- Extraordinary mission ends ordeal of more than two weeks
- All 12 schoolboys and coach pulled from flooded Thai cave
- Each person was pulled through cave by expert divers
- Rescuers gave boys anti-anxiety pills to keep them calm
- ‘Healthy and smiling’: joy as boys recover in hospital
All 12 boys and their football coach have been rescued from the flooded Thai cave where they were trapped for 18 days.
Thai Navy Seals confirmed on Tuesday that all 13 people were saved, ending an ordeal that has gripped the world.
Elite divers escorted the final members of the Wild Boars football team and their coach out of the claustrophobic network of tunnels, using anti-anxiety pills to keep the youngsters calm.
“All 12 ‘Wild Boars’ and coach have been extracted from the cave,” a post by the Thai Navy Seals said, adding: “All are safe”.
The boys – aged 11 to 16 – and their 25-year-old coach, Ekaphol Chantawong, ventured into the Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand on June 23 after football practice and got caught deep inside when heavy rains caused flooding that trapped them on a muddy ledge.
Heavy rains had threatened the perilous escape route and complicated an already dangerous operation.
But rescuers were buoyed by the resilience of the eight boys who were already recuperating in hospital and said to be hungry for bread and chocolate.
The Thai prime minister had confirmed the rescued boys were given medication for the journey out of the cave to the surface.
Three children were rescued in quick succession from shortly after 10am BST (4pm local time) on Tuesday.
Then – at just before 1pm BST (7pm local time) it was confirmed that both the final boy and the coach had been pulled to safety.
Earlier, Jesada Chokdumrongsuk, deputy director-general of the Public Health Ministry, said the first four boys rescued, aged 12 to 16, are now able to eat normal food.
Two of them possibly have a lung infection but all eight are generally “healthy and smiling,” he said, adding: “All eight are in good health, no fever… everyone is in a good mental state.”
“The kids are footballers so they have high immune systems,” he said. “Everyone is in high spirits and are happy to get out. But we will have a psychiatrist to evaluate them.”
It could be at least seven days before they can be released from hospital and their families are being kept at a distance because of fears of infection.
Officials lavished praise on the Thai and international divers who, in pairs of two, have executed the dangerous rescue missions, guiding the boys – who could barely swim and had no diving experience – through a treacherous 2.5-mile escape route that twisted and turned through the cavern.
The plight of the boys and their coach has riveted Thailand and much of the world – from the heart-sinking news they were trapped to the first flickering video of the huddle of anxious yet smiling boys.
They had spent nine harrowing days trapped in darkness until two British divers found them after penetrating deep into the sprawling cave network.
Thai cave rescue: How it’s being done
The Telegraph