Thai cave boys speak for the first time about their ordeal after leaving hospital
For the first time, the Thai cave boys trapped underground for two weeks have answered questions at a press conference following their recovery in hospital.
All 12 players and their coach were greeted with cheers from a crowd outside as they entered the government hall, looking healthy and happy after their terrifying ordeal.
The only member of the team to speak English, Adul Sam-on, described the moment he heard the rescuers first coming.
“I started to listen and it became reality, the [talking]. I asked Mick to go down, because [he] was holding the torch,” he said.
“Quickly, go down to have a look, otherwise they might go past us.”
Adul said his teammates hesitated, so he took the torch and investigated the noises himself.
“I greeted them, I said, ‘Hello.’ I heard, ‘Hello.’ Someone was raising their head above the water and said, ‘Hello’."
“I went in there and the noise asked, ‘Hello, is anyone there?’
“When they came out of the water, I was surprised. I didn’t know what to talk to them.
“I said ‘hello’, or something like that.
“When they said ‘hello’ to me, I said ‘hello’ back. It was so magnificent. I didn’t know questions to ask. It took me a while before I could answer them, when they asked me how I was. I answered them, I was so surprised. The person asked me how many of us there were. I said ‘13' … They answered, ‘Brilliant,’ and the person was very happy knowing there was 13 of us.”
Another boy said the group had difficulty understanding the dive team because their English was not very good.
“Everyone was so happy when they heard the noise of the divers … It was the first noise from outside in 10 days. They asked me to go up, go higher. They asked me how many days have we been in here and I answered him … I said ‘10 days’.
“At that time, my brain wasn’t working. In my brain … there was no maths, no arithmetic, no English. At that time, I was so hungry as well.”
The media conference was the first time the team have spoken about the experience after recovering at Chiang Rai Prachanukroh hospital.
All the questions from the press conference were submitted in advance and screened by psychologists to ensure the wellbeing of the team.
The 25-year-old coach, Ekkapol Chantawong, answered most of the questions and recalled the moment when they discovered they were trapped in the cave system.
“We went in there and saw a couple of pools of water. This time we went further than that. I said, ‘Do we want to go?’
“One of the boys said, ‘Within one hour we have to come back, we have to come out before 5pm, because someone has to get home.’”
When the boys went to leave, they realised they were trapped by water.
After discovering even more water, the team became disorientated and it quickly became dark.
“We were determined to find a way out. We tried to calm down. I told everyone to fight on, to have a good spirit, don’t give up.”
The soccer team thought of a plan to “dig a passageway” for the water to flow through, however, it didn’t recede at all.
“Everyone decided, ‘OK, let’s go and find a place to sleep, don’t worry, maybe it was just because the water rose and then it would recede later.’”
“We had determined that we were going to spend the night there. We did not prepare any bedding materials at all."
The team agreed they would stay near the water and “pray to the gods”, the coach explained.
“At this time we were not afraid. I thought on the next day the water would recede and then someone would come and find us.”
When the second day arrived, the boys were starting to feel weak and hungry.
They were fearful the torch would run out of battery, so they used it sparingly.
The youngest team member said he felt “dizzy and weak” and tried to battle his pain by not thinking about food.
The Wild Boars team spent a lot of their time digging holes with stone pieces to keep themselves busy and licked water from the stalactites in the cave to keep hydrated.
They knew there was a way out at the end of the cave but understood how far away it was.
"We have only one chance, to go to the other end of the cave,” said one boy.
“My opinion was — if we are not able to find that way out, then we will die in the middle. So, we came back. We had two choices … First, to go this way and the second is to wait there and let other people come to discover us. Water started to flow into our direction. After a while, within one hour, the water started to rise.”
The boys, who attended the press conference in their Wild Boars soccer uniforms, revealed how happy they were to be able to watch the final game of the World Cup after they had been rescued.
As the team members shared with the press their plans for the future, one boy said he promised to be “a good person, a good citizen”.
Several boys revealed they wanted to be Navy SEALS one day, which drew an immediate applause in the audience.
Respect! The rescued #Thai cave boys pose with a photo of Saman Gunan, the Thai Navy SEAL diver who died while trying to rescue them.
Photo: AP pic.twitter.com/YIYgD73pjO— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) July 18, 2018
During the conference, the boys also paid tribute to former Thai Navy SEAL, Saman Gunan, who died delivering them oxygen tanks.
To honour Saman, the boys will enter the monkhood and donate the merit to him.
In Theravada Buddhist practice, this is one of the greatest marks of respect one person can give another.