After the cave rescue

[HHTel]

I guess it probably was a 'no win' 'no fee' basis. However, the judge can still award him Musk's costs!

UK proceedings are pending and being prepared.

There is also talk of suing him in Thailand.

The huge claim of 190 mill came from the lawyers. Initially, Unsworth was suing for 70K being the minimum to get to court.

I gather the defence was that as Unsworth is respected throughout the world, his reputation remains intact and as such he wasn't defamed! Also the reputation of Thailand and the sex industry was considered reasonable background for the comments from Musk.

N.B. One of the jurors owns two Tesla cars.

[Lost]

Thirteen Lives. The legendary Ron Howard (apollo 13, a beautiful mind) is movifying the cave rescue. With a handful of stars in the mix too, it should be well worth a watch. Production started in March with the expected release date summer 2022.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/deadline.c ... 12218/amp/

[PeteC]

I put this here just as reference as I don't think we've seen a cave map before.

https://thethaiger.com/entertainment-2/ ... themselves

201e4de3960eb3a4924c99f8d90c4976.jpeg (113.29 KiB) Viewed 2395 times

[Scout]

I’m about half way through the recently released Netflix limited series “Thai Cave Rescue”. It’s 6 episodes long, available in a variety of languages, including English. I’m really enjoying it !

[Big Boy]

Reports are just coming in that one of the rescued boys has died today in an accident. Nothing to substantiate the report yet.

[Big Boy]

This was published by KIhaosad English an hour ago:

Duangpetch "Dom" Promthep, one of the 13 'Wild Boars" rescued from Tham Luang Cave in Chiang Rai province back in 2018, has died in "an accident" in England, said Supatpong Methigo, a monk who taught him in Chiang Rai on Wednesday. Duangpetch was on a sports scholarship in England. The exact cause of death is still not known as of press time.

[Dannie Boy]

This was published by KIhaosad English an hour ago:

Duangpetch "Dom" Promthep, one of the 13 'Wild Boars" rescued from Tham Luang Cave in Chiang Rai province back in 2018, has died in "an accident" in England, said Supatpong Methigo, a monk who taught him in Chiang Rai on Wednesday. Duangpetch was on a sports scholarship in England. The exact cause of death is still not known as of press time.

Very sad news - exact cause unknown, but a head injury has been reported.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64646039

[HHTel]

https://thethaiger.com/news/national/th ... qhRHU5WPsE

KhaoSod reports that Dom fell and hit his head on the ground in England. First aid attempts were made, however, Dom passed away shortly afterward, reports KhaoSod.

[PET]

WEll this is after the cave rescue and very sad, because the 17 year old captain of the football team , who last year was awarded a scholarship to a football school academy in Leicestershire died in the last day or so from head injuries - the report gave no further details but I am sure they will be available soon.

I remember him being interviewed and he was really a nice boy RIP

[Lost]

How incredibly sad. Miraculously survives the cave event only to be killed in an accident not many years later. Life can be cruel.

[caller]

The Times has an article about this poor boy. Copied in full because of paywall. Very sad.

Hollywood got a happy ending — then a Thai cave boy killed himself
How the military junta failed to prioritise Duangphet Phromthep’s welfare over its push for good publicity

For a few weeks in 2018, Duangphet “Dom” Phromthep became one of the most famous people in the world, as captain of the Thai boys’ football team trapped in a flooded cave.

In the year following their incredible rescue, Duangphet, who had his 13th birthday while in the cave, was paraded in front of the world’s media by a government keen to capitalise on the operation’s feelgood factor.

Subsequently he received a football scholarship to a British boarding school, but at the age of 17 was discovered hanging in his room in February. He died two days later. An inquest last week ruled that he had died by suicide.

A team-mate of Duangphet’s on the Wild Boars who had also been rescued from the cave had continued to talk to him in Britain, and revealed he had been stressed over the notoriously difficult International English Language Testing System (Ielts) exam.

Days before Duangphet left Thailand for the UK, in August last year, he told The Times that he felt uneasy about all the attention and instead directed praise towards his rescuers.
Dr Rebecca Syed, a senior clinical research fellow at Oxford University specialising in child psychiatry, gave advice to on-the-ground mental health workers during the rescue. She had urged the government to keep the boys away from a frenzied press that was bidding for the media rights to their story.

Instead, the children were subjected to a global tour that included being made to clamber through a 33ft-long replica of the cave in front of the world’s media in a shopping mall in Bangkok.

Duangphet was awarded a scholarship by Brooke House College, in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, and upended to a foreign land where, according to Syed, he had notoriety or value because of his trauma.

After his death his body was not repatriated and his mother had to watch his funeral in the UK over a video feed before a box containing his ashes was sent back to Thailand.

Even while the 12 boys and their coach were still trapped, the Tourism Authority of Thailand had announced plans to turn the site, Tham Luang, into a travel destination. A cottage industry sprang up soon after.

Media outlets fought for the rights to the boys’ story, with Netflix securing the contract to produce a drama series and Ron Howard directing a film, Thirteen Lives, which was released last year.

Initially Thai officials followed a recommendation made by Syed that the boys — who had endured an 18-day ordeal after the early monsoon season trapped them in the cave during a day trip — should be left alone.

After one team interview with a Thai broadcaster, they announced a six-month ban preventing media access, enforced by a governmental task force called the creative media committee.

However, the feelgood factor brought by the rescue — despite the death of a Thai navy diver during the operation — came at a favourable time for the junta, which had taken power in a 2014 coup, and it called for a long-delayed election to take place in 2019. The boys were sent by the creative media committee to Argentina, the US, the UK and Japan for a media tour.

After fierce bidding for the media rights, the boys’ families were said to have been promised three million baht (about £69,000) each. The amount the government received has never been disclosed.

Syed, who lived in Bangkok at the time, said: “I was quite strong in my advice that they should be left alone but understand that this was difficult to enforce in a rural place.

“I said: ‘Allow these boys to use their usual support networks and return to their lives, communities and friendship groups’. The strategy is watchful waiting, to allow use of their usual coping strategies and skills and watch very much in the background, then if problems do start to emerge, we can intervene with an evidence-based approach.

“Most of the time, especially with non-interpersonal trauma, such as natural disasters, it’s not the trauma itself but the response to it that might be more problematic.

“At the time, the international media were pouring into the country with rumours of suitcases of cash and being quite aggressive in their approach to the families. I think the government were put in a difficult position and they thought: ‘If the media is going to be so aggressive then we should try and manage it.’ ”

Duangphet joined the Wild Boars as an eight-year-old striker and dreamt of playing for his country.

After the rescue his football mentor, Kiatisuk “Zico” Senamuang, Thailand’s former national captain, arranged the scholarship to Britain through his charity, the Zico Foundation.

Delayed for two years by Covid, Duangphet set off in September last year. Before leaving, during a press call with the foundation, The Times’s reporter was told by Duangphet that he didn’t want to discuss the cave.

Appearing shy and speaking in Thai, he said the move made him feel anxious but he believed he could adapt. He said his life had changed as he now had many followers on social media but added that he was uneasy with all the attention, saying: “I’m just the one who got rescued. The work was all done by the rescuers. It’s not my place to be praised.”

Before leaving he asked for advice from Adul Samon, the only Wild Boar who spoke English at the time of their rescue and who was then studying in the US.

Adul told The Australian that the team were shocked by his death. “It was really hard to accept because I’d just talked to him,” he said. “What could have happened to him?”

Duangphet had continued to reach out to Adul for advice from Britain, and the two had talked in the weeks before he died. He was stressed about the Ielts exam, Adul said.

“The minute I heard that I was like: ‘No way, this is so hard, Dom. You just got there.’ I knew his English level and how hard the Ielts test is, so I was surprised the school didn’t know Dom’s English wasn’t ready.

“I guess it must have been a very difficult time for him. He had to adjust to the environment, new team-mates, the language.”

A clinical psychologist in Chiang Rai who was part of the team that saw the boys after the rescue, providing regular follow-ups for two years then annual checks, said Duangphet never liked the spotlight.

The clinician, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “Dom never wanted to be outstanding, never wanted to be in public focus. He didn’t like all the attention or people asking about him. He felt his privacy was being invaded.

“Nobody can say it was a mistake [for him to be given the scholarship]. We still don’t know what happened in the days before he ended his life.” They added that his family still had not received the phone he was using in the UK.
His mother, Noy, told The Australian: “If I could turn back time I would not allow him to go because he was happy in Chiang Rai.

“I asked the coach if Dom would need to study English before he left and he said, ‘No, they only need vocabulary for football, not for class.’”

On February 12 Duangphet was discovered unconscious in his room and taken to Kettering General Hospital. With a doctor holding a phone to his ear, his mother told him she loved him and whispered Buddhist prayers, but her son could not be revived.

According to The Australian, promised help to bring Duangphet’s body home did not materialise and the family could not afford tickets to Britain or the cost of repatriating his body.

When the school offered to conduct a funeral, his mother accepted.

Syed added: “I feel utterly sick that there was money for the scholarship but no one found the money to fly his body home to his family amidst this background of huge sums of money being traded for media rights.

“I don’t know much about the support the academy offered. They knew he had been through a traumatic experience and had been taken out of his community and away from his family to a foreign place with a different language and culture, to play sport at a different level than he was used to. They had a responsibility to make sure he was properly supported.”

Regarding the funeral, the school said that it “worked closely with the Royal Thai Embassy and other agencies to enable the family’s wishes to be carried out ... before his body was repatriated to Thailand, where the family’s funeral occurred”.

Ian Smith, principal of Brooke House College, said: “Our entire college community remains united in grief with Dom’s family, friends and former team-mates. As a college, the health, wellbeing and welfare of our students is our absolute priority. The coroner also acknowledged the entire college community for the high quality of our student care, welfare and safeguarding, and noted this tragic incident sadly could not have been foreseen or prevented.

“We have robust safeguarding systems in place which enable us to provide appropriate support for students when needed, and we keep these systems under constant review so that we can do everything possible to provide the necessary support to every child.

“Dom will always remain a part of the Brooke House family and will be hugely missed.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/thai ... -s8tmt3pqc

[PET]

The Times has an article about this poor boy. Copied in full because of paywall. Very sad.

Hollywood got a happy ending — then a Thai cave boy killed himself
How the military junta failed to prioritise Duangphet Phromthep’s welfare over its push for good publicity

For a few weeks in 2018, Duangphet “Dom” Phromthep became one of the most famous people in the world, as captain of the Thai boys’ football team trapped in a flooded cave.

In the year following their incredible rescue, Duangphet, who had his 13th birthday while in the cave, was paraded in front of the world’s media by a government keen to capitalise on the operation’s feelgood factor.

Subsequently he received a football scholarship to a British boarding school, but at the age of 17 was discovered hanging in his room in February. He died two days later. An inquest last week ruled that he had died by suicide.

A team-mate of Duangphet’s on the Wild Boars who had also been rescued from the cave had continued to talk to him in Britain, and revealed he had been stressed over the notoriously difficult International English Language Testing System (Ielts) exam.

Days before Duangphet left Thailand for the UK, in August last year, he told The Times that he felt uneasy about all the attention and instead directed praise towards his rescuers.
Dr Rebecca Syed, a senior clinical research fellow at Oxford University specialising in child psychiatry, gave advice to on-the-ground mental health workers during the rescue. She had urged the government to keep the boys away from a frenzied press that was bidding for the media rights to their story.

Instead, the children were subjected to a global tour that included being made to clamber through a 33ft-long replica of the cave in front of the world’s media in a shopping mall in Bangkok.

Duangphet was awarded a scholarship by Brooke House College, in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, and upended to a foreign land where, according to Syed, he had notoriety or value because of his trauma.

After his death his body was not repatriated and his mother had to watch his funeral in the UK over a video feed before a box containing his ashes was sent back to Thailand.

Even while the 12 boys and their coach were still trapped, the Tourism Authority of Thailand had announced plans to turn the site, Tham Luang, into a travel destination. A cottage industry sprang up soon after.

Media outlets fought for the rights to the boys’ story, with Netflix securing the contract to produce a drama series and Ron Howard directing a film, Thirteen Lives, which was released last year.

Initially Thai officials followed a recommendation made by Syed that the boys — who had endured an 18-day ordeal after the early monsoon season trapped them in the cave during a day trip — should be left alone.

After one team interview with a Thai broadcaster, they announced a six-month ban preventing media access, enforced by a governmental task force called the creative media committee.

However, the feelgood factor brought by the rescue — despite the death of a Thai navy diver during the operation — came at a favourable time for the junta, which had taken power in a 2014 coup, and it called for a long-delayed election to take place in 2019. The boys were sent by the creative media committee to Argentina, the US, the UK and Japan for a media tour.

After fierce bidding for the media rights, the boys’ families were said to have been promised three million baht (about £69,000) each. The amount the government received has never been disclosed.

Syed, who lived in Bangkok at the time, said: “I was quite strong in my advice that they should be left alone but understand that this was difficult to enforce in a rural place.

“I said: ‘Allow these boys to use their usual support networks and return to their lives, communities and friendship groups’. The strategy is watchful waiting, to allow use of their usual coping strategies and skills and watch very much in the background, then if problems do start to emerge, we can intervene with an evidence-based approach.

“Most of the time, especially with non-interpersonal trauma, such as natural disasters, it’s not the trauma itself but the response to it that might be more problematic.

“At the time, the international media were pouring into the country with rumours of suitcases of cash and being quite aggressive in their approach to the families. I think the government were put in a difficult position and they thought: ‘If the media is going to be so aggressive then we should try and manage it.’ ”

Duangphet joined the Wild Boars as an eight-year-old striker and dreamt of playing for his country.

After the rescue his football mentor, Kiatisuk “Zico” Senamuang, Thailand’s former national captain, arranged the scholarship to Britain through his charity, the Zico Foundation.

Delayed for two years by Covid, Duangphet set off in September last year. Before leaving, during a press call with the foundation, The Times’s reporter was told by Duangphet that he didn’t want to discuss the cave.

Appearing shy and speaking in Thai, he said the move made him feel anxious but he believed he could adapt. He said his life had changed as he now had many followers on social media but added that he was uneasy with all the attention, saying: “I’m just the one who got rescued. The work was all done by the rescuers. It’s not my place to be praised.”

Before leaving he asked for advice from Adul Samon, the only Wild Boar who spoke English at the time of their rescue and who was then studying in the US.

Adul told The Australian that the team were shocked by his death. “It was really hard to accept because I’d just talked to him,” he said. “What could have happened to him?”

Duangphet had continued to reach out to Adul for advice from Britain, and the two had talked in the weeks before he died. He was stressed about the Ielts exam, Adul said.

“The minute I heard that I was like: ‘No way, this is so hard, Dom. You just got there.’ I knew his English level and how hard the Ielts test is, so I was surprised the school didn’t know Dom’s English wasn’t ready.

“I guess it must have been a very difficult time for him. He had to adjust to the environment, new team-mates, the language.”

A clinical psychologist in Chiang Rai who was part of the team that saw the boys after the rescue, providing regular follow-ups for two years then annual checks, said Duangphet never liked the spotlight.

The clinician, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “Dom never wanted to be outstanding, never wanted to be in public focus. He didn’t like all the attention or people asking about him. He felt his privacy was being invaded.

“Nobody can say it was a mistake [for him to be given the scholarship]. We still don’t know what happened in the days before he ended his life.” They added that his family still had not received the phone he was using in the UK.
His mother, Noy, told The Australian: “If I could turn back time I would not allow him to go because he was happy in Chiang Rai.

“I asked the coach if Dom would need to study English before he left and he said, ‘No, they only need vocabulary for football, not for class.’”

On February 12 Duangphet was discovered unconscious in his room and taken to Kettering General Hospital. With a doctor holding a phone to his ear, his mother told him she loved him and whispered Buddhist prayers, but her son could not be revived.

According to The Australian, promised help to bring Duangphet’s body home did not materialise and the family could not afford tickets to Britain or the cost of repatriating his body.

When the school offered to conduct a funeral, his mother accepted.

Syed added: “I feel utterly sick that there was money for the scholarship but no one found the money to fly his body home to his family amidst this background of huge sums of money being traded for media rights.

“I don’t know much about the support the academy offered. They knew he had been through a traumatic experience and had been taken out of his community and away from his family to a foreign place with a different language and culture, to play sport at a different level than he was used to. They had a responsibility to make sure he was properly supported.”

Regarding the funeral, the school said that it “worked closely with the Royal Thai Embassy and other agencies to enable the family’s wishes to be carried out ... before his body was repatriated to Thailand, where the family’s funeral occurred”.

Ian Smith, principal of Brooke House College, said: “Our entire college community remains united in grief with Dom’s family, friends and former team-mates. As a college, the health, wellbeing and welfare of our students is our absolute priority. The coroner also acknowledged the entire college community for the high quality of our student care, welfare and safeguarding, and noted this tragic incident sadly could not have been foreseen or prevented.

“We have robust safeguarding systems in place which enable us to provide appropriate support for students when needed, and we keep these systems under constant review so that we can do everything possible to provide the necessary support to every child.

“Dom will always remain a part of the Brooke House family and will be hugely missed.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/thai ... -s8tmt3pqc

So now we know the truth and thank you CALLER for this post.
When this all happened I felt there was a lot left to be answered, because DOM was a great boy and I remember so well his interviews after the rescue - his thanks was only to those who rescued him.
So his english was poor but his school Brooke House did not take into account his difficulty with the lelts english test . It should have been obvious to them . And so a wonderful young man was let down by not giving him the extra help he so needed.

[musungu]

RIP DOM you were a wonderful young man but were let down by institutional failure

[caller]

So his english was poor but his school Brooke House did not take into account his difficulty with the lelts english test . It should have been obvious to them . And so a wonderful young man was let down by not giving him the extra help he so needed.

I think He was really let down by the Thai authorities. He should never have been sent, alone, anywhere, especially to somewhere as alien as an educational institute in the middle of England. This obviously came about, irrespective of the source of the sponsorship, because of King Powers ownership of Leicester City.

We don't actually know about his struggles with English, other than via another non-native English speaking friend. I would find it hard to beleive the school would enter him into exams if they knew he had no chance of passing. If for no other reason, that it would reflect badly on them.

I'm sure he must have been under terrible pressure, with the unrealistic expectation of others weighing him down, probably lonely, a long way from and missing his home, family and friends. It's a desperately sad tale and it was very cruel to treat him in this way.

[STEVE G]

I paid for my stepson to go to a Thai boarding school in Khorat which was pretty strict but I would never have been so cruel to have considered sending him to an English one.