58 pages • 1 hour read
Christina SoontornvatA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
On June 23, 2018, the Wild Boars soccer team finished their Saturday morning practice in Mae Sai, Thailand. The local soccer team was made up of boys ages 11 to 17, and they were a close-knit group, calling each other by nicknames, as is the custom for friends and family in Thailand. The team’s assistant coach, 25-year-old Ekkapol Chantawong (nicknamed Coach Ek) promised to take the team to explore a local cave after practice. The boys on the team often spent time together off the soccer field, usually doing outdoor activities such as swimming and biking.
Twelve team members went on the cave expedition, and they all agreed that they must be out of the cave by five o’ clock that evening, in time for their team member Night’s birthday party. After stopping for snacks, the boys rode their bikes to the cave, called Tham Luang, and began their spelunking adventure. Although a posted sign warns visitors not to enter during the rainy season because of cave flooding, the boys and their coach weren’t too worried since the rains usually wouldn’t come for another three weeks.
The time of year and weather in Thailand greatly impacts whether Tham Luang is fit for visitors. Thailand has a rainy season, also called monsoon season, which starts in May and produces heaviest rains in July. The people of Thailand know to prepare for the rainy season, when rivers and streams tend to flood. In the days leading up to June 23, rain had been steadily falling, and more rain started to fall after the boys had entered the cave.
The mountains in which Tham Luang sits are said to be home to the spirit of the Sleeping Lady, who, according to local legend, was an ancient princess who killed herself when her father’s soldiers killed her lover. In Thai culture, caves are sacred places, and Buddhist monks have been known to meditate in caves for years. As the boys entered the cave, they bowed at a shrine to the Sleeping Lady and began their exploration. Even though the cave had tight spaces where they had to crouch or crawl, the claustrophobic terrain didn’t stop the boys.
After a mile of walking, they reached a three-way junction called Sam Yaek, where the path on the right leads to Monk’s Series, an unpopular path for cave visitors to take. The left-hand path offers a better direction for exploration and goes for at least seven miles without a dead end. (Soontornvat explains that in caving, the term “goes” indicates that a path continues without a dead end.) Although the boys should have turned back at this point to get to Night’s birthday party, the thought of the unknown ahead enticed them to go a little bit further.
Leaving their shoes and backpacks at Sam Yaek, they took the left-hand path. The boys had to crawl through several tight spaces as they continued, and the cool, dark air reminded them of how far they were from the cave entrance. When they reached a pool of water, Coach Ek asked the group to decide together whether to continue forward. When 16-year-old teammate Thi tested the depth of the water and found he could walk across, the other boys followed. Suddenly, a roaring draft of wind passed through the cave, and the boys reached a chamber with more water. After another team discussion, Thi checked his watch, and they realized that they’d spent three hours in the cave. They’d have to hurry back for Night to have any chance of making his birthday party. They started back the way they came, but when they reached Sam Yaek, they found a pool of water covering the passage they came through.
When Night missed his birthday party, his parents worried. None of the boys had told their families about the plan to explore the cave, but calls to some of the teammates who couldn’t join the exploration revealed that the boys were planning to visit Tham Luang. On June 23 at 9:45pm, Sangwut Khammongkhon, the director of the Siam Ruam Jai Mae Sai Rescue Organization, was alerted that boys from the soccer team may be stuck inside Tham Luang. He met his rescue team at the cave entrance and found the boys’ shoes and backpacks at Sam Yaek, where water had flooded the chamber and passage.
The Sirikorn Rescue Association from the nearby city of Chiang Rai arrived with diving equipment, but the air tanks were too bulky to fit through the small passage. By four o’ clock in the morning, some of the boys’ families were waiting outside the cave and were frustrated to see emergency workers emerging without their children. The governor of Chiang Rai province arrived and had to tell the families that the boys were trapped inside because of flooding.
Coach Ek decided to try to find the passage opening underwater in hopes that the team might swim past the flooded area and walk the remaining distance to the cave opening. He took the rope he’d brought, gave one end to some of the oldest boys, and tied the other end around his waist. If he couldn’t find a way through, he’d tug the rope twice and the boys would pull him back. If he didn’t tug the rope, the boys could follow it and swim in after him. In the cold current and murky water, Coach Ek was unable to find the passage hole and tugged twice. Once back with the boys, he stayed calm and explained that they’d have to wait for the water level to subside.
The porous rock of Tham Luang is called karst limestone. This type of rock is filled with holes, so rainfall soaks into the ground “like a sponge” (29). Although the cave was dry when the boys entered, they didn’t account for the heavy rains that had fallen days before. The ground was already saturated with water, so the rain that started on June 23 had nowhere to go but up inside the cave. Karst caves form when acidic rainwater dissolves calcium carbonate in the limestone, leaving holes behind. As streams of water flow through the holes, tunnels and rooms form underground over time.
Coach Ek had the idea to dig a canal to divert the water away from the passage. The boys tried digging with rocks, but it didn’t change the water level, and they eventually gave up. The group decided to find a place to sleep and went deeper into the cave, where they found a sandy section with water dripping from the cave walls. The water on the walls was cleaner than the murky floodwater beneath them—and was drinkable. Even though the boys were worried that their parents would be angry that they hadn’t explained their plan to visit the cave, they didn’t panic, and they all tried to sleep.
The local rescuers decided to call Vern Unsworth, a British caver living in Mae Sai who knew the most about Tham Luang. Vern had mapped much of the cave, including its most remote passages. When Vern got a call from Sangwut, he already had his gear packed since he’d planned to enter the cave on June 23 but was delayed. Vern arrived at the cave entrance early on June 24 and was surprised that the floodwaters had arrived three weeks earlier than the previous year.
Vern made a few guesses based on his knowledge of the cave. He suspected that the boys and their coach had taken the left path at Sam Yaek junction, since Monk’s Series is quite difficult to navigate. He also thought they might be camped on high ground about a third of a mile past Sam Yaek. Because cell service doesn’t work inside the cave, Vern made several trips back and forth between the cave entrance and Sam Yaek (about two and a half miles round trip) to give reports to rescue workers outside the cave. It was clear to Vern and the local Thai rescue team that they needed divers who could fit through the flooded passage. Early on Monday morning, June 25, a team of Royal Thai Navy SEALS arrived. They’re a highly trained unit and experienced in open water diving. However, at this point, no one understood the dangerous water conditions inside Tham Luang.
As Soontornvat recounts the events of June 23-25, 2018, she uses literary devices such as onomatopoeia and imagery to help convey the experiences of both the Wild Boars and the rescuers, and to make the details of the story come alive. In doing so, she creates tension and suspense that adds to the excitement of the narrative and creates narrative suspense at the end of each chapter. One example of her use of imagery is in her description of the cave’s interior. She appeals to the senses, describing the quiet, cool conditions of a cave and emphasizing the tightness of cave passages and the unsettling feeling of being far beneath the earth. In addition, she describes the sound that air makes as it flows through a cave as “breathing,” characterizing the cave as a living thing (17). Consistently throughout the narrative, Soontornvat strives to realistically portray the physical and psychological experience and the events that unfold both inside and outside Tham Luang through her inclusion of details and imagery.
Additionally, the author provides background information about the Wild Boars soccer team and the setting of Mae Sai, which helps convey the broader context of the boys’ lives in Thailand. She highlights the friendships among team members by describing their practice of going on adventures and spending time together outside of practice. She highlights Coach Ek’s leadership, not only as a coach but also as a mentor and friend to the boys. He isn’t domineering but instead invites the team to contribute to decisions, and the boys’ families trust him.
Soontornvat also introduces the role that religion plays in the boys’ lives, which becomes important later in the narrative. All the boys on the Wild Boars are Buddhist except for Adul, who is a Christian. They also show respect for the spirit of the mountain, the Sleeping Lady, which reflects the greater Thai culture that honors spirits in nature. Finally, Soontornvat introduces readers to the city of Mae Sai. Since it’s on the northern border of Thailand, it’s a diverse center where imports and exports often cross the border to and from Myanmar, Laos, and China. Soontornvat highlights the weather in this area of Thailand, explaining the extremely heavy rainfall during the rainy season that is likely unfamiliar to Western readers. Going into detail about the rainy season helps convey the weather patterns in this region of the world and builds narrative tension surrounding the events to come as floodwaters in the cave continue to rise.
Furthermore, Soontornvat explains that flooding this early in the season was highly unusual, which shows that the boys weren’t acting foolishly by entering the cave in late June. In fact, she explains that Vern Unsworth, who perhaps knows Tham Luang better than anyone, was planning to enter the cave on June 23 as well and likely would have become stuck inside just like the boys were. By explaining typical cave and weather conditions, Soontornvat shows that Coach Ek and the boys weren’t to blame for their precarious situation. Her explanation of the science behind cave formation and flooding helps illustrate the conditions that created the flooded passage so quickly. She shows that as the rain built up for days underground, the cave floor appeared dry, even though the ground was saturated with water. This explanation shows the Wild Boars didn’t ignore warning signs as they entered the cave, because none were visible.
In this section, Soontornvat establishes one of the book’s major themes: The Role of Resilience in Survival. When the boys found that they couldn’t return through the passage to Sam Yaek because of flooding, Coach Ek took action. He tried a few ideas to improve their situation, like attempting to swim through the flooded passage and working with the team to dig a canal in hopes of lowering the water level. Although neither of these attempts produced results, they demonstrate the resilience and level-headedness that Coach Ek maintained under the stress of discovering that he and the boys were trapped. Additionally, Soontornvat explains that none of the boys panicked when they had to spend the night in the cave. She highlights their mental strength and calm demeanor throughout their ordeal.
By Christina Soontornvat
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