British diver relives thrilling rescue in Thai cave | Cave rescue in Thailand

The result is The rescue, a documentary film, which was released in the United States on October 8 and opens in the United Kingdom on October 29. He promises to tell the story of the rescue again in great detail. “We’re saying in Thailand we maybe made it a little too easy,” Stanton said. “Every day we would go in and take the boys out. But no one knew what really happened, so we wanted to tell our story. “

Stanton, along with British cave diver John Volanthen, discovered the group alive – a dramatic moment captured in the film. They torch the boys who, in shorts and T-shirts, are perched together on a ledge. They ask how many are still alive, counting the numbers in front; “Yes, 13,” recalls a voice in English.

The mission, which involved navigating murky waters with near zero visibility, twisting and turning to squeeze through extremely narrow passages and navigating vicious currents, was anything but straightforward.

Two rescuers died trying to save the group. Saman Gunan, a former Thai Navy Seal diver who delivered air tanks to the stranded group, ran out of air on his return. Beirut Pakbara, a Thai Navy Seal, later died after contracting a blood infection during the operation.

The rescue, directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin with National Geographic, is based on 87 hours of never-before-seen footage shared by the Thai Navy Seals, as well as interviews and reenactments.

What came out of the movie, Stanton said, was that it was an incredible situation – and an incredible plan to get the boys out. “Years later you just think it was really crazy – the whole thing,” he said.

The film shows how quick the rescue was. In one scene, a diver who pulls out a child loses their diving rope, then starts swimming in the wrong direction. Another accidentally stabs himself with a ketamine syringe while underwater. “Fortunately, it wasn’t connected,” Stanton said. The children were sedated to keep them from panicking when they were carried underwater.

At the center of the film are Stanton and the other divers whose unique skills, developed over decades of cave exploration as a hobby, have allowed them to achieve an almost impossible feat.

Filming the underwater scenes was pretty straightforward, Stanton said. “We said we weren’t going to act… it would look like wood.” Instead, they arrived with the equipment they were using in Thailand and did exactly what they did in 2018.

“If they tried to say it, can you do it?” We said, “no, we didn’t do that in Thailand”.

The in-depth interviews that touch on the lives and backgrounds of the divers were a little less comfortable, admits Stanton, a former firefighter who worked in the West Midlands. He prefers to concentrate on the inner workings of the operation.

The media frenzy at the time, which led to global coverage of the rescue across the globe, was chaotic, he said. To deal with the pressure, he simply ignored it. “We knew everyone in the world was watching him… but we just had blinders on it,” he said.

“What we didn’t commit to, and that’s probably a good thing, was how emotionally everyone was involved in the plight of the boys.” This was not recorded until they returned home.

There were, he added, a lot of misconceptions in the media coverage regarding the operation.

Stanton, who wrote a book, Aquanaut: a life below the surface, about the operation, is satisfied The rescue sets the record straight. “We are meticulous people,” he said.

Although he does not stay in touch with the boys, he is sometimes sent pictures of them.