London
CNN
—
Duangphet Phromthep, one of many 12 boys rescued from a flooded Thai cave after a weekslong operation that drew world consideration in 2018, has died within the UK, British and Thai officers introduced Wednesday.
Phromthep, who was enrolled in a soccer academy in Leicestershire, England, died after being rushed to hospital on Sunday, Leicestershire Police mentioned in an announcement to CNN.
Th northern regional department of the Thai authorities’s public relations arm mentioned on Fb that Phromthep, 17, died attributable to an accident, with out offering extra particulars.
“The ambiance at his home in Chiang Rai province was stuffed with sorrow,” PR Thailand’s assertion mentioned.
Zico Basis, a Thai non-profit group which had helped Phromthep research within the UK through a soccer scholarship, wrote on Fb Wednesday: “Zico Basis want to categorical our sorrow for the go of Dom Duangpet Phromthep, a scholarship pupil from Zico basis,” posting an image of Phromthep.
CNN has reached out to The Brooke Home School Soccer Academy, the place Phromthep was enrolled on a soccer scholarship. The Academy mentioned it could be releasing an announcement.
Phromthep was the captain of the Wild Boars youth soccer workforce which was rescued after being trapped for greater than two weeks in a flooded cave community within the northern Thai province of Chiang Rai in the summertime of 2018.
The 12 boys and their coach turned trapped when rising flood water reduce them off deep contained in the cave, sparking what turned a close to three-week worldwide rescue effort.
Divers concerned within the rescue described treacherous circumstances, with fast-moving shallow water passing by very slim passages.
In an advanced three-day closing operation, the boys had been break up into teams of 4 and supplied with 5-millimeter-thick wetsuits, full face masks respiration equipment and air bottles.
Every boy was taken out by two divers, who carried their oxygen tanks and guided them by murky tunnels. Every rescue took a number of hours, with a lot of the time spent below water.
Essentially the most harmful half was the primary kilometer, throughout which the divers and boys are required to squeeze by a slim, flooded channel.
Rescuers wanted to carry the boys’ oxygen tanks in entrance of them and swim pencil-like by submerged holes. Having accomplished this part, the boys had been then handed over to separate, specialist rescue groups, who helped help them by the rest of the cave, a lot of which they may wade by.
Phromthep, referred to as Dom, left the cave as a part of the second group of boys carried out on greater than two weeks after they had been first trapped. He was one in all three boys whose birthdays slipped by whereas they had been deep underground. In his first message to his dad and mom he implored them to not neglect. “I’m positive, however the climate is kind of chilly. However don’t fear,” he mentioned. “Don’t neglect my birthday,” he mentioned.
From hospital, after his rescue, he mentioned he needed pork and rice to eat and thanked everybody for all their assist.
All 12 of the rescued boys and their coach had been then transported to a close-by hospital for recuperation.
Members of the family greeted the information of their rescue with reduction and tears of happiness, punching the air after they heard that their boys had been alive.
Reacting to Phromthep’s demise, Prajak Sutham, one of many Thai cave survivors, wrote on Fb: “We have now been by collectively so much, good and dangerous occasions. We had went by life and demise conditions collectively, if you instructed me to attend and see the time you turned a nationwide participant. I at all times believed that you possibly can do it. Final time we met earlier than you left to UK, I jokingly instructed you that, if you’re again I’d ask to your signature. Relaxation in Peace Bro, we at all times have one another, the 13 of us.”
The Doi Wao temple in his hometown in Chiang Rai additionally expressed their condolences to Phromthep’s mom.