{"id":79170,"date":"2018-07-10T16:09:04","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T23:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=79170"},"modified":"2018-07-10T16:14:16","modified_gmt":"2018-07-10T23:14:16","slug":"meet-the-seven-british-divers-playing-leading-roles-in-the-thai-cave-rescue-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/07\/10\/meet-the-seven-british-divers-playing-leading-roles-in-the-thai-cave-rescue-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the seven British divers playing leading roles in the Thai cave rescue mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<footer class=\"article-author\">\n<div class=\"article-author__primary\">\n<div class=\"article-author__meta\">\n<div class=\"byline \">\n<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>\u00a0<span class=\"byline__author-name\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/authors\/roland-oliphant\/\">Roland Oliphant<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/span><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/authors\/helena-horton\/\">Helena Horton\u00a0Courtesy Telegraph UK<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/footer>\n<article data-insert-mobile-adslot=\"\">\n<div class=\"articleBodyText version-2 section\">\n<div class=\"article-body-text component version-2\">\n<div class=\"component-content\">\n<p><span class=\"m_first-letter m_first-letter--flagged\">I<\/span>t is<a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2018\/07\/09\/thai-cave-rescue-enters-second-day-trapped-boys-wait-operation\/\">\u00a0the most challenging underground rescue in history,\u00a0<\/a>and Thai authorities have drafted in more than 90 of the world&#8217;s finest special forces soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>But the spearhead of the Thai cave rescue operation has depended on seven British civilians who learnt their craft exploring the chilly waters of abandoned mines and limestone caves of England and Wales.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/JQ8tpLJ5P0k<\/p>\n<h3>Vernon Unsworth<\/h3>\n<p>First on the scene was Vernon Unsworth, who is from St Albans but now lives in Thailand.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Unsworth, an experienced diver who now lives close to the caves, was crucial in persuading Thai authorities to bring in UK expertise.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When Thai Navy Seals went into the cave but they could not see anything because the water is so muddy so they came back, \u00a0Chaiyon Srisamut, a friend of Mr Unsworth, \u00a0told the Daily Mail.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He \u00a0he knew some English guys who could definitely help.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>John Volanthen and Rick Stanton<\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"m_first-letter\">W<\/span>ith the go-ahead from Thai authorities, Mr Unsworth contacted\u00a0John Volanthen, an IT consultant based in Bristol, and Rick Stanton, a former midlands fire fighter.<\/p>\n<p>The pair<a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2018\/07\/03\/thailand-cave-rescue-meet-heroic-volunteer-british-divers-best\/\">\u00a0have been described as the &#8220;A Team&#8221; by Bill Whitehouse,\u00a0<\/a>vice chairman of the British Cave Rescue Council.<\/p>\n<div class=\"articleBodyText section\">\n<div class=\"article-body-text component \">\n<div class=\"component-content\">\n<p><span class=\"m_first-letter m_first-letter--flagged\">M<\/span>r Stanton, 56, Mr Volanthen, 47,\u00a0discovered the boys and their coach trapped in an air pocket 2.5 miles into the cave system last week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"articleBodyText section\">\n<div class=\"article-body-text component \">\n<div class=\"component-content\">\n<p><span class=\"m_first-letter m_first-letter--flagged\">M<\/span>r Whitehous told Radio 4&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Today<\/em>\u00a0programme last week: &#8220;They have been at the spearhead of making their way through because they have the skills and expertise to do it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;One of the first things they had to do in pushing through is lay a guideline so that they could get out again and so others could follow along.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"m_first-letter m_first-letter--flagged\">V<\/span>oices heard on a video of the moment the group was discovered in the cave belong to Mr Stanton and Mr Volanthen.<\/p>\n<p>The pair have established a reputation as being among the greatest cave rescue divers on the planet &#8211; but both have day jobs in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Stanton has been a firefighter in Coventry for quarter of a century, while\u00a0Mr Volanthen is an IT consultant based in Bristol.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"m_first-letter m_first-letter--flagged\">B<\/span>oth are volunteers with the South and Mid Wales Cave Rescue Team.<\/p>\n<p>In 2011, the pair set a world record for the longest cave dive, penetrating 9km (5.5 miles) down a system in northern Spain using specially developed equipment.<\/p>\n<h3>Robert Harper<\/h3>\n<div class=\"articleBodyText section\">\n<div class=\"article-body-text component \">\n<div class=\"component-content\">\n<p><span class=\"m_first-letter m_first-letter--flagged\">T<\/span>he UK divers operation to locate the lost boys was overseen by Mr Harper, 70, a veteran potholing expert from Somerset.<\/p>\n<p>He was given a hero\u2019s send-off by the Thai authorities as he left Thailand on Thursday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"dynamicMpu section\">\n<div id=\"advert_tmg_dyn_1\" class=\"js-advert advert \" data-adtype=\"dyn_1\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"articleBodyText section\">\n<div class=\"article-body-text component \">\n<div class=\"component-content\">\n<p><span class=\"m_first-letter m_first-letter--flagged\">W<\/span>eerasak Kowsurat, the sports minister, thanked him for his dedication to duty and professionalism,\u201d before he left.<\/p>\n<h3>Chris Jewell and Jason Mallison<\/h3>\n<p>The British team have now been joined by two more divers: Chris Jewell and Jason Mallison of the Cave Diving Group, Britain&#8217;s oldest amateur association of subterranean divers.<\/p>\n<p>Both are considered experts in the tight-knit community of cave divers.\u00a0 Mr Mallison previously rescued six British cavers from Mexico&#8217;s Cueva de Alpazat cave system.<\/p>\n<p>In 2010, he joined up with Mr Stanton and Mr Volanthen to break the record for the longest ever cave dive.<\/p>\n<p>The trio, along with Dutch explorer Rene Houben, spent 50 hours underground charting 5.5 miles of previously unexplored submerged caves in Mexico.<\/p>\n<h3>Tim Acton<\/h3>\n<p>Also on the scene is Tim Acton, 39, who grew up in Harwich and first learnt his trade diving off the Essex coast.<\/p>\n<p>He moved to Southeast Asia 12 years ago and now runs a holiday complex in Thailand with his wife, Took.<\/p>\n<p>In 2004 he was caught up in the Boxing Day Tsunami and earned a commendation from the British Ambassador for his efforts to save lives when the village where he was running a diving school was swamped.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"articleBodyText section\">\n<div class=\"article-body-text component \">\n<div class=\"component-content\">\n<p><span class=\"m_first-letter m_first-letter--flagged\">H<\/span>e was invited to join the cave rescue by contacts in the Thai Navy SEALs.<\/p>\n<p>He has been inside the cave system several times during the operation.<\/p>\n<p>His father, John, 71, said: There\u2019s a total media blackout at the moment so we are getting no information<\/p>\n<p>All I know is Tim got a call to go on stand by to go to the caves by the Thai Naval Seals and he had to send the measurements of his shoulders because they didn\u2019t know if his shoulders were too big to go in there.<\/p>\n<p>Then he got the call to go to (Chiang Rai)\u00a0they picked him up to go to the airport, apparently they are in excellent accommodation.<\/p>\n<p>He was told there were 55 naval seals in Team One and in Team Two, which he was to be part of, was the supply team with 20 ex-Naval Seals and two Westerners &#8211; Tim and his mate who is a Spaniard.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Meet the British divers helping craft a plan in the Thailand cave rescue\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/N3B154ntNFk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<p>Full Story<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2018\/07\/09\/meet-seven-british-divers-playing-leading-roles-thai-cave-rescue\/\">https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2018\/07\/09\/meet-seven-british-divers-playing-leading-roles-thai-cave-rescue\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0Roland Oliphant\u00a0Helena Horton\u00a0Courtesy Telegraph UK It is\u00a0the most challenging underground rescue in history,\u00a0and Thai authorities have drafted in more than 90 of the world&#8217;s finest special forces soldiers. But the spearhead of the Thai cave rescue operation has depended on seven British civilians who learnt their craft exploring the chilly waters of abandoned mines and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}