At 13, he had survived more than two weeks in a cave with his friends, coming out alive in a spectacular rescue operation that involved hundreds of divers and made headlines around the world. Today, five years later, he died at the age of 18 from what was initially defined as a “head accident” (unspecified for now) thousands of kilometers from his home town of Chiang Rai, in the United Kingdom which some months it had become home. They found him unconscious in his dormitory on Sunday, took him to the hospital and tried in vain to save him. Police say they are not treating his death as ‘suspicious’.
Duangpeth Promthep known as “Dom”, the captain of the football team of the “Moo Pa”, the “Boars”, who in 2018 were trapped for 18 days in the Tham Luang quarry in Thailand keeping millions of people in suspense, died from reasons yet to be clarified while in England. His former partner Prachak Sutham wrote on social media: «You told me I would see you play in the national team, I always believed you would make it. When we last met before you left for England, I told you I’d ask for your autograph. Rest in peace my friend, the 13 of us will always be together.” And also Chanin Viboonrungruang, the little “Titan” of that adventure, remembered him like this: “Brother, you told me that we would have crowned the football dream… if there is a world after this, I want to play with you again” .
Duangpeth had moved to Leicestershire last autumn after winning a Zico Foundation scholarship to attend Brooke House College Football Academy. He played in attack, continued to pursue the dream of becoming a footballer and are Instagram he posted photos of himself on the pitch and in class, often accompanied by the hashtag #footballismylife. Under the post in which he announced the move to England, he replied to a comment from his father who encouraged him: “Don’t worry dad, I’ll study hard”.
One day treading the fields of the Premier League, perhaps right in Leicester (owned by a Thai family like Dom), seemed almost within reach for a boy capable of a more complex undertaking: resisting for 18 days on the bottom of a quarry 4 kilometers longwhere together with 11 teammates (aged 11-16) and the 25-year-old coach were caught in floodwaters during an ill-advised outing after a training session in June 2018.
In those days, together with the television cameras in Thailand and then from all over the world, amid the desperation of the families and the prayers of the monks, the dewatering pumps and over 100 local and international military divers arrived at the mouth of the cave.
Among them were Rick Stanton and John Volanthen, the Coventry fireman and Bristol computer engineer who were fond of dark cave diving, whose contribution proved to be fundamental.
The boys were reached after about ten days and it was discovered that miraculously they were all alive, but to get them out it was necessary to immerse them in water and mud for hundreds of meters, and many of them didn’t even know how to swim. Dom, as captain, followed the coach’s instructions and encouraged his teammates to resist and not give up: soon, he reassured them, they would be pulled out of there.
Pressed by the risk of a new flood – and after the death of a Thai diver, Saman Gunan, in the preparation operations – it was decided to take the risk and take them out like this, equipped as subs but sedated by ketamine: all 13 survived, ensuring the cave the pilgrimage of millions of tourists and a happy ending to films and TV series, ready since 2018 to secure that already written screenplay (from which they were taken The Rescue in 2021, but above all Thirteen Lives in 2022 directed by Ron Howard, and last fall the miniseries Thai Cave Rescue on Netflix). An ending that didn’t include a tragedy after the end credits.