Why Did Rescuers Put These Boys to Sleep?

In June 2018, twelve boys from a youth football team in northern Thailand and their 25-year-old assistant coach went into Tham Luang cave after practice. Early monsoon rain flooded the passages behind them. They were found alive on day ten, about 4 km inside the mountain, by British cave divers John Volanthen and Rick Stanton. But none of them could dive, the route was flooded for long stretches in total darkness, and oxygen in their chamber was falling. A former Thai Navy SEAL, Saman Kunan, died carrying air tanks into the cave. The solution was something nobody had tried before: Australian anesthetist and cave diver Dr Richard Harris sedated each boy, and divers carried them out underwater, one at a time. We follow five traces of the story and mark every claim as DOCUMENTED (Thai authorities, Reuters, the doctors' medical report), RESCUERS' ACCOUNT, or GUESS. This film contains no images of the children. Underwater and cave photos from other places are marked as illustrative, including the thumbnail. Chapters: 0:00 Intro: a child asleep underwater 1:37 Trace 1: The cave 3:09 Trace 2: The search 5:02 Trace 3: Found 6:44 Trace 4: A route that cannot work 8:56 Trace 5: Sleep 12:30 What came after Main sources: Reuters reconstruction (2018); Smithsonian Magazine (2022); medical account in Aspetar Sports Medicine Journal and the Thai doctors' and Harris's letter in the New England Journal of Medicine (via AP, 2018); Canadian Press/AP interview with Dr Richard Harris (2019); Stars and Stripes (2018); ABC Australia via AFP (2018); CBS News (2018); CNN (2018); Al Jazeera (2019); Khaosod English (2019); Wikipedia, "Tham Luang cave rescue". Photos and imagery (Wikimedia Commons, NBT, U.S. Air Force, NASA): Public domain: Airman 1st Class Daniel Hughes; Alejandra Fontalvo; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Jill Heinerth; Jill Heinerth, Bermuda Deep Water Caves 2011 Exploration, NOAA-OER; Rodw; U.S. Air Force Capt. Jessica Tait 353rd Special Operations Group Public Affairs; U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Alexandria Lee; U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jenna Bond; U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Kevin Long CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... cloud.shepherd; Serge Melki from Indianapolis, USA; Steve Jurvetson from Los Altos, USA CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Maximovich Nikolay; NBT; ผู้สร้างสรรค์ผลงาน/ส่งข้อมูลเก็บในคลังข้อมูลเสรีวิกิมีเดียคอมมอนส์ - เทวประภาส มากคล้าย CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Supanut Arunoprayote; Tim Sheerman-Chase; Vyacheslav Argenberg CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Alec Wilson from Khon Kaen, Thailand; Kirt Edblom; Michael Coghlan CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Mikhail Vedyokhin CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ::::=UT=::::; CEphoto, Uwe Aranas; Deror Avi; ekeidar; Stefan Fussan CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Alexey Komarov; Apisit Wilaijit; Bailessa; Dickelbers; Lupus in Saxonia; Manrat Thiusthas; Ossiejnr; Peter Southwood; Petr Lyubimov; PONGSATHORNCH09041980; Pulperm Phungprachit; SAFEOWN; Taweetham; Vano111ru; Z3144228 CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdom... Iudexvivorum; Slleong Satellite imagery: NASA Blue Marble: Next Generation (public domain). Photos marked "illustrative" show other caves, divers, helicopters or equipment, not the actual ones. Music: "Dark Walk" and "Long Note Three" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Narration: synthetic voice. #ThamLuang #CaveRescue #TrueStory