I am not a big movie watcher, as my preference would always go to watching series of some kind. The only movies I watch in general are documentary style type of movies, about Mount Everest or so, or in this example a movie called 'The Rescue', which is a true story about the rescue attempt from 11 boys who were stuck in an underground cave called Tham Luang in Thailand.
We all heard about when this was happening, and already thought this was a miracle story, but when hearing the background on this rescue mission, I found this is even a bigger miracle that the mission was a success and all kids were returned to safety.
Let's also not forget that two people dies during this mission trying to save these kids. Saman Kunan, a 37-year-old former Thai Navy SEAL, died of asphyxiation during an attempted rescue on 6 July while returning to a staging base in the cave after delivering diving cylinders to the trapped group. The following year, in December 2019, rescue diver and Thai Navy SEAL Beirut Pakbara died of a blood infection contracted during the operation according to Wikipedia. These heroes should be honored endlessly for their efforts.
Pathe.nl
What happened is that a team of soccer players (just kids) and their coach were exploring the caves in Northern Thailand. While the monsoon season was early they were surprised by the rising water in the caves, and they went deeper and deeper into the caves searching for higher ground. It took multiple days before there was even an idea of where these guys were located in the caves and also multiple days to make a plan and get them out.
What struck me the most while I was watching this movie is how brave some people are to do what they did. This already starts with cave diving in general. As volunteers the British divers John Volanthen and Richard Stanton flew around the world to help get these kids out with the first step of locating where they were inside the cave.
Scubadiving.com
Locating these kids as already super challenging because the cave had more chambers, and passing through underswater chambers in murky water is just the scariest thing there is (if you ask me). See on this picture the water in the cave is super clear, but here you already see the amount of obstacles which you could run into. Imagine this chamber wihtout seeing anything and being underwater. Again...the scariest thing ever.
After finding the children and seeing that they were in good enough health the plan was made for extracting them out of the cave. But realising that these kids would have to be under water for 2 to 3 hours in the murky water with no diving experience (nor maybe even swimming experience?) would absolutely create a terrifying situation for them.
So solutions were being suggested from drilling from the outside into the caves, to letting them wait in the caves until monsoon season ended (which would take multiple months) and finally the plan was made to anesthetise the children while they would be brought outside under water.
Ho-ly-crap. That is where my surgical brain came in seeing only bad outcomes on that situation. You see sedating someone is no joke and is also something that in general needs to be adjusted and finetuned here and there.
So sedating someone and hanging them under water without seeing how they are reacting. Ow yeah, and that in a cave in murky water. That is a mixture of a crazy or a brilliant plan. But without options, I get that you have to do something.
Divermag
Eventually all of these boys got out alive and as said....two of the rescuers lost their lives in the attempt. While watching this documentary I literally not once had the intention to check my phone or go to the restroom or anything. Maybe because this is true story, even know you know the outcome but the script of the docu was just extremely tensed to watch.
I think watching 'the Rescue' is surely not a waste of your time and realizing that that there are so many brave people in this world dedicated to safe others lives without always thinking of their own....That just makes you humble!
