Thai boys trapped in cave were sedated with ketamine

Young football team and their 25-year-old coach were rescued from the Tham Luang cave complex after heavy rain trapped them inside

The 12 boys who were trapped in a Thai cave last summer were given ketamine to help protect them from hypothermia during the nerve-wracking rescue.

The boys were given unspecified doses of the drug by rescue divers as they were taken out of Tham Luang cave, according to details of the rescue released in a medical journal on Thursday.

The young football team and their 25-year-old coach were rescued from the Tham Luang cave complex after heavy rain trapped them inside last June.

They had been in the cave for nine days when British divers discovered them huddled on a ledge.

They were eventually rescued by a team of around 100 divers as well as volunteers as part of a massive and precarious international rescue mission – racing against time as more heavy rain was expected.

They were evacuated from the cave over a period of three days by a large team and were all out by 10 July after being trapped in the cave for 18 days. The boys were part-sedated and transported on special stretchers through the network of passages.

While reports at the time suggested they were sedated during the operation, officials provided few details.

In a joint letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, three Thai medics and an Australian anaesthetist who was involved in the rescue said the boys also wore full-face masks supplying oxygen and poorly fitting wetsuits.

Rescuers wrote oxygen levels were falling and they needed to keep the boys from developing hypothermia, so they gave them “unspecified doses” of ketamine and a face mask filled with oxygen.

Ketamine is an anaesthetic that has soothing effects. It also narrows blood vessels, which reduces shivering, and can avert large dips in a person’s core temperature, making it a “good choice” for patients at risk of hypothermia, the authors said.

All 12 members of the Wild Boars football team and their coach survived the high drama operation.

But, one diver, former Thai Navy Seal Saman Kunan, died after running out of air while returning from an operation to deliver oxygen tanks to the cave.