| Title | Technical Challenges of Cave Diving - as Thai Boys Are Rescued | |
| Date | Wednesday July 11 2018, @03:41AM | |
| Author | takyon | |
| Topic | ||
| from the spelunking dept. | ||
With the news that the Thai boys who were stuck in a flooded cave were, remarkably, rescued without any of them dying, I thought it would be interesting to submit an article about the technical challenges of cave diving, in particular rescue diving. FTFA:
Why the Thai Cave-Diving Rescue Was So Dangerous
"Rescues are actually pretty rare."
What Robert Laird, the co-founder of International Underwater Cave Rescue and Recovery, means is this: When cave divers get in serious trouble, they usually die. There is no one to rescue, just a body to recover.
In Thailand, an extraordinary rescue effort played out this week for 12 boys and their soccer coach, who managed to find high ground when floodwater trapped them in a cave. To get out, these boys had to dive through those same floodwaters. It's a perilous journey even for experienced divers, as underscored by the death of a Thai Navy SEAL in the cave last week. Cave diving is a different beast from diving in the open waters. The water can be so muddy that divers have to feel their way out. The passage can be so narrow that you have to take off your oxygen tank. And you cannot simply swim up to safety. By Tuesday morning, divers had miraculously guided all 12 of the boys and their coach out of the cave under these conditions.
Previously: Elon Musk Orders SpaceX Engineers to Build Kid-Sized Rescue Submarine
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printed from SoylentNews, Technical Challenges of Cave Diving - as Thai Boys Are Rescued on 2024-04-19 01:09:52