Ivan Karadzic, a Danish diving instructor who assisted the international rescue team at Luang Cave on Sunday, this week praised the boys involved for doing “what no kid has done before,” in making their way through the narrow and treacherous passage out of the cave that had held them captive since June 23.
Karadzic, who owns a diving school on Koh Tao, told a BBC television crew that the kids were “incredibly strong” and “unbelievable almost.”
“They are getting forced to do something that no kid has ever done before. It is not in any way normal for kids to go cave diving at age 11,” he said.
The Danish diver took part in the rescue operation on Sunday by providing replacement air tanks for the divers who brought the boys out of the flooded passages of the cave, the same task that ex-Thai Navy SEAL Samarn Kunan was doing when he perished on Friday.
“They are diving in something considered [an] extremely hazardous environment, in zero visibility. The only light that is in there is the torch we bring ourselves. We were obviously very afraid of any kind of panic from the divers.”
Panic, however, was something he saw none of in the kids being rescued.
“I cannot understand how cool these small kids are, you know?” he said.
“Thinking about how they’ve been kept in a small cave for two weeks, they haven’t seen their moms.”
On Sunday, the world watched and rooted rescuers on once the decision was made that conditions would allow the extraction of the first batch of children out of the cave.
Karadzic revealed the moment when he saw the first child emerge from the water.
“I was very scared, because when I saw the diver and the kid in the horizon. We can’t see that far, maybe around 50 meters. I still didn’t know if it was a casualty or if it was a [living] kid.”
“But when I saw that he was alive and breathing and seemed to be alright, it felt very good.”
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