Thailand´s Soccer Team Survivors. By Julia Lambre de Oliveira

In June 2018, 12 Thai soccer players and their coach chose to explore the nearby Tham Luang cave, one of Thailand's longest, after their practice.

The 11 to 16-year-old boys and their coach, a 25-year-old man, dove into the water and started investigating the cave. They moved further inside when a flash flood struck, ultimately reaching a raised platform four kilometers into the cave system. The lads were trapped in the twisted cave network for 17 days due to the flood. They went without sustenance for the first nine days and drank water from stalactites that were dripping. But they didn't just wait around.

The boys took turns digging a 16-foot hole into the cave wall after realizing they were trapped and tried to escape. To conserve energy and stop worrying about their feet, they meditated. They were then discovered by British divers who had left the cave's entrance three hours earlier.

But just getting through that long was only half the fight. As rescuers planned how to carefully extract the boys from the tunnel, Thai Seals went inside to assist and hang out with the boys. Divers recovered each player as well as their coach over the span of a three-day mission.

Each child had to swim for hours through turns and excruciatingly close squeezes while donning a full-face diving mask, tethered between two divers. All survived and were able to rapidly resume a normal, healthy life after the rescue thanks to the efforts of the Thai Navy Seals and the international diving community.

Tragically, one former Thai Navy Seal perished while helping with the evacuation.