. Earth Science News .
DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Thai boys need hope, exercise to survive cave ordeal: experts
By Mariette le Roux and Hugues Honore
Paris (AFP) July 3, 2018

British divers who found Thai children no stranger to rescues
London (AFP) July 3, 2018 - Two British volunteer divers who helped find a youth football team trapped in a cave complex in Thailand have a history of difficult rescues around the world.

Richard Stanton and John Volanthen, who have day jobs as a fireman and internet engineer respectively, negotiated a long and winding path through flooded caverns to find the 12 young boys and their coach nine days after they went missing.

"The British divers Rick and John were at the spearhead" of the forward search party, said Bill Whitehouse of the British Cave Rescue Council, an informal grouping of rescue teams around Britain.

"They managed to dive the last section and get through into the chamber where the missing party were on a ledge above the water."

Whitehouse, who has spoken briefly to the team that also included a third Briton, Robert Harper, as well as other international and Thai experts, described the difficulties of the search.

"They were diving upstream in the system, so they were having to swim against the current or pull themselves along the walls," he told the BBC.

"I gather the actual diving section was about 1.5km, about half of which was completely flooded," he said, adding that the total dive was about three hours.

- 'A job to do' -

Volanthen, an internet engineer in Bristol in the southwest of the country, and Stanton, a fireman from Coventry in central England, are no strangers to difficult dives.

Stanton, in his mid-50s, told his local newspaper in 2012 that his biggest achievement was helping rescue six British soldiers trapped in caves in Mexico.

He and Volanthen also helped in 2010 in an attempt to find Eric Establie, an experienced French potholer who became trapped underground in the Ardeche region of southern France. Establie's remains were found eight days after he went missing.

"All of the cave rescue missions are quite shocking but the most challenging one was in France," Stanton said in the interview, to mark his receipt of an MBE honour from Queen Elizabeth II.

"Myself and another diver were there for 10 days and it was really stressful the whole time. It was a very dangerous dive and a very dangerous cave."

But he insisted cave diving was still only a "hobby" which he started at the age of 18, after watching a documentary about the sport on television.

In Thailand, the team have avoided the media, with Volanthen telling reporters when he arrived at the site: "We've got a job to do".

Volanthen, reported to be in his 40s, told the Sunday Times in a 2013 interview that caving requires a cool head and that "panic and adrenaline are great in certain situations but not in cave-diving".

Weakened by nine days without food, 12 boys and their football coach trapped in a Thai cave are fighting threats to their health ranging from muscle degeneration and malnutrition to possible infection, experts said Tuesday.

But the group's survival may ultimately hinge on mental rather than physical toughness -- not losing hope while rescuers figure out how to free them from the dark, wet cavern, a process that could take weeks or even months.

"The mental side of this has to be one of the top considerations," said Andrew Watson, an experienced rescuer of mineworkers trapped by floods or fire.

On Monday, rescue divers finally reached the cave holding the players, aged 11-16, and their coach -- all 13 hungry and bedraggled but amazingly alive.

After initial euphoria, however, the children and their guardian learnt they will have to stay longer while rescuers consider various options.

The safest is to wait for the floodwaters trapping the group to subside.

Another is to teach the kids to undertake the perilous dive themselves -- it took trained rescue divers six hours to navigate the treacherous, muddy waterway into the cave.

"The uncertainty of when and how they might be rescued will be beginning to set in," Neil Greenberg, an expert in post-traumatic stress disorder at King's College London told AFP.

"When the divers got through, the kids, the thought process (would have been): 'They get in, why can't I get out?'" added Watson, commercial director at the Mines Rescue Service UK.

"It depends now how they're communicating the circumstances to the children... You have to tell them just exactly what the circumstances are because... they need to understand that this is a difficult process that will require patience. Possibly a lot of patience."

- Space, sanitation -

Physically, the priority is to nourish and rehydrate the group and rebuild lost strength.

For Mike Tipton of the University of Portsmouth the fact that the footballers endured in the cave for nine days implied that three key ingredients for survival were in place: oxygen, a tolerable temperature, drinkable water.

Next to consider: "Things like what's the sanitation like? Are they disciplined in order that they don't get outbreaks of disease? That could be the next... threat," said Tipton, an expert in the effects of extreme environments on the human body.

Once the group starts eating again, they will need safe sanitation to ensure waste is washed away and doesn't pollute their drinking water.

The floodwater itself may also be contaminated with sewage or dead animals, Tipton pointed out.

A further concern: "How much space do they have?"

Being confined and sedentary for an extended period can result in muscle atrophy, or wastage, which can cause temporary muscular and skeletal problems.

The weaker the children are, the more difficult they will find a dive to freedom, said the experts.

"It is going to be a very, very major decision," according to Watson, who judges it "far safer" to wait for the water to clear, if at all possible.

- Stay or swim? -

"We have to bear in mind these are children," he stressed. "You are talking about water: it's going to be moving, there's going to be pressure, there's going to be resistance, it's not going to be clear, and they've no experience of the breathing apparatus."

Just one individual panicking in the water could have a disastrous ripple effect.

If conditions allow the group to stay in the cave, it will be important for them to keep busy, focused and positive, said Tipton.

A good leader can turn the experience into "an adventure as opposed to a challenge".

Once communications are established, the children's parents must keep their cool, added the experts.

"Anxiety expressed by their families could easily erode a child's resilience," warned Greenberg.

"A positive 'it'll be just fine' approach may be an effective way of allaying their fears."

Jean-Noel Dubois, a French spelunking rescuer and medic, said group cohesion has been shown to help pull people through situations like these.

"They are together," he said of the stranded footballers. "What people tell us after an underground rescue is that it is easier to persevere if one is part of a group and one has hope."


Related Links
Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters
A world of storm and tempest
When the Earth Quakes


Thanks for being here;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once


credit card or paypal
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5 Billed Monthly


paypal only


DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Facial recognition was key in identifying US shooting suspect
Washington (AFP) June 29, 2018
Facial recognition technology, which has drawn criticism from civil liberties activists in recent years, was used to identify the suspect in Thursday's newsroom shooting which left five dead in Annapolis, Maryland. Police said suspect Jarrod Ramos, who had a prior arrest record, had refused to cooperate with authorities after he was taken into custody and that his fingerprints could not immediately be identified. "We would have been much longer in identifying him and being able to push forward i ... read more

Comment using your Disqus, Facebook, Google or Twitter login.



Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Thailand cave rescue: What now for the boys?

Libyan navy says 63 missing in new Mediterranean shipwreck

Thai rescuers establish base deep inside cave where boys trapped

Libya navy bemoans lack of EU support over migrants

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Smarter, faster algorithm cuts number of steps to solve problems

New, safer waterproof coating invented by MIT scientists

Indian Space Agency to teach foreign students how to build satellites

Experiments of the Russian scientists in space lead to a new way of 3D-bioprinting

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Global surface area of rivers and streams is 45 percent higher than previously thought

Water compresses under a high gradient electric field

Great white spotted off Spain in decades first: marine group

New water pollution protests hit southwest Iran

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Climate change sinking Arctic archeological treasures

Researchers discover volcanic heat source under glacier

UTMN scientists confirm the high speed of Siberia development

OMG, the water's warm! NASA study solves glacier puzzle

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Utah soil's slippery grip on nutrients

Study links shrinking bee population, climate change

China drops tariffs on soybeans for some Asian nations

Mesopotamians were drinking beer from individual vessels 3,500 years ago

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Japan quake battered most powerful microscopes

Bali's Mount Agung spews orange lava in fresh eruption

Cyclone barrels towards Japan's Okinawa

Four dead, hundreds evacuated as torrential rains hit Romania

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Locals lose out in Rwanda's second-hand clothes war

Pursuing poachers, and tourism, to boost Mozambique's conservation

Amid thaw, Ethiopia and Eritrea leaders plan to meet

Kenya's Lake Turkana put on World Heritage danger list

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Chimpanzees start using a new tool-use gesture during an alpha male take over

Orangutans have been adapting to humans for thousands of years

Study examines the ancient roots of team sports

Rethinking the orangutan









The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.