Captain Swing wrote:I think I'm starting to forget it already, but that might be the Alzheimer's kicking in.
Ok, enough about Musk. Let's please move on.
Captain Swing wrote:I think I'm starting to forget it already, but that might be the Alzheimer's kicking in.
Just hours after the last members of the trapped soccer team were freed from Tham Luang cave on Tuesday night, more than 100 rescue workers were forced to flee the cave complex when the pumps holding back floodwaters failed.
The failure of the pumps came just after 10pm, about three hours after the coach had been rescued from the cave and underscores the fact that rescue workers were racing against time, and the rain, to complete the rescue operation.
The Australian police divers involved in the perilous rescue mission in north-western Thailand have shared incredible new details about the final moments in the cave, the dangerous conditions the men were working in and what it felt like to be involved in such an extraordinary international rescue effort which saved all 12 boys and their coach.
Members of the Australian diving team, all of whom have asked not to be identified, described to Fairfax Media the moment when the pumps failed, saying: "There were 100 guys running down the hill and the water was coming. The water was noticeably rising."
"You could see it rising," a member of the diving team said . . .
The mystery Australian dive buddy of the hero Australian doctor, Richard Harris, who gave final medical approval before each boy attempted to exit the cave with Thai Navy SEALs and the all-star international dive team, was Craig Challen, from Perth, a close friend whom Dr Harris asked to join him on the mission in Thailand.
It can be revealed that both men - not just Dr Harris - swam all the way to the boys on each of the three rescue mission days and did not leave the cave until after the boys had been evacuated to safety.
Fairfax Media spoke briefly to Dr Harris on Wednesday morning but he declined to comment. He did, however, acknowledge the huge outpouring of support and thanks that had come from Australia and around the world for his efforts.
It later emerged that his father died on Tuesday evening . . .
For the first few days, the Australian Federal Police divers involved in the operation had to dive for sections of the journey through the cave to chamber three, which had become the main operating base for the teams swimming and diving through to the trapped boys.
Approaching chamber three in those first few days, the divers would walk about 300 metres and then have to dive for between 10 and 20 metres. This pattern would be repeated several times.
Those dives to chamber three "might be 10 metres", one of the divers said. "Then you get up and walk, carrying 46 kilograms of diving equipment on your back."
The approach to chamber three was probably the most technically challenging point.
"[There] was a small hole less than a metre. So you're climbing down through the hole to get into the water."
Diving through and on into chamber three was "like diving in sumps, like the S-bend on your toilet. That's what it's like", the diver said.
"There's a big section after the first dives where it's more of a tunnel formed, rocks fallen on other rocks."
The Australians' job was to move huge amounts of equipment into the third chamber, including hundreds of air cylinders, to support those who were diving all the way through to the boys.
The Australians, who usually perform black-water search operations, were unable to go beyond chamber three as they were held back by their equipment, which would get stuck in even narrower spaces.
"More technical divers and cave divers use rebreathers, which is a technical package, or side mounts [oxygen tanks]," the diver said.
At times, the boys were dragged on "skeds", or stretchers, through sections of the cave, but sometimes they had to dive.
Once the boys had reached chamber three, more than 150 people inside the cave - Thais, Australians, Americans, Chinese and more - helped pass them, on stretchers, hand-by-hand out of the cave.
From chamber three to the exit, a distance of about 1.5 kilometres, people "literally formed a line, passing them hand to hand", one of the divers said.
"We were checking as they passed to make sure their air gauges were still full," another diver said, adding they still had their dive cylinders on, as well as full face masks.
That's because, after more than two weeks, air quality in the cave had declined so much.
"There was a high concentration of oxygen in the air [cylinders] so we kept the air on."
At first, it had taken four to five hours to get through to chamber three because of the need to dive at least three times and because of the more difficult, watery conditions.
But, by the end of the mission, as the water had decreased in the cave and as stairs were cut into mud banks and paths were formed beneath guide ropes attached to the walls, the walk took about 40 minutes.
The moment the final Navy SEAL, who had stayed with the boys, emerged was electric.
A huge roar began deep in the cave and reverberated down to the entrance as it dawned on more and more of the rescue workers, closer and closer to the cave exit, that their mission was complete.
"I was right down the bottom but you could hear all the cheers," one of the divers said.
"It was like a Mexican wave when we got the last diver out, that's when the cheers and shouting happened."
Asked to reflect on what participating in the rescue mission meant, one of the federal police divers put it like this: "In a lot of ways this will be the most amazing thing. It's one of those career defining moments. I'm actually hoping I don't have another defining moment!"
Captain Kirk wrote:Oh and like it or not, there will now be many tourists who will want to go into the caves there to see for themselves what it looks like. A tourist attraction will be born from this.
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