Eleven Thai soccer players and their coach who were trapped in a flooded Thai cave for more than two weeks have been officially discharged from hospital.
The ‘Wild Boars’ football team were discharged a day earlier than expected and eight days after the last of them were rescued from the cave.
However, they remain in the building ahead of a press conference when they will be quizzed by journalists for their first time about their ordeal.
The questioning will be tightly monitored with all queries screened by psychologists beforehand to avoid causing the boys additional trauma.
Eleven soccer players and their coach have left hospital eight days after the last of them were rescued from a flooded cave in Thailand
The Wild Boars team will give their first ever press conference, with all questions screened by psychologists first to avoid further trauma
‘The reason to hold this evening press conference is so media can ask them questions and after that they can go back to live their normal lives without media bothering them,’ chief government spokesman Sunsern Kaewkumnerd said.
Called ‘Sending the Wild Boars Home’ and broadcast on major television channels, the session will last for about 45 minutes, Sunsern said, adding that it would be conducted in an informal style with a moderator.
‘They are likely to return home immediately after the press conference,’ he said.
Thailand’s junta leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha urged media Wednesday to be ‘cautious in asking unimportant questions’ that could cause unspecified damage.
‘Today everything is already good, including the perception in foreign countries,’ he told reporters in Bangkok.
‘Nothing is better than this so we should not make it get worse.’
Doctors have advised families of the boys, aged 11 to 16, that they should avoid letting them contact journalists for at least one month after they are discharged.
The team had previously been kept in quarantine inside hospital amid fears they had contracted diseases during their two weeks spent trapped in a cave
The team spent more than two weeks trapped in the flooded Tham Luang cave before being rescued by an international team of divers
Though they and their coach are all said to be in good mental and physical health, health officials say that additional psychological monitoring will be provided to detect lingering trauma.
The daring Thai-led international effort to rescue the ‘Wild Boars’ captivated the world after they walked into the cave on June 23 and were trapped by rising floodwaters.
After nine days without a steady supply of food or water they were found emaciated and huddled in a group on a muddy ledge by British divers several kilometres inside Tham Luang.
Rescuers debated on the best plan to bring them out but ultimately decided on a risky operation that involved diving them through waterlogged passages while they were sedated to keep them calm and carrying them out in military-grade stretchers.
Not even the foreign cave diving specialists who took part were sure the mission would work and many expressed relief when it was all over after the final five were rescued on July 10.
Elon Musk says sorry to hero British diver after calling him a ‘pedo’
Elon Musk has apologised to a British expat who helped with the rescue of 12 schoolboys trapped in a cave in Thailand after calling him ‘pedo guy’.
The billionaire entrepreneur, who is chief executive of the electric car maker Tesla Inc, issued the apology to Vernon Unsworth on Twitter this morning.
It comes after Tesla investors demanded an apology and called on him to ‘take a Twitter sabbatical’ after he ‘crossed a line’ with the baseless remark.
Mr Unsworth, 63, said yesterday he had been approached by British and American lawyers and would seek legal advice over the Twitter abuse.
Elon Musk (left) has apologised for his ‘pedo guy’ slur aimed at a British cave diver Vern Unsworth (right) who helped save 12 boys trapped in a cave in Thailand
Mr Musk said this morning that his ‘words were spoken in anger’ after Mr Unsworth insulted the miniature submarine the billionaire had hoped would be used in the rescue.
Responding to a Twitter user who had shared an article about the dispute, Mr Musk wrote: ‘As this well-written article suggests, my words were spoken in anger after Mr Unsworth said several untruths & suggested I engage in a sexual act with the mini-sub, which had been built as an act of kindness & according to specifications from the dive team leader.
‘Nonetheless, his actions against me do not justify my actions against him, and for that I apologize to Mr. Unsworth and to the companies I represent as leader. The fault is mine and mine alone.’