Captain of Soccer Team in Famous Thai Cave Rescue Dies at 18
One of the 12 miracle boys who survived nearly three weeks trapped in a cave in Thailand in 2018 has died at a soccer academy in the United Kingdom. His cause of death has been deemed an “accident” tied to a head injury, according to the BBC.
Authorities have not confirmed whether it happened on or off the soccer pitch.
Duangpetch Promthep, 18, known to his friends as Dom, became the public face as captain of the Wild Boar boys’ soccer team after their miraculous rescue from a flooded cave on June 23, 2018. He announced in August 2022 that he had been accepted to the Brooke House College Football Academy in Leicestershire, writing on social media, “Today my dream has come true. I will be a football student in Britain. I am grateful to everyone that helped with the scholarship to study overseas. I promise I will study hard and do my best.”
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Six months later, soccer star Kiatisuk “Zico” Senamuang, whose Zico Foundation had funded Promthep’s soccer academy through a scholarship, announced the teen’s death on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/ZicoFoundation/photos/a.570505556370338/5984620581625448/?type=3
Promthep, who turned 13 inside the cave, was one of the first faces rescuers saw when they finally found the lost team and their coach after a sudden rainstorm flooded the Tham Luang cave, sending the group further underground where they survived in a dark pocket of air. More than 10,000 people searched the area and labyrinth of underground tunnels for the team for nine days before divers found them.
Their bicycles at the mouth of the cave became a symbol of the saga. The 25-year-old coach kept them calm through meditation to use as little air as possible. When they were finally found, rescuers took another week to devise a rescue plan, during which one rescuer, who was a Thai Navy seal, died. The boys were given letters from their families and encouraged to write back until they could be rescued.
“I’m alright, just that the weather may be a little bit too cold, but don’t worry,” Promthep wrote to his parents. “Don’t forget my birthday party.”
The boys were finally sedated with Ketamine and removed one-by-one. Several books and a Netflix series has chronicled their saga.
In Thailand, Promthep’s mother mourned his death at the Wat Doi Wao temple in Chiang Rai, where he grew up. Several of the boys rescued with him left memorial notes, according to ABC News Australia.
“You told me to wait and see you play for the national team, I always believe that you would do it,” wrote Prachak Sutham, a fellow survivor of the cave. “When we met the last time before you left for England, I even jokingly told you that when you come back, I would have to ask for your autograph. Sleep well, my dear friend. We will always have 13 of us together.”
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