London
CNN
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Duangphet Phromthep, one of many 12 boys rescued from a flooded Thai cave after a weekslong operation that drew international consideration in 2018, has died within the UK, British and Thai officers introduced Wednesday.
Phromthep, who was enrolled in a soccer academy in Leicestershire, England, died after being rushed to hospital on Sunday, Leicestershire Police stated in an announcement to CNN.
Th northern regional department of the Thai authorities’s public relations arm stated on Fb that Phromthep, 17, died attributable to an accident, with out offering extra particulars.
“The ambiance at his home in Chiang Rai province was stuffed with sorrow,” PR Thailand’s assertion stated.
Zico Basis, a Thai non-profit group which had helped Phromthep examine within the UK through a soccer scholarship, wrote on Fb Wednesday: “Zico Basis wish to specific our sorrow for the move of Dom Duangpet Phromthep, a scholarship pupil from Zico basis,” posting an image of Phromthep.
The miraculous story of the Thai cave rescue
Phromthep was the captain of the Wild Boars youth soccer crew wdhich was rescued after being trapped for greater than two weeks in a flooded cave community within the northern Thai province of Chiang Rai in the summertime of 2018.
The 12 boys and their coach turned trapped when rising flood water lower them off deep contained in the cave, sparking what turned a close to three-week worldwide rescue effort.
Divers concerned within the rescue described treacherous circumstances, with fast-moving shallow water passing by way of very slender passages.
In a sophisticated three-day ultimate operation, the boys have been cut up into teams of 4 and supplied with 5-millimeter-thick wetsuits, full face masks respiration equipment and air bottles.
Every boy was taken out by two divers, who carried their oxygen tanks and guided them by way of murky tunnels. Every rescue took a number of hours, with a lot of the time spent underneath water.
Essentially the most harmful half was the primary kilometer, throughout which the divers and boys have been required to squeeze by way of a slender, flooded channel.
Rescuers wanted to carry the boys’ oxygen tanks in entrance of them and swim pencil-like by way of submerged holes. Having accomplished this part, the boys have been then handed over to separate, specialist rescue groups, who helped help them by way of the rest of the cave, a lot of which they may wade by way of.
Phromthep, referred to as Dom, left the cave as a part of the second group of boys carried out on greater than two weeks after they have been first trapped. He was one in all three boys whose birthdays slipped by whereas they have been deep underground. In his first message to his mother and father he implored them to not neglect. “I’m tremendous, however the climate is kind of chilly. However don’t fear,” he stated. “Don’t neglect my birthday,” he stated.
From hospital, after his rescue, he stated he wished pork and rice to eat and thanked everybody for all their help.
All 12 of the rescued boys and their coach have been then transported to a close-by hospital for recuperation.
Members of the family greeted the information of their rescue with aid and tears of happiness, punching the air once they heard that their boys have been alive.
Reacting to Phromthep’s loss of life, Prajak Sutham, one of many Thai cave survivors, wrote on Fb: “We now have been by way of collectively so much, good and unhealthy occasions. We had went by way of life and loss of life conditions collectively, whenever you advised me to attend and see the time you turned a nationwide participant. I at all times believed that you might do it. Final time we met earlier than you left to UK, I jokingly advised you that, whenever you’re again I might ask in your signature. Relaxation in Peace Bro, we at all times have one another, the 13 of us.”
Rick Stanton, the lead diver from the 2018 rescue mission, advised CNN’s Don Riddell that he was shocked on the information, and stated that fellow rescuers had been knowledgeable.
“When John Volanthen and I first discovered the Wild Boars on the finish of a fraught 9 day search, it was Dom who took the lead and wrote the primary messages to the skin world,” he stated in an electronic mail.
“As a private recollection, it was Dom whose unconscious physique I swam with as I escorted him to security on the second day of the rescue mission. I fastidiously held his valuable life in my grasp, bearing the complete weight of duty in direction of his survival by way of essentially the most excessive of circumstances.”
The Doi Wao temple in his hometown in Chiang Rai additionally expressed their condolences to Phromthep’s mom.
Brooke Home Faculty, the varsity which Phromthep attended as a Soccer Academy pupil, stated in an announcement that his loss of life “has left our faculty neighborhood deeply saddened and shaken.”
“This occasion has left our faculty neighborhood deeply saddened and shaken. We unite in grief with all of Dom’s household, buddies, former teammates and people concerned in all components of his life, in addition to everybody affected in any approach by this loss in Thailand and all through the faculty’s international household,” the faculty’s principal, Ian Smith, stated.
Based on the assertion, Brooke Home Faculty is liaising with statutory authorities and the Royal Thai Embassy in London, and “dedicating all assets to help our pupil physique, as they as younger folks course of Dom’s passing.”
