CHIANG RAI: The Wild Boars footballers and their coach will be released from hospital on Thursday, but they will face new challenges as they adjust to daily life again.
"We need to prepare both the children and their families for the attention they will receive when they come out," Public Health Minister Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn said on Saturday.
The boys and their coach are making a good recovery from their 18-day ordeal, both physically and mentally, Dr Piyasakol told reporters.
The group became stranded by floodwaters in the Tham Luang cave in Mae Sai on June 23, touching off a search effort involving hundreds of people, with a global media audience of millions hanging on every development in the drama. The actual extraction took three days with the last group brought out last Tuesday.
The boys and their coach greeted the world for the first time from Chiang Rai Prachanukroh Hospital on Saturday in a video clip released by the Public Health Ministry.
Each of them took turns thanking their Thai and international rescuers, as well as the world community, for saving and supporting them. All confirmed that they felt fine and could now eat normal food.
Asked what menus they had in mind now, most chose rice topped with spicy crispy pork and basil (khao pad krapao moo krob).
Adul, the Myanmar-born player who acted as a translator for his teammates, spoke in Thai and English and showed a sketch he drew of his team in the cave. He said he was looking forward to KFC chicken.
In addition to the rescue teams, coach Ekkapol Chantawong thanked authorities, as well as doctors and nurses at the hospital, for taking very good care of him and his players.
Dr Piyasakol offered a prognosis for the boys, saying: “Psychologists have been talking to the kids, with the kids, their mental well-being is good today
“Even though they are about to leave in the days ahead ... they aren't as strong as a normal person, they still need to rest and improve their health, and body.”
A hospital statement said that as the boys continue to recover, they remain susceptible to infectious disease. To avoid mental stress, they should spend at least the next month only with family and friends, avoiding media encounters that might trigger post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, it said.
- Commentary: Leave the boys alone
Meanwhile, more details continued to emerge of the complicated and risky rescue operation from some of the participants who have now returned to their home countries..
In a posting on his Facebook page, Australian physician and diver Richard Harris recounted his team’s involvement and paid tribute to the others involved.
“By the time we arrived on site, local divers like Ben Reymenants and the awesome foursome from Britain (John Volanthen, Rick Stanton, Jason Mallinson and Chris Jewell) had already been doing the most extraordinary dives through the cave and laying the very robust rope which made all subsequent dives to the soccer team not only possible, but safe. The efforts and skill of these guys in blazing this trail cannot be underestimated,” he wrote.
Dr Harris singled out many more participants for praise as he described the days of delicate preparations that preceded the extraction from the cave.
“And all this time 4 brave Navy Seals sat with the Wild Boars knowing they were in as much danger as the kids,” he wrote.
British rescue diver John Volanthen, meanwhile, gave an interview to BBC Points West about the moment he and his colleagues first discovered the children alive.
He said they knew they had found them due to the smell in the cave.
The second video of the boys rescued from the flooded Tham Luang cave is released on Saturday. (Video by Chiangrai Prachanukroh Hospital)