Eighteen Days in June
On June 23, 2018, twelve members of the Wild Boars youth soccer team and their coach walked into the Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Thailand's Chiang Rai province. Monsoon rains flooded the passages behind them and trapped the group two and a half miles from the entrance.
Four days later Derek's U.S. Air Force special operations rescue team got the call. They were on a C-130 to Thailand that evening.
The cave was dry when they arrived. Ninety minutes later the water had risen three feet and pushed them back out. Waiting out the rainy season stopped being an option that first night.
No Roadmap
Nothing like this had been done before. The team mapped the cave into numbered chambers and confirmed the boys were in Chamber Nine.
Then they worked the options. Drilling meant boring through 200 meters of limestone. Industrial pumps could not keep up with the monsoon. Leaving the boys in place meant months underground on dwindling oxygen. The only path left was a dive rescue through miles of flooded passages in zero visibility.
Derek and mission commander Maj. Charles Hodges told Thai leadership the truth. Even with every rehearsal and every contingency, they were expecting casualties.
The Plan
The mission commander has said publicly that the framework of the rescue plan came from Derek. Oxygen tanks staged through the chambers. A single guide rope running from the entrance to Chamber Nine. Each boy sedated by a doctor, fitted with a full face mask, and tethered to an experienced cave diver for the trip out.
Before anyone touched the water, the team laid the entire cave out in rope on the ground and made every rescuer walk his route from start to finish. That rehearsal caught planning gaps while there was still time to fix them. Divers practiced in a swimming pool with local kids the same size as the boys in the cave.
Three Days in July
The rescue started on July 8. Four boys came out the first day. Four more came out the second. The last four and their coach came out on the third. Eighteen divers brought all thirteen out alive.
The operation also carried a real loss. Saman Kunan, a former Thai Navy SEAL, died in the cave days earlier while staging air tanks for the mission. Nobody who was there tells this story without his name in it.
What the Rescue Teaches
Derek's keynotes are built on this operation. How to make decisions when there is no playbook. How to tell leadership the truth about risk. Why rehearsal saves lives. How a team keeps its judgment when the whole world is watching.