Thai football coach 'only told boys positive things' in cave
The football coach trapped for days in a cave with his young team says he told the boys only "positive things" to keep them calm.
Friday 24 August 2018 08:15, UK
The group of Thai boys who survived being trapped in a cave for several weeks expected to make their own way home after they were rescued, the team's coach has revealed in an interview.
The football team decided who would leave the cave first according to who had the longest journey back, Ekapol Chanthawong revealed.
"We all decided that the boys who lived farthest from the case would go first, so they would have time to bike home and tell their parents where they were safe," he said.
"We really had no idea there were so many people outside."
The details were revealed in a brand new interview that saw the whole team, aged between 11 and 17, share how they had survived the ordeal and the sudden fame that followed it.
"I feel the love, I feel warm," 11-year-old Titan said.
The teenagers described their rescue as a surprise, but said that even after ten days in the pitch dark cave they had always believed that they would be found.
"I was in shock," 14-year-old Adul said of the moment the boys were found. "I thought that one day they must come. We were waiting and hoping every day."
The team were brought out of the cave in a dramatic and complex rescue effort, in several groups, and were underground for two weeks after being trapped by rising waters in the cave.
When rescuers arrived the boys who could speak English were too shocked to translate, and their coach had to shout for someone to interpret.
Mr Chanthawong said when he first realised they were trapped he had not told the boys, and had kept their hopes up throughout the time in the cave to make sure they didn't panic.
"Firstly tried to regain my composure," he said. "I am used to prayer - I've done it every night of my life - and so I asked that they'd had a peaceful night and a deep sleep."
He then kept the boys calm by helping them with meditation techniques and hoped not to worry them.
"I only told the boys something positive," he says. "I told the boys that we just had to wait a bit longer, that the water may go down and we could get out."
A vast international rescue operation, including British expert divers, helped to bring the boys and their coach out safely.