The Boys in the Cave

by Matt Gutman

  Captain Mitch Torrel, the former hockey player, was in command. Torrel had set his watch. He had assumed that the SEALs would move faster than the divers carrying the boys. During that long waiting period, as some team members munched on the leftover burgers and fried chicken, Torrel took quick stock of the resources available in Chamber Three. He noticed that all the extra air tanks had been removed.

  The Euro-divers had been asked by the SEAL commanders to swim in after the SEALs if too much time elapsed. That was a possibly dangerous request: during the entirety of the mission so far, swimming toward incoming divers—either to relay information or check on safety—had been operationally banned. The risk of a collision was too high. But the four SEALs had been immersed in near-total darkness for a week, eating rations that were geared toward sustaining boys, not adult men. They had had no exercise and had been breathing foul, oxygen-poor air. A rescue dive, or in the worst case, a recovery dive for their bodies, was now on the table.

  But once again the Thai SEALs’ endurance and determination did not disappoint. Following the guideline and the litter trail of the previous rescuers, the SEALs finned toward Chamber Three in a convoy about ten minutes apart. The SEALs had waited two hours after Harris swam off to let the silt settle and to ensure there would be no human logjams or—worse—collisions, at the choke points. They made good time. “Fish on”—the line vibrated and then the first SEAL popped out, followed a few minutes later by the second SEAL. The Euro-divers quietly heaved sighs of relief. Perhaps too soon.

  The operation had begun at around 10 A.M., and it was almost thirteen hours later, roughly 10:50 P.M., when one of the three washing-machine-size water pumps bailing thousands of gallons of water an hour from the cave failed. Water started filling the chamber, fast. It was a sequel to the cave’s flooding nearly two weeks earlier, when Stanton and Vollanthen had rescued the four hapless workers from Chamber Three. Within minutes it had risen nearly a foot.

  At 10:59 P.M. Torrel texted the group on WhatsApp:

  Two SEALs out. Pumps broke. Water is filling up fast.

  At first his commander, the ever-steady Major Hodges, thought, Okay, this guy’s screwin’ with me. He’s gotta be jokin’. There’s no way that the pumps fail last minute. But Hodges believed Captain Torrel when the next message chirped up on his phone:

  guys are bailing hard.

  This meant that rescuers and workers had started to race for the exit, up the forty-five-degree climb to the top of Chamber Three where there was a medical station, and down the mud-slicked slope to the other side of the chamber where it meets the sump to Chamber Two. This was definitely real.

  If the water kept rising, the sump between Chambers Three and Two would completely fill again. It was the very spot where Saman Gunan ran out of air and died, and where the Thai Navy SEAL trying to free dive it nearly drowned. And now there were no extra air tanks for the crews not already assigned diving gear. Torrel had estimated that there were about one hundred people in Chamber Three at the time, stripping down and hauling out gear.

  The controller for the British divers, Gary Mitchell, texted back seconds later:

  On it now guys.

  Adrenaline pumping, Mitchell, Hodges, and Anderson conferred—they had come too far to let a mishap like this mar the success of the mission. They could not afford casualties now. Hodges texted Torrel with an order:

  pull out before you have to dive out.

  Anderson was more emphatic:

  get dudes out.

  Torrel now shouted, “Landslide! Landslide! Landslide!” to everyone in Chamber Three, making it official. That was the predetermined signal for abandoning ship in case rockfall, air quality, or rising water forced a life-or-death evacuation. Dozens of rescuers and rope riggers dropped their valuable gear and began clambering up the slope and “penguin-diving,” to get through the sump between Chambers Three and Two before it was sealed with water. Meanwhile, British controller Mitchell jumped on the phone to Thai command, which informed him the power to the pumps had shut down and that they were working on troubleshooting, but needed more time.

  As the third SEAL popped up, Torrel grabbed him and hoisted him out of the sump.

  Just one more.

  The team at headquarters didn’t hear back from Torrel immediately. He knew that he had a small pony tank with a mouthpiece that he and his tech sergeant, Ken O’Brien, could use. So, as dozens of rescuers without scuba gear logjammed the sump between Chambers Three and Two, Torrel waited for the last SEAL—nobody was going to be left behind on his watch, even if they had scuba gear.

  Anderson and Hodges grew increasingly nervous. At 11:08 P.M., Anderson sent a final urgent text:

  GTFO

  Get the fuck out. Hodges then called Torrel to speak to him directly, saying, “Hey, you’ve gotta get out right now. Do not let this turn into a dive mission to exit the cave, because that’ll skyrocket the risk level.”

  He’d barely finished the sentence when Torrel spotted movement in the water.

  “Hey, the fourth SEAL just popped out in Chamber Three. We’re all headin’ out right now.”

  The USAF Special Tactics team, together with all the SEALs and their scuba equipment, raced for the exit. Torrel and O’Brien scrambled up the forty-five-degree slope to the top of Chamber Three and slid down the mud slide to the sump between that chamber and Chamber Two. The water was now lapping the roof of the sump, and as Torrel bobbed his way through he had to tilt his head back and pucker his lips to sip the little remaining air. Torrel and O’Brien’s team, along with that squad of SEALs, waited for the last two SEALs in Chamber Two.

  By 11:15 P.M., when an American liaison texted the group that the Thais had gotten the pumps working, the mass evacuation of the entire cave complex was well under way and the water had already sealed the sump between Chambers Two and Three. A long procession of nearly two hundred tired but jubilant souls made its way out of the thin, foul air and into the night.

  Inside Tham Luang, there was no one left to save. When it looked like everyone was home free, the Thais stopped pumping. All the equipment left behind—pumps and hoses, tanks and harnesses—would have to be salvaged months later. They would be the only things that had to wait out the monsoon season. Over the next few hours the cave would revert to its natural state for that time of year: an impenetrable river of water that inundated every available air space all the way back to the first chamber.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Life Celebration Party”

  As they all proceeded out, the cheers were so intense that Mario Wild of the Chiang Mai climbing team found it “almost cheesy.” Rounds of “Hooyah!” drowned out the rain. The rescuers, including Wild, were pelted with shouts of “Heroes!” and “Thank you!” The Austrian had been on rescues before, but “you would never get that kind of recognition and appreciation outside of a place like Thailand.”

  Josh Morris introduced Wild to the parents. Everyone wept. Vern found Tik out there in the melee of jubilation on that damp night. As he held her, the stiff upper lip of the Brit loosened, and the tears flowed. When Thai Navy SEALs perched on the flatbeds of pickups started heading down the hill past our position in the pineapple field, I splashed through the mud down into the road to savor the moment. Journalists couldn’t help but break their own oaths of nonpartisan detachment—we all knew this was too special. We applauded them and howled our own return calls of “Hooyah!”

  The courageous Dr. Bhak and his three fellow SEALs emerged to be captured in a snapshot that would soon be beamed around the world. Four wet-suited men in dark sunglasses, thumbs raised skyward, wearing the kind of shit-eating grins you can only get from defying death. It was almost instantly loaded onto the Thai Navy SEAL Facebook page, and from there picked up by media desperate to know the identity of the four brave SEALs. It is doubtful that the rescue would have been successful without their presence in Chamber Nine. Their roles in guiding and calming the boys, managing their food intake, and exchangi
ng the relay of messages with the foreign divers was critical.

  Amid the celebrations and back slaps that made Dr. Bhak’s head jiggle, an acquaintance asked him if he was going “to the life-celebration party.” Life-celebration parties are the Thai version of Irish wakes—celebrations of the dead.

  Dr. Bhak asked, “A life-celebration party? Why?”

  And his friend solemnly responded, “Ahhh, you don’t know yet, there was a life lost in the operation.”

  None of the divers or the boys had been told about Saman Gunan’s drowning death until that moment. It was crushing for Bhak. He learned that Gunan had a family and a career, and was beloved in the SEAL community. In Thailand today, more than that of the boys, the Brits, or any other individual SEAL, Gunan’s image is emblazoned everywhere, a testament to the gratitude of a nation for the ultimate sacrifice made for the boys in the cave.

  For eighteen consecutive days the cave had endured a human presence. And now, for the first time since June 23, there was not a single human being inside. Last out of the cave were the Americans Torrel and O’Brien. Like the Brits, the Americans would struggle to comprehend their success. That night, wracked with fatigue and disbelief, they headed back to their hotel. The next message on the group text chain that had delivered the hair-raising tick-tock of the final scramble from Chamber Three came the following day at about 5:40 P.M.: “Meeting moved to the pool bar.”

  Over crisp Laotian lagers and pad thai, the Americans, the Brits, the Australians, and some of the Thai leadership held a rap session about the rescue. Hodges, who had also spent a little time talking with and hugging the families, said later, “It’s a surreal-type thing. We don’t say zero casualties. Saman Gunan made the ultimate sacrifice for the effort. But wow, this is—this is the stuff of movies.”

  Anderson, the son of missionaries still working in Ecuador, said the folks around the table agreed that with all those millions of people watching, “we thought, whether you believe in God or not, that something supernatural, something bigger was at work here.”

  One by one, the soccer players who had been submerged in the monochrome night of the cave blinked open their eyes. Most regained consciousness within a few hours of their rescue. Coach Ek, Titan, Mark, and the others awoke into a world bathed in light. The state-of-the-art ward at Chiang Rai’s hospital exploded with it. There were cascades of fluorescent lights, off-white linoleum, white walls and ceilings; even their beds and blankets were white. The only pops of color were the blue numbers at their bed stations and the jade curtains. They had IVs in their arms and surgical masks over their mouths. Two had pneumonia, and all of them were being dosed with prophylactic antibiotics to armor them against microbes attacking their frail immune systems. On average they had lost about five pounds, beefed up somewhat toward the end of their confinement by those calorie-rich MREs. Within hours, most were sitting up, some standing.

  The next day their parents, bedecked in the king’s yellow, crowded the glass partition that stood between them and their beloved boys. They chirped “We love you,” pressing their faces to the glass. Dom’s mother’s tears smeared the glass. Some couldn’t keep the tears of relief and gratitude from flowing. It wouldn’t be long before they could actually hold their children’s faces in their hands.

  Epilogue

  The doctors at Chiang Rai General Hospital quarantined the boys for a week. The Moo Pa, in their surgical masks and soft hospital gowns, had the run of the fifty-bed facility. Their parents were permitted to gaze at them through a much-smudged glass partition, but not allowed to touch them. Two of the boys, including Night—who had nearly died on the way out of the cave—were treated for pneumonia; the doctors put all of them on a liquid diet.

  The hospital produced a Brady Bunch–like video of the kids in a “twelve box” fit onto the screen. Each of the boys sat up in his dazzlingly white hospital bed in the state-of-the-art ward. They thanked the rescuers for their efforts, and the nation for its support. Then the boys talk food: Tee says he wants crispy pork with rice; Adul wants KFC; Titan wants sushi; little Mark asks for steak. They would get none of those things for the time being. Instead they take their meals around a low, square table—sitting on stools in their hospital gowns, bent over hospital food made intentionally bland.

  After an agonizing few days, their parents were finally allowed into the ward. Dom’s mother buried her face in her son’s hair, smelling deeply. She didn’t want to embarrass him, but couldn’t stop crying. Few of the parents could. The agony of three weeks of uncertainty radiated into frantic fingertips surveying the boys’ faces and heads, as if certifying that all the landmarks they remembered were still there—that their eyes weren’t deceiving them. Some parents admitted to holding on a little longer than was comfortable for their squirming boys. The boys were now international celebrities, and soon realized that the old rules didn’t quite apply. Because after those hugs came the contraband. Titan’s mom snuck him some chocolate. Dom complained to his mother that if Titan was the beneficiary of smuggled chocolate he should get some too. His mom figured that if eighteen days in a cave didn’t kill him, a little chocolate wouldn’t either. So bootleg chocolate appeared under his bedsheets.

  It was at the hospital that the boys and coach were finally informed about Saman Gunan’s death. It was gutting news. Of the hundreds of pictures for which they posed, none were more poignant than those of the boys in slippers and hospital gowns crowded around a waist-high, hand-drawn portrait of the fallen rescuer, their faces solemn, hands clasped in front of them.*

  On July 17, nine days after the first of the boys had been rushed to the hospital in ambulances, they were all officially discharged. Most had regained the weight they had lost. On that last day each boy, still in his hospital gown, was filmed shuffling through a gauntlet of giggling doctors and nurses. They had been reborn into the world, and in those first ten days hospital staff spoon-fed and coddled the most precious patients in Thailand. When thirteen-year-old Pong went through the line, one of the doctors wasn’t satisfied with an athlete’s high five and spun the boy around by the shoulders and in for a hug. Everybody laughed. After breaking free, Pong—like all the boys—was asked to say something. For a few seconds he stood there swaying, microphone in hand, unable to get the words out, then wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Through gasps for breath he thanked the staff “for always looking after us.” Tee, the captain, was more composed, thanking the staff and saying, “I love you very much.” Coach Ek also sputtered toward the end of his thank-you, dipping his head and clenching his eyes to dam up the tears. Emotion caused him to abort his speech too. He opted instead for a deep bow, palms pressed together, fingertips reaching high up on his forehead, as a sign of the utmost respect. His was an emotion born of gratitude, but likely also of the trauma of hovering so close to death both while in the cave and during the rescue.

  And the following day, more than three weeks after disappearing into the Tham Luang cave, they appeared in public for the first time. Wearing new matching Wild Boars jerseys and shorts emblazoned with a maroon boar racing across the sides, they filed into a Chiang Rai conference hall and took their places on two rows of bleachers. Already seated were Dr. Bhak and the three other Thai SEALs who had stayed in the cave with the boys. An MC offered a long preamble, then asked the boys a series of carefully vetted questions. Coach Ek did most of the talking, explaining in his chirpy voice how they wound up trapped by the water and his decision to pull the boys farther back into the cave for safety. The event was carefully stage-managed, including the boys’ public apology to their parents and another tribute to Saman Gunan. It ended with a deep, collective bow to a portrait of the king. The assembled press were warned that this would be their last chance to see the boys; the MC and doctors implored the insatiable media to give the boys some rest and let them “reconnect with their families in order to heal.” But in the coming months it wouldn’t be journalists who made demands on the boys, but the Thai government.


  The boys finally got to go home. They were now back on their phones, their Instagram pages exploding with new followers. Within weeks, thirteen-year-old Dom would gain hundreds of thousands of followers, though his mother—with her wide, concerned eyes—constantly reminded him that this was all temporary. One of his most “liked” pictures featured a much-belated birthday cake—his birthday had passed unmarked on July 3, the day after Stanton and Vollanthen had found them. As with the other boys who suddenly found social media stardom, Dom’s pictures were predominantly selfies and pictures of friends and food.

  And then it was time to leave the homes with those freshly made beds with the soccer-ball fleece pillows and the stuffed cats they’d had since early childhood. On July 25, just over a month after they’d entered the cave, the boys traveled just up the road to the gilded Buddhas and pagodas of the Wat Doi Wao temple. They were to be ordained as “novice monks,” while Coach Ek had signed up for a longer stint as an official monk. An apprenticeship as a monk, after all, is one of the greatest merit-making acts in Buddhism. Under the imposing glare of huge dragon gargoyles, a swarm of reporters and Mae Sai officials flocked to the temple. With the temple’s abbot chanting ancient rhythms, the boys circumambulated a shrine to the Buddha. They wore matching white shirts and cotton pants; above their heads they all pulled a single bolt of cloth, which formed a saffron-colored ring around the idol. Then it was time for the elaborate head-shaving ceremony. A lock of hair was first ceremoniously snipped and placed in a large banana leaf before clippers did the rest of the work—even shearing off their eyebrows. Tee winced as the monks finished their razor work and washed his bald pate clean.