All 12 boys rescued from Thai cave

Yay, some good news!

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Even if the last four rescuers make it out safely one diver already lost his life saving these boys. This is good news but it came at a tragic cost.

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Let’s hope that additional tragedy doesn’t come from this event down the road. I recently listened to a podcast that delved into what the intense media spotlight surrounding these types of rescues can do to people. One of the rescuers of “baby Jessica” couldn’t handle it.

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He sent it to Thailand knowing it would never work for the rescue at all. The divers had to go through portions so narrow they had to take off their tanks and crawl through, how would his sub managed that one?

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Seems like the first thanks should go to the divers who risked their lives to make this happen, and the diver who died in the process.

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Did he? Well shit.

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Great work by the rescuers! All in all seems to have been a very well run operation. While the one fatality is tragic it could have been much, much worse.

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Details! Look at my cool toy! LOOKATIT!

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“If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it’s found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don’t care, but they’re massively outnumbered by the people who do.”
― Andy Weir, The Martian

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Fantastic%20voyage

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We are good about caring for and spending a buttload of money on acute situations. Chronic ones, which affect even more people, not so much.

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I actually know several people who do search and rescue.

One is an EMT, one is a cop who is also certified for rescue diving, and one is career Air Force, she owns a German Shepard trained for search and rescue who also eats kayaks.

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Seems like a reasonable exchange

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So, if we can just get some Thai SEALS here in the US…(or maybe that cryptological animal, the Republican with spine and consistent family values…)

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They didn’t end up needing it. Given the fluidity of the situation (they weren’t even sure the method they used for the rescue would be viable less than a week ago), you want as many options as possible. This isn’t a game, this is the lives of more than a dozen people, with the processes involved already having cost a life.

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It’s built and tested, and can be deployed in the future, presumably.

I fail to see how this is loss.

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Some people just want to stick their tongue out at Elon Musk for “failing”. I have my own criticisms for some of the things he’s done or said but trying to help people in a catastrophic situation and his solution not being needed is not something to cheer. He still tried to directly help, unlike some armchair critics, and whose to say it can’t be used in the future?

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It got there over 22 hours ago. Here’s a quick timeline based on Musk’s Tweets:

  • Musk acknowledged the diver plan made sense in light of the rainfall back on July 7th but proceeded with the pod as a backup plan.
  • According to a screen capture on July 8th, 50 hours ago, the British team’s lead diver Richard Stanton asked him to keep working on the pod, saying “We’re worried about the smallest lad please keep working on the capsule details.” This is at least a day after Musk posted photos of the pod online, so things like overall dimensions would have been well established and would have been known to Stanton. Musk posted this in response to the BBC quoting a Thai official that the pod didn’t suit their needs; Musk tweeted this in defense of the design, citing Stanton as being more knowledgeable about whether it had been worth pursuing.
  • Musk posted photos from the cave, saying the pod was on site in case it might still be useful, 22 hours ago. If I have my timeline correct, the last boys were still in the cave 17+ hours ago.

I see nothing to indicate Musk wasn’t acting in good faith. The pod would not have fit the narrowest section, but there were multiple flooded chambers they had to traverse, and every dive was a risk. They gave the last batch of children anti-anxiety pills; if those had not been enough, the pod would have been available as an alternative to the divers either struggling with a panic-stricken child or risking diving with them more deeply sedated outside the pod.

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