2018 – Twelve boys and an assistant coach from a soccer team in Thailand are trapped in a flooding cave, leading to an 18-day rescue operation. In June 2018, a junior soccer team became trapped in Tham Luang Nang Non, a cave system in Chiang Rai province, northern Thailand. Twelve members of the team, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old assistant coach entered the cave on 23 June after a practice session. Shortly after they entered, heavy rainfall began and partially flooded the cave system, blocking their way out and trapping them deep within. Efforts to locate the group were hampered by rising water levels and strong currents, and the team was out of contact with the outside world for more than a week. The cave rescue effort expanded into a massive operation amid intense worldwide public interest and involved international rescue teams. On 2 July, after advancing through narrow passages and muddy waters, British divers John Volanthen and Rick Stanton found the group alive on an elevated rock about 1.2 miles from the cave entrance. Rescue organizers discussed various options for extracting the group, including whether to teach them basic underwater diving skills to enable their early rescue, to wait until a new entrance to the cave was found or drilled or to wait for the floodwaters to subside by the end of the monsoon season several months later. After days of pumping water from the cave system and a respite from the rainfall, the rescue teams worked quickly to extract the group from the cave before the next monsoon rain, which was expected to bring additional downpours on 11 July. For the first part of the extraction, 18 rescue divers—13 international cave divers and five Thai Navy SEALs—were sent into the caves to retrieve the boys, with one "lead diver" to accompany each boy on the dive out. The international cave diving team was led by four British divers: John Volanthen, Richard Stanton, Jason Mallinson, and Chris Jewell (each assigned a boy in turn), and two Australians: Richard Harris, an anaesthetist, and his friend Craig Challen, a veterinarian. Irishman Jim Warny became an additional lead diver on the final day of the rescue to bring back assistant coach Ekkaphon, and physician Harris took over the lead rescue of Pong. The lead divers' portion of the journey would stretch over one kilometer, going through narrow, fully submerged passages. The remainder of the route was supported by 90 Thai and foreign divers at various points performing medical check-ups, resupply of air tanks, and other emergency roles. Between 8 and 10 July, all 12 boys and their coach were rescued from the cave by an international team. The rescue effort involved as many as 10,000 people, including more than 100 divers, scores of rescue workers, representatives from about 100 governmental agencies, 900 police officers and 2,000 soldiers. Ten police helicopters, seven ambulances, more than 700 diving cylinders and the pumping of more than one billion liters of water from the caves were required. Saman Kunan, a 37-year-old former Royal Thai Navy SEAL, died of asphyxiation during an attempted rescue on 6 July while returning to a staging base in the cave after delivering diving cylinders to the trapped group. The following year, in December 2019, rescue diver and Thai Navy SEAL Beirut Pakbara died of a blood infection contracted during the operation.
