The gruelling 18 day ordeal ended with an euphoric note, after the rescue team dared themselves in the treacherous confines of a flooded Thai cave, saving all the 12 boys and their soccer coach who were trapped deep within the labyrinth, that claimed the life of an experienced volunteer diver and riveted people across the globe.
The last four boys and their coach rescued on Tuesday have been airlifted to hospital to join their eight teammates rescued on Sunday and Monday.
All 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped for more than two weeks deep inside a flooded Thai cave have been rescued, a Thai navy SEAL unit said on Tuesday, a successful end to a perilous mission that has gripped the world.
“The 12 Wild Boars and coach have emerged from the cave and they are safe,” the SEAL unit said on its official Facebook page.
The soccer team “Wild boars” and their coach got trapped on June 23rd while they were exploring the cave complex in the northern province of Chiang Rai after soccer practice. Unfortunately, a rainy season downpour flooded the tunnel and they got trapped.
The kids and their coach were found by British divers. They were hungry and huddled in darkness on a muddy bank in a partly flooded chamber several kilometres inside the complex.
After pondering for days how to get the 13 kids and their coach out, a rescue operation was launched on Sunday when four of the boys were brought out, tethered to rescue divers.
Another four were rescued on Monday and the last four boys and the coach were brought out on Tuesday.
Huge celebrations of getting 14 lives out from the cave are bound to happen, yet the sadness over the loss of a former Thai navy diver who died last Friday on a re-supply mission inside the cave in support of the rescue, will be mourned.
The last five were brought out of the cave on stretchers, one by one over the course of Tuesday, and taken by helicopter to a hospital.
Three members of the SEAL unit and an army doctor, who has stayed with the boys since they were found, were the last people due to come out of the cave, the unit said.
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Officials have not been commenting on the rescue mission as it has been taking place, so it was not clear what condition those brought out on Tuesday were in. Speaking after a weekly Cabinet meeting in Bangkok, the prime minister denied that the young soccer players were tranquilised before being rescued, but he did say that they were given an anxiolytic to relieve anxiety.
The eight boys brought out on Sunday and Monday were in good health overall and some asked for chocolate and bread for breakfast, officials said earlier.
Thai public health officials said that the first four boys who were rescued were able to stand up and walk on Tuesday. ‘At least two of them may have lung infections, but none has a fever,’ officials said.
The identity of the rescued boys are not been confirmed by the authority and some of their parents said they had not been told who had been brought out. They were not allowed to visit the hospital where the boys were taken.
The boys were still being quarantined from their parents because of the risk of infection and would likely be kept in hospital for a week to undergo tests, officials said earlier on Tuesday.