A great salute to the way the Football Coach Ekkapol Chantawong kept 12 boys
trapped in a Thai cave alive and elevated for 18 days by training and guiding them
meditation despite the shortage of food, water and resting place in the dark and
underground waterlogged cave.
In Thailand 12 boys, aged between 11 and 16, and their 25-year-old coach went
missing. After the boys’ bikes were found next to an entrance of a cave it became
clear that the torrential downpour had left them trapped in it. It took 9 days of an
intense rescue operations to find the boys alive and another 9 days to get them to
safety.
Now imagine the frightening circumstances of dark and underground cave which is
flooded with heavy rain water leaving no escape route where the coach along with
his team is entrapped and the chances of survival.
Being a coach, he was supposed to exhibit his leadership qualities along with a
humane approach which he did marvellously. His training as a monk in his initial
days, enabled him in this extreme adverse situation and he cared them as his own
family.
According to rescue officials, he is among the weakest in the group. He gave the
boys his share of limited food and water they had with them in the early days. He
also taught them how to mediate and how to conserve as much energy as possible
till they were found. He taught the kids to drink water from Cave walls and not the
murky floodwaters that trapped them.
The boys had been luckier that anything that he was there with them in such testing
time and all were saved. The ray of Hope was always there in the boys because of
him. It is really amazing and come back from the mouth of death. The ‘secret’ of
their equipoise was guided meditation and breathing — that their soccer coach
taught them. He had the boys’ complete trust coupled with courage thus generated,
and these two also contributed to the safety of the boys despite being trapped so
longer.
Ekkapol was an orphan who lost his nuclear family at the age of 10 to a disease that
swept through his village in northern Thailand. His relatives looked after him till he
was 12 before sending off to a Monastery. He then trained to a Monk but left the
Monastery to care for his ailing grandmother in Mae Sai in Northern Thailand. He
learned the lessons of caring, loving all human being specially the kids, discipline,
meditation and responsibility in his formative years which shone in flawless manner
in this extreme adverse situation.
Credit for keeping the boys alive goes to his training of Meditation and his calmness
and balance which he maintained and practiced what he had learned in odd
circumstances. Had Ekkapol not been able to keep himself and boys alive
throughout, what would have been in the hand of rescue team in the end! However,
rescue team also is worth our salute and we should not forget to pay tribute to the
navy diver who lost his life in the process of saving the life of team.
NEWS4EXCHANGE.COM 