Review | First book on Thai cave rescues, The Boys in the Cave, is a gripping account of ‘mission impossible’
- Chief national correspondent for ABC News Matt Gutman dissects the extraordinary rescue mission to save the trapped soccer team
- He was on the ground covering the international effort to rescue the boys from rising floodwaters
4/5 stars
Just outside the town of Mae Sai, in the northern Chiang Rai province, 12 boys from the Wild Boars junior soccer team had been taken by their assistant coach to explore the nearby Tham Luang Nang Non cave.
When the cave was unexpectedly flooded, the boys, aged between 11 and 16, and Ekapol “Coach Ek” Jantawong, 24, were trapped deep inside, with no means of communication with the outside world. Only a scooter and 11 bicycles they had left in the bushes outside the cave offered a clue to their whereabouts.
The Wild Boars’ head coach, Naparat “Coach Nok” Guntawong, and overwrought parents sped to the cave, calling out the boys’ names, hoping for some sign of life. “The only answer came from the cave itself, the echoes bouncing the names back at them,” journalist Matt Gutman writes in his new book, The Boys in the Cave: Deep Inside the Impossible Rescue in Thailand.