Captain of 2018 Thai soccer team rescued from cave dies in UK
The captain of the boys’ soccer team that was dramatically rescued after being trapped in a flooded Thai cave for two weeks in 2018 has died. He was 18.
Duangpetch Promthep was found unconscious in his dorm in Leicestershire, UK, on Sunday, and died at the hospital on Tuesday, the BBC reported.
The cause of death has not been confirmed but it is not being treated as suspicious.
The talented player’s passing comes just months after he arrived at Brooke House College Football Academy, where he received a scholarship last summer.
“Today my dream has come true,” he wrote on Instagram in August of the opportunity.
Promthep, who was known as “Dom,” and 11 of his teammates on the Wild Boars youth soccer team made international headlines when they and their coach, Ekkaphon Kanthawong, became trapped in the Tham Luang cave on June 23, 2018.
The boys, all between 11 and 16, and 25-year-old Kanthawong spent nine days without food or light before they were eventually discovered by divers.
The group then spent another several days in the cave before they were sedated and rescued between July 8 and 10.
The harrowing, 18-day ordeal was later chronicled in several books and a Netflix series.
Nearly five years after the miraculous rescue, the BBC confirmed that Promthep’s mother shared news of her son’s death with the Wat Doi Wao temple in Chiang Rai.
The temple subsequently posted a message that read, “May Dom’s soul rest in peace” alongside a photo of the famous soccer team with monks.
Tributes also poured in from Promthep’s former teammates.
“Sleep well, my dear friend. We will always have 13 of us together,” fellow survivor Prachak Sutham wrote..
“Brother, you told me that we would be achieving our football dream… if the next world is real, I want us to play football together again, my brother Dom,” Titan Chanin Viboonrungruang said.
British Ambassador to Thailand Mark Gooding tweeted that he was “saddened” by Promthep’s death.
“My condolences to Dom’s family and friends,” he wrote.
