Ae hit the phones, calling up friends in the Thai media to see what they knew of the situation. All roads led to the Chiang Rai governor, Narongsak Osottanakorn. But the governor wasn’t picking up. From 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. the Monday after the boys vanished, they waited for someone high in the chain in Chiang Rai to give them the green light to do something. Eventually, they got on to a senior official and explained that they could organize proper cave-diving equipment for the SEALs. The official said that was welcome news and asked the three of them—Ae, Chang, and Pae—to fly up from Bangkok. By that time, Ae’s calls had attracted the interest of a low-cost airline, which offered them all free flights.
They called Pae around 5 p.m. “Get to the airport,” they told him. “We’re going to Chiang Rai.”
Pae wasn’t the only one who thought the Thai Navy SEALs might need some assistance. So, too, did Danish technical diver Ivan Karadzic, who first heard the news around midday on Monday.
He was one thousand miles south of Tham Luang, at a resort in a town called Thung Yai, near the better-known holiday destination of Krabi. While beachgoers and rock climbers headed to Krabi, those wanting to learn cave diving went to Thung Yai, where a series of holes in the limestone had been flooded by a dam more than twenty years ago. Ranging from shallow to more than 650 feet in depth, with reasonable visibility, year-round access, and warm water, these caves were perfect for beginners.
Ivan was helping his friend Paul, a Thai native, teach a cave-diving class. The students were going through a “missing diver” scenario, talking through what to do if one of their party disappeared underwater. During a break, Paul told Ivan about the reports he had seen on Facebook—that there were a few men trapped over three hundred feet inside a flooded cave. (Some of the earliest reports were inaccurate.)
“Paul contacted someone in the Thai government . . . and said, ‘Okay, we’re here, six divers, we’re ready to help, if you need our help,’” recalled Ivan.
About an hour later, word came back: don’t worry, we have this covered.
Paul, Ivan, and the students put the situation up north out of their minds as they descended into the milky aqua waters to role-play their own missing-person scenario.
By the time the group returned from their dive, the chatter on Facebook had developed into something resembling the truth: thirteen people missing, deep inside the cave.
Again, Paul got in touch with his government contacts and offered them their help. They told him the Thai Navy SEALs were already on the scene but might need some specialized equipment.
Ivan decided to cut short his working holiday and head back to Koh Tao, where he lived and worked. There were more than sixty dive centers on the island, but only half a dozen focused on technical diving. Ivan did the rounds and gathered up specialist gear.
“I took all the equipment that my company owns, all the specialized equipment—spools, lights, all the things that the common diver won’t have—and we sent it to a dive center in Bangkok.”
From there, the gear was sent up to help with the search in Chiang Rai.
But still their offers of more direct help were politely declined.
That Monday morning, I was in Bangkok, working my way through an eight-page risk-assessment form, with all the enthusiasm the task deserved. I was heading off the next day to Myanmar for a story about elephant poaching—unless I gained significant weight and tusks overnight, the risk seemed pretty low.
As the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Southeast Asia correspondent, I often traveled alone and filmed my own stories. But on this assignment to Myanmar, I’d be joined by freelance cameraman David Leland. A Pelican case of video gear, a backpack, and a tripod bag sat ready in the office.
After an hour of next-of-kin and flight details, there was a welcome disruption: a brewing story about a soccer team lost in a cave up north.
I took the information contained in local media reports and the news wires and bashed out some lines, stepping over to our homemade vocal booth to record a “voicer”—a short radio news update less than thirty-five seconds long:
The local team of twelve players and their coach had finished training on Saturday in the northern province of Chiang Rai . . . when they decided to go and explore a nearby cave. It’s believed they may have been trapped by flash flooding. Their bicycles have been found at the mouth of the cave, and rescue workers have found shoes farther inside. Navy SEALs have arrived at the cave to continue the search, as worried parents wait outside.
I unplugged the laptop, slid it into my backpack, switched off the lights, and went home. My commute wasn’t far—eighteen steps upstairs to where I lived above the office.
The scream echoed off the rock walls, a blood-curdling cry of anguish and desperation.
“My son, come out. I am waiting for you here,” screeched Titan’s mom, Tai.
She seemed unsteady on her feet and touched Titan’s bike for balance, her shouts quivering through tears. The cavernous entrance was lit by a three-foot-wide halogen globe, and rescue workers who had been busy with equipment and plans now stood and stared. Nearby, Biw’s mother, Khamee, cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled into the tunnel, addressing the darkness.
“Biw! Please hurry up and come home. My son, let’s come home together.”
Sak had other ideas on how to get Biw home. He was determined to join the search for his son. When the call went out for ten volunteers to help, his hand shot up. A soldier helped him tie a traditional Thai sarong diagonally across his chest. Twisted into it were boxes of milk and packets of snacks. Sak’s plan was to release these care packages into the water and hope they floated to the boys.
About five of these ten-person search parties headed into the cave. Everyone wore a headlamp. Sak’s team had a shovel, a hoe, and a water pump. Sak was in decent shape, stocky, with a penchant for Lycra sports tops. Most weekends he played competitive sepak takraw, a cross between hacky sack and volleyball, using a cane ball. But even he found the conditions in the cave tough and, once they got deep inside, frightening.
“It was cold,” he recalled later. “I walked to the T-junction and it was difficult to breathe. I wondered, ‘How could they get in that far?’”
Sak’s team was given a job to do a little over three hundred yards before the T-junction. A stream of water poured out from an inlet about knee high on the cave wall on the right, pooling fast on the ground. They started digging, trying to drain the water away and keep the tunnel open. His white sports shoes were soon covered in mud. Ahead of them, the noise of the water was loud as it flowed in from two directions and collided at the junction, every minute thickening the door that sealed off the rescuers from Pattaya Beach, where they thought the trapped team might be. They dug until they were exhausted and then rested inside the cave, watching the soldiers as they tried to lay a communications line to the entrance. Sak looked up at Vern, who was issuing instructions. Both the British caver and the Thai father had faces so serious they looked almost angry.
As Sak sat there in the mud, his hopes sank. He realized the gravity of the situation—how tough it would be to get through that torrent of water and how inhospitable it was in the cave. The air was thin. He understood that his packages of milk and snacks would never reach the boys: the water was flowing the wrong way. At around 3 p.m., a dejected Sak walked out of the cave and into the rain, starting to mentally prepare himself for the prospect that his son might die.
Inside the cave, at the Planetarium, the Wild Boars kept exploring, trying to find another way out. The boys were hungry. Little Titan felt like he was going to faint. When Night peed, his stomach ached.
Coach Ek felt a responsibility to keep his young players calm. Instead of talking about being stuck, he focused on the hope they’d be out soon.
He delved back to his days as a monk, using prayer and meditation to keep everyone positive. If you feel anxious or uncomfortable, try to meditate, he told the boys.
Each night, they would c
hant a Thai Buddhist prayer together. It was one the boys all knew: “Bowing to the Triple Gem,” which was perhaps the equivalent of the Lord’s Prayer for Christians. The prayer honored the man who started Buddhism, as well as its doctrine (the Dhamma) and the Buddhist community (the Sangha). None of the boys understood the ancient language of Pali, of course, but the low-voiced chanting and the familiar ritual were reassuring.
Arahung summa sumbuddho pakava
The perfectly self-enlightened one and blessed one, who has extinguished all suffering
Buddhang Pakawuntung abhivatemi
I bow down before the Awakened, Blessed One
(bow)
Savakkatho Pakavata tummo
The Dhamma is well expounded by the Blessed One
(bow)
Tummung na-mussami
I pay homage to the Dhamma
(bow)
Supatipanno pakavato savaka sung ko
The Sangha of disciples who have practiced well
(bow)
Sunkung namami
I bow low before the Sangha
(bow)
Namo tassa bhagavto arahato samma sambhudssa
Honor to Him, the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the Fully Enlightened
(repeat three times)
Adul, however, was Christian. Each night, he asked his own god to get them out of the cave.
But nature had other plans. The rain kept falling. The water kept rising.
8
A Sense of Direction
The search mission ramped up quickly. But as each new team arrived, with their own ideas about how to find the Wild Boars, the situation became chaotic.
There were people everywhere, from the top decision makers to gawkers. People walked freely in and out of the national parks office. Parents wailed. Reporters talked into cameras and searched for people to interview.
Governor Narongsak had taken charge of the search efforts, with help from District Chief Somsak Kanakham and senior military officers, but as the size and complexity of the search grew, the whole thing became difficult for local-level officials to manage. One of the problems was the sheer number of people involved. Another issue was hierarchy. The SEALs had their chain of command; the police had another. The teams from the volunteer rescue foundations had their own systems. Add to that people like Vern, who were crucial to the search but didn’t fit into the formal system. Everyone arrived with the best of intentions, but inevitably they started pulling in different directions.
In the early days of the search, Governor Narongsak gathered some of the rescuers into a room to give them a blistering talking-to. His voice was only slightly raised, but his demeanor was markedly different from the calm image he presented to the worried public at his twice-daily press conferences. In this moment, he was a soccer coach at halftime, waving a finger in barely controlled fury, disappointed his players weren’t giving it their all. He stared down those in the room, steely eyes moving from one to the next.
“Whoever said they don’t want to sacrifice for this job, whoever wants to go home to sleep, go ahead, sign your name and get out,” he said. “I will not report this at all. But if you want to work today, you have to be ready to work every single minute. You must think of them as your own children.”
Some in the room shifted nervously. Most stood frozen to the spot.
“If the head of the group disappears, I will report you,” the governor continued. “It doesn’t mean you have to be here twenty-four hours; everyone can take turns. But you must have a reliable subordinate on duty at all times, so I don’t have to keep my eyes on you all the time.”
It’s not clear what sparked this outburst, but he was really fired up now: the finger became a fist, then a finger again, pointing skyward.
“We can save all thirteen lives. Or no matter how many lives we can save, every life is precious, just like our own. Today, whoever is not ready, just go home. Whoever doesn’t take this seriously, go home. Whoever said, ‘I can’t do this or that,’ just take all your stuff with you and go home.”
The chaotic initial search started to get more organized when Thailand’s interior minister, General Anupong Paochinda, arrived and quietly, almost imperceptibly, took control on Tuesday, June 26.
General Anupong had the authority to bring all the disparate groups together. As a former chief of the army, he could easily command the SEALs and other military groups. As the interior minister, he had direct control over the police. He was also close to the prime minister, who had succeeded him as chief of the army in 2010. They were both members of the influential “Eastern Tigers” faction of the army, a bond proven during the military coup that ousted the government in 2006. Plus, he spoke English, so he could talk directly with those who would soon be flying in from around the world to help.
“There was a change, for sure,” said District Chief Somsak. “You could see that the workflow and delegation was very clear. For me, it helped give a sense of direction.”
Many involved in the search-and-rescue effort would later describe General Anupong as one of the most important figures in the operation. His arrival was a turning point, changing it from a well-meaning scramble to a more-coordinated effort. But his style was not to throw his power around. Indeed, few people on the mountain even knew the minister was there. He was not in uniform and had also tried to avoid the media. The general arrived with little fanfare, slipped into the national parks office, and began to listen.
The office had become the nerve center of the search operation, and was quickly dubbed “the war room.” It was a simple stone building with a pitched roof and large gable. Inside was a big room, and off to the side a smaller room with an attached toilet. On the walls of the main space were a map and faded posters educating visitors about rocks and caves, and there was a model of the cave system that had been partly destroyed when a tree crashed through the roof in April 2016. The model showed parts of the cave with ominous-sounding names: Go Round Kill, Bone Cave.
General Anupong installed himself in the smaller chamber of the war room and set about learning the shape of this battle. One of the first people he turned to for advice was Vern. The British caver had assessed the situation earlier that morning and saw that the cave was flooding badly. The rain had returned, a steady two-tenths of an inch per hour, its effect intensified by the sponging effect of the limestone mountainside. They were losing ground, the water pushing them farther back toward the entrance.
Later that day, Vern emerged from the cave and went to meet General Anupong. The minister of tourism and sports, Weerasak Kowsurat, was there, too. They asked what Vern thought they should do. He handed them a note he’d already prepared:
Time is running out!
1. Rob Harper
2. Rick Stanton MBE
3. John Volumthen [sic]
They’re the world’s best cave divers
Please contact them through
UK EMBASSY ASAP
Minister Weerasak carefully copied out the names on a separate piece of paper. All day it had been difficult to get a mobile data signal from the building, but now, by good luck, there was some coverage. Vern called Rob Harper via video chat, briefed him, and handed the phone to the tourism minister. It was a short conversation. The gist was: How soon can you be at the airport? Within six hours, all three men on the list were in the air, making the long flight from Britain to Bangkok.
While divers like Ivan and Pae are drawn to cave diving for the technical challenge, others come at the sport from another direction. This other tribe starts off as cavers, spending their days covered in mud, crawling through tight spaces, and exploring underground labyrinths—what the British call “potholing” and Americans call “spelunking,” the latter term jokingly described by one caver as the sound of a person slipping and falling into the water.
For the two expert cave divers flying to Thailand with Rob Harper, their interest in caving started with Boy Scouts. John Volanthen was a young Scout himself, while for
Richard Stanton, it was the envy of seeing a friend go off on a Scouts adventure in a cave that put the idea into his head.
“I’d love to do something like that,” he thought.
When young Rick watched a TV program about two divers executing what was then the longest cave dive in the world, he was hooked.
“I just knew [then] that cave diving was for me,” he said in a 2007 interview with divernet.com.
To get through muddy sumps in the caves they explored, John and Rick learned to dive. In the early days it was simple gear, just whatever they needed to “push” the cave. “Wet suits, wellies, small cylinders, covered in mud” is how Rick Stanton summed up his early caving days in a lecture to the Royal Geographical Society in 2017.
They accumulated new gear and skills. And if the gear didn’t exist, they invented it. John Volanthen, an IT consultant, would later create a device that mapped caves during a dive. They both became members of their local volunteer rescue organization, which linked to the national British Cave Rescue Council.
Their achievements were impressive.
Together they set the record for the deepest UK cave dive, at Wookey Hole in 2004, returning to break their own record the following year. Years of exploring the Pozo Azul cave in northern Spain culminated in an epic fifty-hour push in September 2010, with Dutchman René Houben and another British diver, Jason Mallinson. Their nearly five-and-a-half-mile dive would set the record for the longest cave penetration dive.
And then there were the rescues.
In 2004, Rick was involved in the rescue of a group of British cavers in Mexico. In 2010, Rick and John were called in by the French to try to reach a diver trapped by a silt avalanche within the Dragonnière Gaud cave; after eight days, they recovered his body. The following year, they recovered the body of an Irish cave diver in Galway. Their most recent callout had been to Norway, where two experienced cave divers had died at a depth of around 360 feet. After a reconnaissance dive into the icy waters, John and Rick decided the conditions were too perilous to remove the bodies. (However, friends of the dead divers would later return to make an audacious secret recovery effort, the subject of the documentary Diving into the Unknown.)
Miracle in the Cave Page 4