The boy whose grinning face was beamed around the world when a football team was found alive in a flooded Thai cave has died in Britain.
Duangpetch Promthep was the captain of the Wild Boars soccer team that was trapped for more than two weeks before their miraculous rescue in 2018.
News of his death was shared on social media on Wednesday after he was reportedly found unconscious in a dorm room at a soccer academy.
The 17-year-old, better known as ‘Dom’, was on a scholarship at the Brooke House College Football Academy in Leicestershire.
There were reports from Thailand that Dom had suffered a head injury, while the BBC reported he had fallen ill unexpectedly.
The BBC said he was discovered in the dorm on Sunday and taken to hospital, where he died on Tuesday (local time).
Dom was one of a dozen boys who were rescued by international divers – including Australians – and Thai navy SEALs in a seemingly impossible extraction that captured huge global attention.
His beaming, emaciated face, which was illuminated by torch when the group was found, was one of the most memorable images of the rescue.
A Buddhist monk who taught the boys in Thailand’s northern Chiang Rai province shared the heartbreaking news on social media.
“Duangpetch Promthep has now gone to another world,” Supatpong Methigo posted on Facebook.
“I hope he will be reborn and become my student again in the next life.”
Supatpong said he learned of the boy’s death from his grandmother who told him Dom had suffered an unspecified accident in Britain.
His death was confirmed on Facebook by the non-profit Zico Foundation, which helped him acquire a scholarship to study in England.
Former Thai national team captain and coach, Kiatisuk Senamuang, whose foundation helped secure the British scholarship, described him as a polite, kind gentleman who dreamt of playing for his country.
“I wanted to see his dream realised … but rest well now Dom,” he posted on Instagram.
In June 2018, the boys, aged 11-16 and their 25-year-old assistant coach set off to explore the Tham Luang cave complex for just an hour, but ended up trapped by flood waters.
They were found nine days later in a flooded chamber 4 kilometres from the entrance of the caves.
Their complicated extraction started six days later in an unprecedented operation during which a retired Thai diver died.
Their rescue gripped the world and drew on the expertise of hundreds of people including Australian divers Richard Harris and Craig Challen.
The divers were later named Australians of the Year in 2019.
The rescue was initially led only by Thailand’s navy SEALs.
But when the sheer difficulties of the effort became obvious, they turned to international rescuers and cave explorers, and crucially, cave diving experts, including Dr Harris and Dr Challen, for the massively complicated rescue that took three days and involved hundreds of people.
Former navy diver Sergeant Saman Kuman died during the rescue operation. and Petty Officer 1st Class Bayroot Pakbaralater later died from a blood infection incurred during the rescue.
The operation required placing oxygen canisters along the path where the divers manoeuvred dark, tight and twisting passageways filled with muddy waters and strong currents.
Once rescued, the boys were invited to attend a Manchester United match and their story was the subject of books, documentaries and films, and most recently, the Netflix series Thai Cave Rescue.
