The Boys in the Cave by Matt Gutman

The Boys in the Cave by Matt Gutman

Author:Matt Gutman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062909930
Publisher: HarperCollins


A few days after the Sleeping Princess swallowed up the soccer team, a midlevel Thai monk had gone to confer with the cave spirits. According to Thai officials who met with him, he came away shaken. The monk told them that the spirits of the cave demanded the sacrifice of a cow, a buffalo, and two men. However, even the more superstitious rescuers didn’t pay much attention to the prophecy until the morning of Friday, July 6.

As the British diving team worked on getting supplies to the boys, the Thai Navy SEALs were still working on their oxygen hose project. Petty Officer First Class Saman Gunan, the square-jawed ex-SEAL who was photographed in some of the higher-level planning meetings, had been working at the site for days; because of his smattering of English and can-do attitude, he’d become acquainted with foreign rescuers like Stanton, Vollanthen, and Vern. Late on July 5 and into the early morning of July 6, Gunan was ferrying tanks in the sump between Chambers Two and Three. It was a short dive, but he had apparently gone back and forth a number of times and was already exhausted. It was the end of his shift and—according to the Thai SEALs—his last dive of the day. Gunan was a chiseled triathlete. He was arguably one of the most fit men taking part in the rescue. But something happened on his way from Chamber Two to Chamber Three. For unknown reasons, Gunan’s mouthpiece and mask popped off, according to Rear Admiral Apakorn.

The SEALs say he was carrying three tanks with three regulators, but they were apparently floating octopuslike in the water—making them more likely to snare on the loose wires, stalactites, and hoses littering that sump. His dive buddy later said that through the murk, it looked like Gunan was trying to grab one of them, but he couldn’t find it, or perhaps his hands had become snagged on something. His dive buddy started kicking frantically toward him. By the time he reached him, Gunan had gone limp.

His dive partner tried to plug his own regulator into Gunan’s mouth, but he was already unresponsive. His dive buddy dragged him back to Chamber Three. As soon as he reached the air, he spat out his regulator and screamed for medics. The Thai SEALs had hoped to resuscitate him, as they had the other foundering SEAL only a day earlier. But Gunan wasn’t breathing. They tried to scramble a quick rescue, but it would take well over an hour to get him out of the cave. He died somewhere along the way.

While Rear Admiral Apakorn has spoken about the incident, the Thai Navy SEALs have not released a comprehensive report on Gunan’s death. Some of the foreign divers quietly blamed the ill-fated hose project or wondered if he had been given an empty tank by accident. They also wondered whether he had been inadvertently poisoned. International divers told me that somehow during one of the support team’s nightly refills of



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