It might be this year's biggest worldwide news story: the teenage Wild Boars soccer team and their coach trapped for nine days in a cave in Thailand after a flood. Now they're thankfully out and reunited with their families, but the media's still not letting it go. And just to get it out of my system, I imagine playing I Spy must've lost its novelty pretty soon in there ("I spy with my little eye, something beginning with... C!"). They're the Chilean miners of 2018.
As you probably know, they also had to be freed individually, and not starting with the youngest or weakest. But while they may be out and physically recovering, I'm sure they have quite a road yet, as anybody else would, to mental and emotional recovery; the media would do well to consider this. Stuck in such cold, wet and dark conditions unexpectedly, for that long and at that age (besides the coach) and then to finally escape only to encounter reporters from across the world and the insatiable clicking of their cameras and questions with their microphones. Compounding this, I also wonder how they must've reacted to the news of navy SEAL Saman Gunan's drowning death as he tried to rescue them. In their position I'd be stunned that I survived and he didn't. Regardless, it's now been claimed several of the boys want to be navy SEALs as a tribute to him, and I salute that.
I was gut-wrenched last week to read of Hollywood producers appearing on the site, before the rescue had even been completed, to enquire about rights to a film of the tale. That's the greediest, most opportunistic thing I've heard in ages, but it should not distract from the media squeezing this story like a watery sponge. The team and their coach all surviving physically should be celebrated, but now let's just let them all mentally recover privately as they return to their lives as they knew them.
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