Jul 17, 2018 3 min read

A dozen boys, ages 11 to 16, and a 25-year-old man were stranded, cold, fatigued and terrified unlike any time in their brief lives. For more than two weeks, the players and coach of the Wild Boars youth soccer team were in constant peril, stuck in a flooded cave in northern Thailand that was vulnerable to seasonal tsunamis.

The 13 who were trapped were young and fit and in generally good health despite the number of days spent there. But, as time passed, the possibility of rain wasn’t their only enemy. Their oxygen levels were dropping and their risk of sickness increasing.

They had to be removed soon, and were – in dangerous and dramatic fashion. Limited in options, rescuers decided their best chance was to send trained divers into the cave to attempt to reach the boys and their coach and lead them out through water. It was a hazardous endeavor, evidenced by the death of an experienced diver in an early stage of the mission, and time-consuming. And no one on the team had diving experience.

Rescuers came from several nations: Thailand, Britain, Australia and the United States. And over three days, they painstakingly worked their way to the team. On July 8, traversing in water with zero visibility and through rocky caverns with little clearance, divers guided four boys out. Then four more the next day. Then the final four players and the coach the day after that.

The mission, despite numerous odds, was successful. A couple of boys had to be hospitalized afterward because of illness, but the entire group survived.

This was a plucky and determined lot, especially for one of such tender ages. Derek Anderson, a rescue specialist with the U.S. Air Force who participated in the mission, said the team was “incredibly resistant.”

In an interview with the Associated Press, Anderson said: “What was really important was the coach and the boys all came together and discussed staying strong, having the will to survive.”

They also, inadvertently and perhaps fortuitously, captured the attention of the world. In a period of global turmoil, people everywhere paused to follow this story, follow the Thai soccer team of callow youths whose desperate eyes had been captured on a murky film. Large masses were rooting for these boys and their coach, cheering silently but more lustily than anyone had at a Wild Boars match.

This was a terrific ordeal for the victims, a death-defying experience to be sure. They will never forget what they went through, and one can only hope any lingering effects will be short term. There is a lot of life ahead for the players and their coach.

They don’t realize it yet, but this will be the greatest victory they will ever celebrate.