A dangerous adventure

Nora Soriño .

ILIGAN City – A book on psychology says that man engages in dangerous actions because deep within him, he has a subconscious desire to die. Maybe, that explains partly why we go on adventure trips, and at times, against our better judgment.

Take those members of a Thai junior soccer team and a coach who went inside a cave in the northern part of Thailand. This writer first learned about it from a radioman, a Nani Razo who is in Thailand and so he reported the matter live heard in this city from said country. The 13 young men, were found “rake thin and hungry on a mound of  mud surrounded by water,” reports on national media show. This ended the agonizing search that captivated such nation, it was learned.

The boys, most of them aged 11 and 12, had been trapped there as they could not come out because below the ledge where they were positioned and up to the entrance of the cave were all water.

There was jubilation when they were found.

But the problem was very far from over after they were found.

People near the entrance of the cave kept vigil.

The task of how to extract them out from that cave was very tricky.

Rescuers then  prepared for a pro-longed and dangerious extraction, even as supplies of food and oxygen were sent to the boys. In the process one of the rescuers died.

Before the decision of how best to extract them, there were other options that were being considered. For one, there was constant rains and per their evaluation, the rains would only stop come October of this year. So, for a time they considered leaving the youngsters there up to October and just feeding them and supplying them with oxygen as supply of said gas inside the cave was less than ideal.

Another idea was to get them via a chimney. But how?

And late last week, the decision was extract them as the water level was lesser than the past days. (They had also pumped the water out but the volume being pumped out of the cave was minimal because of the continuing rains.)

With the help of an international team of rescuers and Thai seasoned divers, the extraction was implemented. This, after the boys went through a crash course on diving and swimming as most of them did not know how to dive or swim.

The extraction was by batches and  the “extracters” too had to rest for several hours before proceeding with the next batch which was by four and the last batch, five, including the assistant coach, of the “Wild Boars” team.

Early last week, all the boys had been extracted alive!

They had to go through some medical tests though and they were flown to a hospital to assess their conditions.

A miracle indeed, as many call it!

Caves are curiosities in themselves. Every place in this earth have their own caves, their own peculiarities.

For example, there are caves in nearby Initao, Misamis Oriental, which are also tourists destination for those who look for some “cavey” adventure.  Ditas, my good friend from that place,  say that upon entering a cave there, one must be very quiet — so that you will not displace the gods there.

And mind you, they are “not stupid gods” there (shades of DU30) so you’ll really have a problem going out of the cave if you will not behave.

I’m not saying though that the “Wild Boars” team, being wild, while going through that cave did not behave!