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The heroes of the Thai cave rescue
- drefanzor 8y agoGreat article. As a side note: a movie based on these events is being produced. https://variety.com/2018/film/news/thai-cave-rescue-movie-universal-1202944116/ https://variety.com/2018/film/news/thai-cave-rescue-movie-un...
- canada_dry 8y agoLet's hope it turns out better than the movie that was made of the Chilean miner rescue ("The 33")! Following the very successful award winning book it had an all-star cast... and it sucked. It had all the drama of watching paint dry.
- samopus 8y agoAs a side note too: a documentary/movie about finnish cave divers who went back to cave in Norway to retrieve bodies of their deceased buddies. http://divingintotheunknown.com/en http://divingintotheunknown.com/en
- stef25 8y agoIf I remember correctly, those UK divers were asked to help here but refused. The only time they did so.
- notacavediver 8y agoThey tried, but decided it was too risky when realizing that the recovery had to be done from the far side: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36097300 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36097300
- gravelc 8y agoIncredible story. Richard "Harry" Harris and Craig Challen were jointly awarded Australian of the Year on the weekend for their efforts in the cave rescue. Absolutely deserved.
- jimmcslim 8y agoIn a post-award interview, Richard Harris described what he wanted to do as Australian of the Year... "I really want to try and inspire kids to get out and about, get them off their screens... ...and get outside and build up a bit of confidence and resilience that comes with adventuring and taking a few risks." As long as said risks don't involve getting stuck in an underwater cave and triggering an international search and rescue mission!
- MeltySmelty 8y agoWait, you mean Elon Musk didn't rescue those kids?
- zozbot123 8y agoAh, but where's Elon Musk's submarine?
- kiba 8y agoIt didn't produce any result?
- defterGoose 8y agoSunk.
- gamblor956 8y agoThe submarine was not used in the rescue because it was too big to fit into the cave and to navigate the choke points further in the cave.
- DonHopkins 8y agoThat's funny, I thought it was because Elon Musk's ego and mouth were too big.
- pretendscholar 8y agoThere's a saying that pets look like their masters and I think the same is true for entrepreneurs and their cities. Musk is the perfect embodiment of LA flim-flam.
- prestonh 8y agoI get that Musk is a controversial figure and that this event was a debacle, but I dont know how you can ignore SpaceX and Tesla, both arguably the most successful companies in their fields right now by some metrics.
- stonogo 8y agoSpaceX is fine, although it's running at leaner margins than competitors; as long as it can scale well and beef that up, it'll be about average for an aerospace company. Tesla is a terrible mess, and only by Silicon Valley standards can it be considered successful at all. It is not even close to being "the most" successful car company. This is why Musk is a controversial figure; he's a Valley-style startup hype man operating in the wider world. Whether that approach is sustainable is what the fighting is about.
- brandnewlow 8y agoCan someone else explain the story with "Ben"? Did he offend someone and thus get kicked off the rescue squad? I couldn't follow the reason why he was stuck sitting in a chair outside the cave.
- macintux 8y agoFrom searching online the answer isn’t clear. Ben Reymenants gave interviews during the run-up to the rescue that may have pissed someone off; on the other hand, it was never clear that the signage was legitimate. Basically the entire rescue operation sounds like it was conducted under a fog of war. No one was ever officially in charge, no one was legally authorized to do what they did (such as the medication of the boys).
- ChrisSD 8y agoNarongsak Osatanakorn was put officially in charge of coordinating rescue efforts even after his term as governor had ended. I don't know how involved he was with facilitating communicating between the teams but at the very least he seemed to be their official liaison with the outside world (although of course unofficial lines existed as well).
- talaketu 8y agoVery specifically the Australians were given diplomatic immunity, which sidelined the legal question. [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-16/thai-cave-rescue-australian-divers-had-diplomatic-immunity/9992204 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-16/thai-cave-rescue-aust...
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoI like to imagine Chrisjen Avasarala from The Expanse saying: “I don’t give a fuck what you do, just get them the fuck out of there. Now.”
- aedron 8y agoHe did get stuck a few times trying to swim in.
- lolc 8y agoInteresting how I missed the sedation part till now. The way I rembembered it, they trained the boys to dive, right in the cave. But that must have been a plan that was later abandoned but stuck with me.
- orblivion 8y agoI may be imagining, but I vaguely recall a suggestion that this was a face-saving alternate story, since drugging the kids didn't sound so nice.
- martalist 8y agoFor anyone who's done even a little diving, sedation sounds a lot kinder than teaching the kids to cave dive, let alone under those circumstances.
- JohnJamesRambo 8y agoMakes sense because this is the first I’ve heard of the ketamine.
- stef25 8y agoOnce they were all out a Thai official did say they were drugged.
- joering2 8y agoA friend of mine is an engineer at Lockheed, and used to work for NASA some 17 years long. He explained to me the whole thing was more of a photo-op and ability to over-engineer to show who's got the bigger balls, than actually to quickly rescue people. He basically told me one of many training astronauts have is in a long dark corridor that is submerged underwater of course to simulate low gravity. However the whole thing inside is wrapped in a plastic bag, for lack of better explanation. Just imagine huge condom big enough to fit people in it. When the shit goes down, you push emergency button and whole thing fills in with air in less than 90 seconds. Since its inside cave/corridor, air has no way to push the condom outside/up, so whole water is flushed out quickly. He told me all they had to do is put a thick foil underwater, glue 2 sides together, making long sealed condom, and then pump the air in, making a way for kids to crawl through, with no need to dive or know how to swim, almost like they have those tubes on children's playgrounds. That's all.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoKetamine really was a miracle drug in this situation. It's one of the few anaesthetics that doesn't cause respiratory depression, overdosing is practically impossible, and it's also injected intra-muscularly, rather than intravenously, making it easy to apply in the dark and underwater by an untrained person. These factors are also why it was used extensively in the Vietnam war for battlefield surgery. Interesting that, as usual, the media has labelled it as "horse tranquilliser". It's used more extensively on humans than on animals, and is used on all different mammals, not just horses.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- brian-armstrong 8y agoDefinitely true, though waking up from ketamine with your hands bound underwater in pitch black sounds absolutely hellish.
- radiantswirl 8y agoNothing is hellish when you’re waking up from ketamine, dude. If it was, not all of the soccer players would have survived.
- darkpuma 8y agoIt's also used on dogs, but mentioning that it works on horses is more impressive since horses are known as very large strong animals. I think that's the reason it's often called a "horse tranquilizer", to emphasize that it's serious stuff. I mean, the article makes clear that Dr. Harry is an anesthesiologist and that anesthesiology is a very serious discipline, so I don't think the author meant to suggest they were carelessly administering medication meant for animals instead of humans.
- sjburt 8y agoThe irony is that it's actually one of the safest (and cheapest) tranquilizers and that's why it's used on large animals. It's hard to weigh a horse, so you want something that doesn't require a very precise dose.
- danielvf 8y agoAnother great article: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/world/asia/thailand-cave-rescue-seals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/world/asia/thailand-cave-...
- sonnyblarney 8y agoThat is an exceptional read, it's like watching a thriller. Highly recommend.
- rktster 8y agoThe account is somewhat farang biased. For example, there's no mention of the Thai navy seal doctor Dr. Pak who stayed with the boys.
- jdietrich 8y agoThe Thai Navy SEALs worked with incredible bravery and determination, but they simply weren't equipped to conduct a rescue of this nature. I recall seeing some of the first news footage from the scene, seeing the equipment being used by the Thai divers and thinking "oh shit, these guys are screwed". It was immediately apparent that they were open-water divers operating far beyond the limits of their training. They didn't have sidemount rigs, they didn't have CCRs, they didn't even have proper reels and lights. Frankly, it's a miracle that only one person died. Stanton and Volanthen actually had to rescue four members of the Thai rescue team, who had fallen asleep in an intermediate chamber and become cut off by flooding. There was no lack of willing on the part of the Thai rescuers, but they simply didn't have the level of expertise necessary to coordinate a rescue of this level of complexity and technical difficulty. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-02/thai-cave-boys-wild-boars-rescue-the-book-thailand-diving/10514970 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-02/thai-cave-boys-wild-b...
- emptyfile 8y agoStaying with the boys is great but this article is about the actual divers.
- danielvf 8y agoEven though the Elon's submarine idea wasn't used, at least one little known piece of American engineering was used in the rescue - the "Sked". It's a stretcher that can rolled up for storage and transportation, then unrolled for loading, and then partially rolled up again to protect the patient on every side. https://skedco.com/product/sked-basic-rescue-system-international-orange/ https://skedco.com/product/sked-basic-rescue-system-internat...
- shard972 8y agoSpeaking of Elon, did we ever get to the bottom of his pedophile claims? I don't see many people talking about it so i assumed he apologised and gave them a free model 3?
- rjdagost 8y agoThe cave diver (Vern Unsworth) is suing Musk for libel... the case is working its way through the courts now: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-diver-vern-unsworths-defamation-lawsuit-dismissed-2018-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-diver-vern-unswort... Musk is trying to get the case dismissed as being just a big joke, after he repeatedly challenged Unsworth to sue him.
- Pharmakon 8y agoThe U.K. has some serious anti-libel and slander laws, and it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion given all Elon has said on the record that he has no chance in hell to win. I would guess there will be a settlement at some point, unless Unsworth wants to draw it out... which he might. Musk really screwed the pooch on that one.
- Lazare 8y agoThe amusing thing about Musk is, assuming he loses and has to pay a couple millions in a settlement... ...it still won't be the most expensive time he ran his mouth on twitter, said false things, and had to pay a big settlement that year. (Musk had to pay a $20m fine to the SEC for making fraudulent statements on Twitter. Musk is on record that the fine was "worth it". And I guess if you're billions, maybe a really satisfactory tweet really is worth a few million.)
- RLN 8y agoI found it a bit odd that the author differentiated between Britons and Europeans. Britons are Europeans! I wonder why Europeans were so well represented. I wouldn't have necessarily imagined that would be the case. Is it simply because most European countries are relatively wealthy?
- zozbot123 8y ago> Britons are Europeans! They don't want to be Europeans anymore, though - and they voted to that effect.
- kingofpandora 8y agoEurope =/= the European Union.
- HumanDrivenDev 8y agoThey can't stop being European - because Britain is in Europe. It's a bit like saying Japan doesn't want to be Asian.
- james_s_tayler 8y agoTry being a white New Zealander. You technically don't class as European but sort of get described as being of European descent and then on a technicality you are from an island in the Pacific Ocean so you could claim you are a Pacific Islander only that's not what a Pacific Islander is as they are all brown and from Fiji, Samoa, Tonga etc. So I dunno... sometimes categorization is complicated. We just refer to the lot of us as Kiwis after the small and the flightless native bird. What the hell does that have to do with anything I don't know.
- isostatic 8y agoA few years ago 1 in 4 Brits votes to leave the European Union for a variety of reasons. That view has now changed.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
- deskamess 8y agoIt is a great story but I found the article difficult to read. The writing seemed fragmented and lacked cohesiveness.
- rv-de 8y agoI find it odd that Vernon Unsworth isn't even mentioned in the text. That's the diver who was accused by Musk.
- SECProto 8y agoThat's because he wasn't involved in the rescue itself.
- baud147258 8y agoInteresting how the parents and neighbours didn't blame the coach. I mean in the US, he would have been sued to death the moment people learned he had survived.
- TravelTechGuy 8y agoI really liked the story, and it's well worth telling it, and highlighting the heroes (and anyone who was there is a hero in my book). But the writing style was kinda hard to follow. It reads more like a stream-of-thought piece rather than an organized story. Jumping back-and-forth in time, repeating side stories again and again, introducing new characters, and then re-introducing them, skipping major parts in the middle, only to come back to them later (or not). All in all, it's a story well worth a good Atlantic article, or even a movie script - but I'dthink long and hard before putting time in the future to reading an "article" by this "journalist".