Thai boys were calm in cave before rescue became a calamity
MORE details have emerged about the medication given to the Thai boys as a former Navy SEAL revealed how the rescue mission nearly turned into a disaster.
THE anti-anxiety medication given to the 12 boys saved from a flooded cave in Thailand would have been administered to stop them panicking during the dive says GP and former AMA president Dr Steve Hambleton.
Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha revealed the boys had been administered an anxiolytic medication, a class of drugs that include sedatives like Valium, Serapax and Xanax.
Dr Hambleton said the greatest risk during the hazardous rescue mission was that the boys might panic during the dive.
“These kids couldn’t swim, they were in a hostile environment and had no visibility,” he said.
“If one of them had panicked, ripped their mask off, got a little bit of water in their mask and taken a big breath it would have all been over,” Dr Hambleton said.
It was likely the doctors would have tested the drugs on the boys before the dive to make sure they were not too powerful and sent them to sleep.
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“The drugs would have made the boys feel calmer, they would have reduced the likelihood of them getting anxious while in the water,” he said.
Anxiolytics, or anti-anxiety drugs, are a category of drugs used to prevent anxiety and treat anxiety related to several anxiety disorders.
These drugs tend to work rather quickly.
They work by targeting key chemical messengers in the brain and this is thought to help decrease abnormal excitability.
The news of what medication the boys were given comes as more details emerged about the final moments of the rescue mission.
Water pumps failed, and Commander Chaiyananta Peeranarong heard shouts of alarm as the final stage of an unprecedented operation to rescue the boys and their coach from a flooded cave almost tipped into disaster.
The former Navy SEAL, 60, said the mission, which leaned on the expertise of elite foreign divers and Thai Navy SEALs, nearly turned into a calamity.
Shortly after the last four boys and the 25-year-old coach were brought out Tuesday late afternoon, the water pumps failed in an area between two chambers, filling them with water as 20 rescuers remained inside.
“Suddenly the Australian guy who was overseeing that area started shouting that the water pump had stopped working,” Chaiyananta told AFP.
“If you didn’t use the water pump in that location, you could only come out with an oxygen tank,” he said, adding the remaining people did not have diving gear to hand.
“By the time the last diver was out the water was already at head level, almost to the point where he needed an oxygen tank.” Heavy rains had flooded the Tham Luang cave blocking the football team in after they first entered on June 23.
Thailand’s junta leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha on Tuesday said the boys were given a “minor tranquiliser” to keep them calm.
But Chaiyananta, whose job was to help transfer the kids along between chambers two and three, said they were all “sleeping” on the harrowing journey out.
“We just needed them to know how to breathe and not panic in the water,” he said.
Footage released by the SEAL team showed seemingly prone boys -- at least one in full diving mask and wetsuit -- being stretchered along the jagged passageways.
Doctors, divers and other rescuers were posted along the twisting corridors monitoring the boys as they were passed through using a system of ropes, pulleys and rubber piping.
Originally published as Thai boys were calm in cave before rescue became a calamity