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By David E. Hubler
Contributor, EDM Digest
Rescuers brought four more boys trapped in a cave in Thailand safely to the surface on Monday. That doubles the number of rescued children to eight, leaving only the last four boys and their coach still in the Tham Luang cave.
Monday’s evacuation started at 11 a.m. local time (midnight ET). It came after rescue workers got some rest and refilled supplies and oxygen tanks after bringing the first group of four to safety on Sunday.
The first boy to emerge on Monday was put on a stretcher just before 4:30 p.m. local time (5:30 a.m. ET), CNN reported.
Two more boys exited the cave complex a short time later and were transferred to a medical facility on site. They were soon followed by a fourth boy. All four were airlifted to a hospital in Chiang Rai, according to the Bangkok Post.
Each Thai Soccer Team Member Receiving Medical Treatment in Chamber Three Prior to Exit
Divers took about four hours to escort the boys from the ledge to Chamber Three, the operational base for rescuers about two kilometers (1.25 miles) from the cave entrance, the Post explained.
The evacuation procedure calls for the boys to receive initial medical treatment in Chamber Three. Rescuers then took them through the remaining stretch of the cave to a field hospital outside.
At a news conference Monday, former Chiang Rai governor Narongsak Osotthanakorn said the second rescue involved many of the same divers who brought the first four boys out, CNN said.
The first four boys from the Thai soccer team were rescued Sunday by a team of international and Thai divers. Tragically, one expert Thai diver died when he ran out of air while bringing oxygen tanks to the group.
The 12 young members of the Thai soccer team, known as the Wild Boars, went missing with their coach on June 23. Floodwaters from heavy rains drove them deep inside the cave. On July 2, divers discovered the team and their coach sitting on a narrow rock shelf deep within the flooded cave system.
Short-Term Traumatic Effects on Boys Could Include Fearfulness and Moodiness
Dr. Andrea Danese, a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist at the National and Specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services Trauma and Anxiety Clinic in London, described the possible mental effects, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), that the boys and their coach might face. He told the BBC that in the short term, many of the children, having experienced such a traumatic incident, may be fearful, clingy, jumpy or moody. But Danese added that the fact that the children are part of a community in the form of their football team will be “protective” in terms of their mental health.
Dr. Danese urged “clear and honest” communication with the children. That, he said, will be essential in minimizing any potential trauma.
“If anyone can survive such a disaster, it is a group — and an organized one at that,” Professor Donelson R. Forsyth, of the University of Richmond in Virginia, told the BBC.
Efforts to free the remaining four boys and their coach are expected to begin as early as 10 hours after Monday’s successful rescue.
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