Thai Cave Rescue is the latest limited series to drop on Netflix, but the show is actually based on an incredible true story.
The show, which premiered on the streaming site on September 22, tells the story of a Thai youth soccer team and their 25-year-old coach who got trapped in the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system in mid-2018 due to heavy rainfall.
Thai Cave Rescue Netflix
The limited series the untold stories of the Thai youth soccer team and their coach who got trapped in one of the most dangerous cave systems on Earth and the extraordinary efforts by their families, the people of Thailand, and volunteers from all over the world as they work together to fight against both nature and time to save the team.
This is the fourth major retelling of the dramatic rescue operation which was observed worldwide. According to TIME, Thai Cave Rescue is different because it “includes exclusive insights from extensive interviews with the real-life Wild Boars and their guardians—and some of the scenes were shot in the boys’ real homes”.
‘To have that kind of access and be able to ask the questions on the ground with the people who were actually inside the cave stuck, like the boys, was invaluable,’ the show’s director, Kevin Tancharoen, told TIME.
The entire series was shot in Thailand, with several of the cast members Wild Boars players in real life and knew the boys the story is about. Also, several scenes were shot inside the complex cave system – which extends several miles into the side of a mountain – where the boys and their coach were trapped.
Thai Cave Rescue True Story
Thai Cave Rescue is based on the real Tham Luang cave rescue which occurred in July 2018. In June 2018 a group of twelve boys aged between 11 and 16 from a local junior football team named the Wild Boars and their 25-year-old assistant coach, Ekkaphon Chanthawong, went missing after setting out to explore the cave.
The team was stranded in the tunnels by sudden and continuous rainfall after they had entered the cave and they had to leave some food supplies behind when fleeing the rising water, according to reports.
In the evening of the day, they went missing the team’s head coach had received over 20 missed calls from parents wondering where their children are and when the assistant coach was called there was no answer. It soon became clear the team was missing.
It was a huge effort and after weeks in the cave between 8 and 10 July, all 12 boys and their coach were rescued from the cave by an international team.
The rescue effort involved more than 10,000 people, including more than 100 divers, scores of rescue workers, representatives from about 100 governmental agencies, 900 police officers, and 2,000 soldiers.
Ten police helicopters, seven ambulances, more than 700 diving cylinders, and pumping of more than one billion litres of water from the caves were required.
Unfortunately, two deaths were caused in the incident – Saman Kunan, a 37-year-old former Royal Thai Navy SEAL, died of asphyxiation during an attempted rescue on 6 July while returning to a staging base in the cave after delivering diving cylinders to the trapped group.
The following year, in December 2019, rescue diver and Thai Navy SEAL Beirut Pakbara died of a blood infection contracted during the operation.