. They were closely supported by five Thai Navy SEALs as well as dozens of personnel from the Thai military, the United States, China and Australia who were positioned in the first three chambers of the cave. Lights, dozens of air tanks and radios that could communicate with the outside world had been set up in chamber 3—as had makeshift medical facilities, so the boys could be checked on as they came out.
Outside the cave, the area around the entrance swarmed with members of the Thai military, rescuers and medics. Thirteen ambulances were on standby, as they had been for days, while helicopters were prepped and ready to ferry the boys 70 kilometres to Chiang Rai Prachanukroh Hospital, where medical staff waited to receive them.
The eyes of the entire world were on this remote corner of northern Thailand.
About two hours after the rescue mission began, Narongsak Osatanakorn fronted the ever-expanding contingent of international media. The huge mountain range of Doi Nang Non, shrouded in clouds and mist, loomed over the new makeshift media centre and served as a constant reminder that the boys’ fate was about to be decided.
The new media centre was in a concrete car park, with tarpaulins and electrical cables strung overhead and the same fold-out plastic tables and wobbly chairs. Internet access was patchy at times, as hundreds of journalists used their phones as hotspots and crowded the 4G network to send vision back to offices around the world.
Narongsak began his press conference with words that would reverberate around the world: ‘Today we are most ready, today is D-Day. At 10 am today thirteen foreign divers went in to extract the children along with five Thai Navy SEALs.’
The volunteers, some of whom had decamped with the media to the new location to keep cooking and handing out free meals, fell silent. Some gasped and cheered as Narongsak continued to speak. A hushed excitement fell over the crowd gathered outside the operations centre as Narongsak continued: ‘We can say they are all international all-stars involved in this diving operation and we selected five of our best who can work with them.
‘The kids are very determined and they are in high spirits. All thirteen kids have been informed about the operation and they are ready to come out.
‘If we don’t start now, we might lose the chance.’
At this stage, although the water levels in the cave had receded by as much as 30 centimetres in some sections of the cave, the divers had, at most, a three-day window before the forecast rain would make a rescue impossible. Narongsak estimated that the first of the Boars would not emerge from the cave until at least 9 pm that evening—eleven hours after the rescue began—and warned that the mission would not be finished in just one day: ‘It will take time. It’s not that we start 10 am today and everything is done. We will continue the mission until the last one is out.’
Inside the cave, the thirteen rescue divers had begun their slow journey through the nine chambers from the entrance to Nern Nom Sao. They were all aware of the incredible responsibility hanging heavily on their shoulders; it didn’t need to be acknowledged aloud. Most of the men would position themselves at strategic points along the route, while Harris and four British divers—Volanthen, Stanton, Jewell and Mallinson—would travel all the way to the boys, where the Brits would be in charge.
Contrary to reports at the time, the boys were not assigned two divers each. That wasn’t logistically possible, given how narrow and difficult some sections of the cave were. But, almost every step of the way, a second diver would assist the man bringing them out. Each of the four British divers would take one boy all the way from chamber 9 to the entrance.
The Brits as well as Harris and his dive buddy Challen went in first, as they had the longest dive ahead of them. Travelling in pairs, the six men set out from chamber 3, where the diving began in earnest, at about twenty-minute intervals. Over the next few hours they slowly made their way to predetermined points along the route. In spite of the lower water levels, the conditions were still very tough.
Challen, Rasmussen and Paasi were stationed in chamber 8, the first stop on the return journey for the four Brits as each came through with one boy. The route from chamber 9, Nern Nom Sao, to chamber 8 included a 350-metre dive that would be one of the hardest sections to negotiate. Volanthen, Stanton, Jewell and Mallinson could walk part of the 150-metre section between chamber 8 and chamber 7, but they would also have to negotiate a canal. This section was tough because the water levels there had dropped to the point where they would have to carry the boys while negotiating thick mud and rocky obstacles; the extra pairs of hands to assist in that section would prove invaluable.
The journey from chamber 7 to chamber 6 required another 300-metre dive for the Brits and the Boars, and passage through what was arguably the most difficult point—Sam Yaek, the T-junction. At this point, the tunnel narrows considerably, creating one of the tightest pinch points, and the four rescuers would also have to scramble up and down some rocks while keeping the boys safe, and moving. All the way along, stalactites and stalagmites, sometimes underwater and sometimes exposed, always offered potential obstacles that could endanger both the divers and the boys. And in the submerged sections, the muddy water reduced visibility to almost nothing, making diving that much harder.
The rescue plan called for Challen, a retired
vet, to be ready to deliver a ‘top up’ injection to the boys in chamber 8 to keep the boys sedated, if necessary. Harris revealed at a conference in late September that the night before the first rescue mission, he held a practice session for the divers involving a plastic drink bottle so they could get an (improvised) feel for what delivering an injection was like.2
The British rescuers were prepped and ready to deliver top-up injections on the way out, too, and the instruction from Harris was to err on the side of keeping the boys sedated.
In chamber 6, Karadzic and Brown would be ready with air and oxygen tanks, and more medicine to inject into the boys if the effects of the sedative were starting to wear off.
Between chambers 6 and 5, there was another 150-metre dive, then a 150-metre canal. And in chamber 5, Roe and Warny would be waiting with more air, oxygen and medicine to help the divers and each of the boys through to chamber 3. Along the way, there were two more dives of about 150 metres each to make before, finally, they reached chamber 3.
Chamber 3 was relatively huge—perhaps half the size of a school gymnasium, according to Brown, and big enough that you could project a movie onto one of its walls—and teeming with people. In all, there were perhaps another 150 rescuers stationed between chamber 3 and the exit.
In chamber 3 each boy’s vital signs would be checked by doctors and gauze placed over his eyes to protect them from the light outside the cave. Then he would be placed in a Sked stretcher and loaded onto the elaborate pulley system, or highline, which made it simpler and quicker to transport each boy through to the entrance. But some sections simply couldn’t accommodate the highline, so he would still have to pass through a couple of hundred hands as he was brought out of the cave.
The Great Cave Rescue Page 11