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Thai authorities released a video Wednesday of 12 boys and their soccer coach recuperating at a hospital after being pulled out of a flooded cave in northern Thailand, as details began to emerge of what transpired during the riveting rescue. 

Separately, the Thai Navy SEALs posted footage on their Facebook page indicating that the rescue mission was accomplished by sedating the boys, but the video was taken down later in the day.
“We confirm that the 13, including the coach, are doing well,” said Dr. Chaiwetch Thanapaisal, director of the Chiang Rai Prachanukroh Hospital, where all 12 boys and their 25-year-old coach were recovering after their nightmare that lasted longer than two weeks.
Three of the boys were being treated for “minor pneumonia,” he said, adding that the boys would be required to remain in the hospital for 7 to 10 more days.
“We would make periodic assessments and they would have rehabilitation at home for at least a month,” Chaiwetch said.
The hospital video showed the boys waving, smiling, talking to a nurse and flashing the “V” sign from their hospital beds. They were wearing face masks but appeared to be in good health. The video also briefly showed their coach in the same hospital.
Parents of some of the boys have been able to visit their children in the hospital, although some were required to wear masks and stand several feet away, according to Thai media. Because of the risk of bacterial infection, the boys were quarantined and some parents were allowed to see them only through a glass window, reports said.
In one of the first detailed accounts of the mission to extricate the last four of the 12 boys as well as their coach on Tuesday, divers revealed that the final stage of the three-day rescue could have been a disaster. Water pumps draining the area malfunctioned just hours after the last member of the youth soccer team was evacuated, they said, according to The Guardian.
Three Australian divers involved in the rescue operation told the British newspaper that they were still more than 1.5 km (less than a mile) inside the cave clearing up equipment when the main pump failed, causing water levels to increase rapidly.
“The screams started coming because the main pumps failed and the water started rising,” said one of the divers, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to comment. “All these headlights start coming over the hill and the water was coming ... It was noticeably rising.”
The remaining 100 workers inside the cave rushed frantically to the exit and were out less than an hour later, including the last three Thai Navy SEALs and a medic who had spent much of the past week keeping vigil with the trapped boys, the report said.
The grueling rescue mission to save the “Wild Boars,” a soccer team composed of boys 11 to 16 years old, and its assistant coach started on Sunday morning. It ended with the last batch being taken out on Tuesday soon before monsoon rains started coming down.
Eighteen days earlier, on June 23, floodwaters from heavy rain had trapped the group when they ventured into the massive Tham Luang cave, a popular tourist attraction in the mountainous province of Chiang Rai, near the border with Laos and Myanmar.
Blanket news coverage of the rescue that captivated the world led with cheerful headlines. Argentina’s La Nacion newspaper described it as “An Epic Rescue,” while the Khaleej Times in Dubai used the headline “Hurrah!” in what appeared to be a play of the word “Hooyah!” used by The Nation in Bangkok.

Despite the jubilation that followed the boys’ nightmare ordeal, authorities also announced Wednesday that Richard Harris, a medic and diver who joined other international divers in the rescue effort, learned that “hours after his rescue mission had been completed,” his father had died in Australia, the Thai Navy SEALs said on their Facebook page.
“We wish you the best for this very tough time,” the Thai SEALs said. “We never thanked you enough for what you’ve done for the kids, their families and Thailand.”
More than 1,000 Thai soldiers, police, government personnel and volunteers were involved in the search, officials said. Thailand’s Navy SEALs were central to the rescue effort, but divers from the United States, Britain, Australia and other nations also took part.
 
Boys sedated to prevent panic: Prime minister
On Tuesday following the rescue, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha told reporters that the boys had been “medically sedated” to reduce the chance that they would suffer an anxiety attack on their way out of the dark cave.
Authorities decided to pull the boys out despite their weak condition and lack of diving experience, after meteorologists warned that air pockets crucial to the survival of the boys could be inundated by coming monsoon rains. Volunteers and soldiers had pumped out the water to create crucial areas inside the cave that allowed a possible rescue.
The boys were given “something to make them not too nervous and panic,” Prayuth said.
Thai officials have not provided details on how the boys, most of whom could not swim, could have navigated the narrow and submerged passageways at the cave. But after days of speculation in the Thai media, the Thai Navy SEALs broke its silence and posted the video, but it was taken down later on Wednesday.
The footage shows a complex operation with numerous divers using pulleys and rubber piping to carry the boys who appeared to be sleeping or semi-conscious when they were being carried away through the cave on stretchers.
Children not at fault, rescue chief says 

Narongsak Osottanakorn, the outgoing governor of Chiang Rai province who oversaw the rescue mission, told a news conference on Wednesday night that the safe recovery of the “Wild Boars” had unified Thailand and the international community.  

“It is more than rescue but it is the harmony of all nations and races,” he told reporters. “We broke the barriers of language and human races for a common goal.”
He urged the world not to blame the boys, saying they were just being children when they ventured inside the cave and got lost. 

“Don’t scold the kids. They acted as young kids do,” he said. “We don’t see the children as at fault or as heroes. They are children being children, it was an accident.”
He paused to pay tribute to retired Thai Navy SEAL Saman Kunan, who was the lone casualty in the efforts to rescue the boys.
Saman, 38, died last Friday while helping place compressed-air tanks along an exit route during preparations for the operation to extract the soccer team. Officials said he ran out of oxygen.
“All of us were saddened,” Narongsak said, “but we took the sadness from the death of Sgt. Saman out on being more energetic and dedicated to accomplish the mission.”
According to Rear Adm. Apakorn Yukongkaew, the commander of the Thai Navy SEALs, the boys were given wetsuits and full face masks and remained conscious throughout the mission.
“Those children did not need to do anything but breathe and stay put and they were carried away,” he said in reply to a question. He declined to identify the pill that was reportedly given to the boys.
CORRECTION: An earlier version wrongly attributed the final quote in this report and a description of how the boys were given wetsuits and full face masks to Narongsak Osottanakorn.


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