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The 12 boys and their soccer coach rescued from a flooded cave in Thailand recounted details of their ordeal on Wednesday, at their first public appearance, during which they waved, smiled and offered traditional “wai” greetings on a national broadcast.
Doctors, relatives and friends, some in yellow traditional garb, greeted the boys, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach, who wore T-shirts emblazoned with a red graphic of a wild boar and carried in footballs they kicked gently on the set. “Bringing the Wild Boars Home,” read a banner in Thai that used the name of the soccer team to welcome them on the set, designed to resemble a soccer field, complete with goalposts and nets.
Memories recalled
A crowd of media and onlookers was penned behind barricades as the boys arrived in vans from the hospital where they had stayed since last week’s international effort to extricate them from a flooded cave complex in which they had been trapped.
“I told everyone fight on, don’t despair,” said one boy, describing how the group had battled to stay alive during the excruciating days spent in the cave in Thailand’s northern province of Chiang Rai. Another, Adul Sam-on, 14, recalled the moment when two British divers found the group on July 2, squatting in a flooded chamber several kilometres within the cave complex.
“It was magical,” he said. “I had to think a lot before I could answer their questions.”
The group had planned to explore the Tham Luang cave complex for about an hour after soccer practice on June 23. But a rainy season downpour flooded the tunnels, trapping them.
“We took turns digging at the cave walls,” Ekkapol said. “We didn’t want to wait around until authorities found us.”
But their efforts were to no avail, he said, adding, “Almost everyone can swim. Some aren’t strong swimmers, however.” The group, which had eaten before going into the caves, took no food on an excursion they had intended to last only an hour, and had to subsist on water dripping from stalactites in the cave, he added.
“We only drank water,” said one of the boys, nicknamed Tee.
“I had no strength. I tried not to think about food so I didn’t get more hungry,” added the team’s youngest member, who goes by the name Titan, and was greeted with a rousing cheer from the audience on his arrival at the news conference.
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