Thailand: 12 teenagers lost in cave, 9 days now. Say a prayer, please

I think the natural process of dissolution would be to slow to come to our aid, but hey! Bumble bees can fly so who can say.":O}

Check your meds George! I think you got turned around somewhere":O}
This is a good thing and we need show our appreciation if we hope for more good things to come.":O}

Here's an ugly conundrum!
What if Trump personally went into that cave brought them all back alive!??

My answer would be that if he did that he would no longer be trump. He would have to morph into someone who is capable of giving a shit. Whew! That was to metaphysically close for me!! LOL

Things are beginning to happen! A decision has been made. Due to the oncoming and most likely torrential rains they are going to start swimming the boys out. They have prepared for this unwelcomed eventuality. the route is literately lined with air tanks. The US seals alone brought in over 600 tanks and the compressor capabilities to fill and refill them.

Leon and another group both proposed long inflatable tubes in which the boys would be ferried out.
They've been teaching the boy to swim and getting them comfortable with face masks.

This is no one's first choice. But they've been unable to find another entrance or anything they might exploit.
They now feel that even if they had found a thin spot to drill though, they have run out of time.

The boys are running out of air. Given the numbers that have been frantically working slugging though mud and water this does not surprise anyone. Given the oncoming rains and the demising air. (water can force air out of a cave and evidently the "Habits" of this cave are not really well known. They know it floods but how and from where (some sources known some not). If, god forbid, this happened it would be very quick. They no longer like the odds on waiting this out.

They have screened off the mouth of the cave for the first time. The Police and more medical people have gathered for the first time.Its widely suspected that the swim out has begun.

If So I think it likely that we will hear nothing until they have delivered all of the boys.

I have lived long enough to know the truth of this. Truely truely the darkest hour runs just before the returning sun. The ease with which the light devours the dark never ceases to amaze me.

In moments like this when we must wait, must wait for we can do nothing and our fates are yet unknown to us I feel we do well to remember what we are always trying to forget.

We are in God's hands.

18 rescue divers have gone in to get them out, just now:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/l...ave-rescue-operation-divers-trapped-boys-live

OK, the first two are out.

They're being checked at the field hospital before being airlifted to Chiang Rai. It's about two hours ahead of the most optimistic schedule that was set earlier today, so that is encouraging.

The most important thing now is to keep pushing, before the rain pushes the water level up again. One of the key factors seems to be that the pumping of the last few days has been able to lower the water level by something like 30cm, which may not sound like a lot to us, but must be quite a feat considering the size of the cave.

So, it looks like 6 boys are out with the remaining boys and coach to be rescued as soon as the divers have rested, or sooner if the rain worsens.

6 seems to be a bad report; the official report is 4 from the local Thai media sources, but it's still a good day. According to what I heard in the Thai-language press conference at 9:00, the divers are going to get some sleep, and resume with stage 2 in 10 hours. The second group will be 3 of the boys, followed by two more groups of 3. The teacher/coach will be in the final group.

It appears that report of 6 came from Reuters, who have since amended their headline to 4.

Personally, I think the coach should be given an extra week in the cave, free of charge.

How irresponsible was he to take them so deeply into the cave in this season with the entrance so clearly marked as dangerous?

Caving can be perfectly safe when done right. But, looks like he didn't do one single thing right.

The Scouts take kids caving all the time without incident.

Assuming all goes well, the bosy delivered safely we will no doubt be debating culpability for some time to come. As news seems sketchy. I've heard somewhat conflicting opinions. I heard on TV today that it isn't normal for the cave to flood. I have no idea what if anything might have changed.

The fact that the parents do not blame him should mean something. It's pretty clear that more caution should have been exercised on the coach's part. I would be very reluctant to say I would have done better at 24 years of age. That he loves these boys and they him, that the parents defend him all speaks to me of good intentions gone wrong.

Sometimes we really have to work at getting into trouble,,,Sometimes we cannot retreat fast enough to avoid it.
Remember he didn't get lost. Water pushed them back into the cave. Also it wasn't raining at the cave entrance
When they started out.

Here's what I feel he deserves credit for. There was no panic. There were no fights or deteriorating social circumstance. No one wandered off and got lost. The morale of the boys is really rather amazing. He immediately began teaching them a mediation practice to calm and strengthen them.

I heard today that the doctors feel that the coach is in the worst physical shape of any in the group.

Imagine being in total darkness with a Dozen kids. You can't see them or what they might be doing. If one is walking into danger you won't know it. Yet somehow he kept them all together, kept their spirits high and never let hope fail them.

Really in truth, that's quite a lot for a young man to have accomplished.

Not sure there's such thing as normal with such caves.

They're formed by the flow of water, and their form and the flow of water can change at any point in time. Boulders and silt gets moved around passages become blocked and unblocked, and so on.

Escape pod tested with someone inside it:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1016063173139427329

Probably on its way to Thailand now, just in case it is needed.

Here's why the cave is flooded:


As you see, late June was a heavy rain period, and the beginning of July shows a bit of a lull on the rainfall, [which won't last long, for sure.] This is why it became imperative to move the boys now, rather than wait. With the pumps getting a lot of the rainwater out of the cave, there was no time like the present.

As for the coach, it has been made fairly clear in the Thai press that he took the boys into the closed areas of the cave to 'wake up' the 'spirits' of the cave. Local lore says that this would give competitors more power to win their next contest. This information came from the several other boys who did not enter the cave with them, for whatever reason. Those boys went home, while their mates ventured into the cave.

The superstitions here often take precedence over reason; and this time the thinking cost someone his life, as well as put others in danger.

I told my wife, who is a clever woman, that I thought the coach was extremely irresponsible. Her counter was, "But he took care of them in the cave. They could not have done it by themselves. If he hadn't been there, they probably would have been dead by now."

To which I said, of course, that without him they wouldn't have entered in the first place. She remained unconvinced of his culpability until I told her why he allegedly took them in. Then, she kind of understood how stupid it was.

The expats here have a saying. When trying to understand the locals, 'don't confuse the issues with logic.'

Meanwhile, we've got 41 people dead and 15 missing in the Phuket boat disaster, which was also [most likely] caused by negligence and bad piloting in a sudden weather condition. The captain is currently under investigation for ignoring a weather warning which should have postponed the outing. It is also speculated that he did not handle the weather condition properly when it actually arrived.

You have no idea how common these kinds of occurrences are in this country. Sometimes it's shocking how frequent they are.

A recent study calls Thailand one of the most dangerous tourist destinations in the world, based on the number of non-residents dying each year.

They're back in the cave for phase two, starting about noon local time [1 AM EST]

An interesting piece about the dynamics of the water in that cave region:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidb...-thailand-cave-rescue-operation/#3b885fff3409

...and another 4 are out now. Looking good to get the job done tomorrow, or the next day at the latest. It's got to be done quickly now, oxygen levels are under 15% in the cave area, and that isn't good. 16% is said to be the minimum, from what I've read.

Here's something that graphically shows the size of the connecting tunnels:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...tml?action=click&module=Ribbon&pgtype=Article

Thanks TR. Things are much easier to understand when we have graphics.

As the world believes in judgment I'm sure our young coach is in for a bad time.
I believe in intentions.

What seems clear is that poor judgment and lack of experience play a major part in this (now that a life has been lost) tragedy.

But judgment often is followed by punishment.
The boys did visit the cave alone. It was a place known to them. For myself caves hold zero attraction...But I had a little brother that had to be pulled out of a half dozen culvert pipes and a few large sewer pipes. He was young and dumb and irrepressible He could not be made to listen...fortunately he out grew this passion before death set in.

25 is, I feel i should remind this world, is not wise, not very experienced, and has gained little of the caution that accompanies most of us thought our lives.

25 is only very young. Yet 25 year olds have largely ruled this world for most of history. We can see the results of allowing enthusiasm to replace wisdom, it creates battlefields

If I were to judge this, and I wish I was, I would have to consider his intentions. How many of our young people
spend their days cultivating the very young? When they do, they take upon themselves a responsibility most shirk.
A responsibility that would fill me with fear and trembling.

I also feel that there is a reason the parents support him. Parents have to work. Parents have to trust.
Theses parents seem to feel that the young man earned that trust in the past.

How to befriend and yet instill discipline, waters not easily navigated by any let alone the only young.
The coach was trying to build trust and team work.

It is not known to me weather this cave was a popular place to visit as many caves are.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that on a bright sunny day, in the heat of that day a cave might not look like a dangerous place to be,

I feel the young man did his best and that his best was a damn site better than I might have done.

If it's his fault that they are there it is to his credit that they are there ALIVE.
Is it more important That I accidentally pushed you into the water or that I pulled you out again?

We are flawed beings, every time I forget this, there comes humiliation to remind me.
So I make a plea for mercy, that intention must out weigh the deed or we all are surly damned.

Justice demands a strict accounting of the facts. But mercy comes from weighting intentions.

Don't let us forget the love he has for these boys, for clearly his love for them got him into this mess.

Let this one go free he shows great promise for the future.

I see no reason to fear future transgressions and every reason to believe he will continue to foster our young.



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Of course intentions and motivations are taken in to consideration, at least in this country. I don't know how all these things work in Thailand.

Even in the UK which has strict laws regarding things like this, it would be very unlikely that he would end up in jail anyhow.

Holding people to account often just means them having to explain themselves.

Seems rather clumsy and awkward. Being completely ignorant I'll hazard a guess that the inflatable tube they could crawl though to the surface seems a better idea...