12 boys lost in flooded Thai cave

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

From the ABC video above, it sounds like it might have been to cover the medical aspects of what they were about to do.
You are correct of course and I gathered that much from the post I replied to, but could not resist the pun anyway. And besides, I would not be surprised if some crafty diplomats (Say Australian or British, but also othets) would not be able to find an opening to a door to somewhere / something in bilateral relations, that w/o this "events"and the tremendeous outcome***, would be much harder to open
(*** both in terms of kids and coach as well as people from across the world coming together to help)
... Scuba diplomacy...
and with that, while the immunity has been granted as backup insurance it might in the end possibly even really be justifiably in a pureley diplomatic sense...
 
Not a lot of tech divers dive in that condition AFAIK. It's more typical of public safety divers. PSDs do stuff like groping through he muck on the bottom of a pond full of nasty water for evidence or "other things". I don't know how pressure is managed. I know that SCBAs have an audible alarm that goes off at a preset pressure, but I have no idea if that type of alarm is viable under water.

I work with a PSD team. They typically dive surface-supply, so they have comms with the surface and other diver, and a dive sup and support crew monitoring their depth, time and air. If they're diving SCUBA, then they have to watch their own gauges and computer though, but may still have buddy-comms with the other diver, depending on what set-up they're using.

But, I don't suppose many cave divers are diving surface supply, so I have no idea how they do it!!
 
A new link to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Four Corners show from Monday night about the rescue. Excellent viewing. Out Of The Dark. This appears to work no matter where you are located.

The more I read the detail of what was accomplished, the more I wonder if the mission could have been led at all by a single person in charge. The model of multidisciplinary teamworking appears more appropriate here.

Very interesting show. I was a little surprised that it seemed to be the American contingency effectively running it. Perhaps it's just the way they framed it.

Have to say I wished the American PR lady wasn't in the show.
 
Very interesting show. I was a little surprised that it seemed to be the American contingency effectively running it. Perhaps it's just the way they framed it.

Have to say I wished the American PR lady wasn't in the show.

Mostly likely the USAF guys have the most experience in terms of crisis management, and the best global understanding of the situation. By far the Brits were the SME's on the cave and the diving, Dr. Harris was the diving medical SME, but the Americans were the SME's in terms of combined rescue operation and coordination.

USAF PJ's and their support structure specialize in rescue coordination, their primary mission is to rescue downed airmen during combat, which often requires lots of inter-service cooperation, lots of data consolidation, and lots of logistical planning. They're trained in diving, high angle rescue, freefall and static parachuting, operating in austere environments, etc. It's a natural choice for them to run the operation, supporting the divers and doctors needs, and coordinating all of the available assets through the Thai's.

They also have the logistical backing of the US military, which does a pretty phenomenal job of getting whatever you need, wherever you need it, ASAP. I wouldn't be surprised if Elon's fancy sub was thrown in the back of an Air Force C-17 as soon as they pulled it out of the pool.
 
Since most of you know little or nothing about caves, here's some general info.

"...Divers said the temperature in the cave was a about 26 degrees (79 F), with water dripping from the walls, meaning the children were unlikely to have experienced dehydration and hypothermia..."

I was surprised to learn that the temperature was so warm underground, is this cave part of a volcanic system or hot spring?

It's rain water which is warm.

You've heard of snow, haven't you? Thailand has a much higher average temperature than my neck of the woods so the rain in Thailand is warmer, on average, than rain in my neck of the woods but the rain isn't the only factor in how warm the cave is. Depending on how extensive a cave is and how many entrances it has the temperature in the cave tends to be close to the average temperature of the area the cave is in. Here in the northeast caves tend to be around 52ºF, but with a lot of air movement or water flow the temperature may be closer to ambient. 79º may be typical in Thailand, but that's not very warm when the humidity is about 100%, you're dressed in wet (cotton?) t-shirts and shorts, and you aren't eating.

When the cave was flooding the current would be moving into the cave.

Water was obviously flowing into the cave, but that doesn't mean it was flowing into the "entrance". A cave "entrance" is just an opening that's big enough for people to get in and out but there are always other openings. Water may first collect on the surface and then drain into the cave in many specific locations that may or may not serve as an entrance for explorers, but it also just seeps through the ground and enters through millions of tiny cracks in the bedrock. Long before there's a cave there's just water seeping through all of the tiny cracks in the rock. Given time and suitable geology the water enlarges the cracks and forms a cave. The water drains downhill (but can also move uphill as a result of hydrostatic pressure), and just like surface drainages, collects in ever larger streams. I'm under the impression that the entrance they used in this cave is in a downstream area and is, or is near, a major exit for water that enters from other locations.

Caves that are formed by water dissolving rock (there are a bunch of other ways that caves can form) usually have dendritic drainage patterns, but for various reasons caves can have multiple streams flowing to different exits. Higher water levels can cause one drainage to spill over into another, so water entering in a particular area may not always flow to the same exit, and over time some drainage routes may be abandoned as streamflow is pirated to a lower route. That means there are often multiple routes from one spot to another, although in some small or simple caves there may be just one route between the only entrance and the farthest extent of the cave. It's possible that there are multiple routes from the entrance to where the boys were but I gather that either nobody was aware of alternatives or any known alternatives were worse than the route that was used. If there are multiple known routes I'll guess that the route the boys followed was the "standard" route for people heading to that area, though at some point rising water may have forced them to follow a route other than what they had planned on. Caves "backflood" when water levels rise and effectively move upstream (and uphill) when a restriction can't pass water as fast as it flows in. The boys may have encountered water flowing toward them from further into the cave and/or they may have had water levels rising behind them. At any rate, what definitely didn't happen was water flowing into a single entrance that's higher than everything else, filling the cave from a single point.

I have heard mention from a few UK sources that these sorts of dives (sump dives) are a different beast to that which a lot of cave divers will recognise

I think cave divers tend to fall into one of two groups. Some start out as divers and then start exploring water-filled caves. That frequently happens because some of those caves are filled with very clear water (until you cause a silt-out) and may have very pretty formations. The other group consists of people who started out as "dry cavers" who wanted to explore beyond the point where the ceiling drops below the surface of the water in a cave that mostly doesn't require diving. Those places are sumps, and the goal is to get through the sump to find more air-filled passage. While sumps can be filled with very clear water it's often muddy even before you have a chance to stir up the silt. Compared to many caves in Florida and the Yucatan the passage dimensions in some sumps may be fairly small, effectively making it impossible not to stir up the silt. Also, a sump is just a low spot in a passage, so the water may be ponded rather than flowing. In that case there's no current to carry away the silt you've stirred up. I think the typical cave diver hopes they won't stir up silt and the water will stay fairly clear. Sump divers expect lousy, and even zero, viz. I've heard sump divers in the northeast US refer to a "Dacor tempered glass" dive, for that little bit of writing on old school masks that is sometimes the only thing they can see. That can be a normal cave dive for them because the dive is a means to an end. It's also common for sump divers to use a rule of sixths instead of a rule of thirds, because difficult dives and restrictions are routine.

Anyone interested in a good read about diving and cave exploration might enjoy this: Beyond the Deep: The Deadly Descent into the World's Most Treacherous Cave: William Stone, Barbara am Ende, Monte Paulsen: 9780446527095: Amazon.com: Books
 
Here's an interesting documentary on cave diving in the UK. It gives you an idea of the type of thing that the UK cave divers do on a regular basis. It accentuates the point about why those guys were the best choice.

Hopefully the link works. If not, just youtube search "Cave Diving Story" and the 4 part series should come up.

 
The boys and coach are now out of hospital at a media conference expected to speak within minutes.

Yay!
 
Very interesting show. I was a little surprised that it seemed to be the American contingency effectively running it. Perhaps it's just the way they framed it.

Have to say I wished the American PR lady wasn't in the show.
Perhaps the Americans were front and centre with the media in this piece because it is a role they are good at.
Seems like the other major players were less interested in bragging about how wonderful a job they did and trying to slip into the background. The non Americans who wound up fielding the media seemed to be the reluctant ones who spoke for the rest

I've read every link posted here and in a number of other locations and Dr Harris and the Rest of the Aussie team downplay their role. They say the British basically had a plan worked out by the time they got there and it had a few tweaks in meetings as needed. The British divers are the ones who came in with the best Cave rescue training and background. The Ausies also had heaps of experience as well.

The fellow that was listed as Dive operations commander didn't really come across as a knowledgeable diver in Four Corners.

Honestly it seems to be it was a team effort and the Tia Mission Commander did a great job of allowing the right people to do what they were trained and qualified for. A good leader gets the best of his resources by figuring out skills and putting them where they are needed.

Kudos to the entire team. Kudos to the Tia leader who didn't let ego get in his way of pulling a great team together and supporting them
 
Perhaps the Americans were front and centre with the media in this piece because it is a role they are good at.

Another thought, is by being the front, which is not a special ops usual position, they would take the blame if it went wrong. It may have been a political decision made higher up, to help our allies in more ways than one.

As an aside, our @John C. Ratliff was a PJ back in the day and has a thread on it at: USAF Pararescue and Scuba Diving


Bob
 
I had a lot to say about this Rescue on a Facebook page called "Scuba Accidents and Risk Management." But rather than reproduce that post, I will look for a link and post it here. Concerning the USAF Pararescue contribution, take look at this article:

Air Force rescue specialist details 'once in a lifetime' Thai cave rescue

SeaRat

PS: Here is the VSS thread the I also wrote, which gives my input, plus information from Charlie Notthoff, about his participation in the Elon Musk contributions (they had two, not one, contributions).

http://vintagescuba.proboards.com/thread/4797/thai-soccor-team-trapped-water
 
Last edited:

Back
Top Bottom