By sedation, I was thinking more along the lines of a long-acting tranquilizer like Xanax, which would keep them calmer but fully conscious and able to follow directions while they’re being brought out.
Lorazepam (Ativan) is short-acting but also causes a degree of amnesia in many people, which in this case wouldn’t be a bad thing either.
Can someone help clear up some confusion for me?
From reports I have read, those rescue divers going INTO the cave-system are having to battle the force of the water (which I presume is) heading OUT of the caves.
Where is that water coming FROM?
It’s groundwater making its way within the big mountain around and above the cave — water that fell during several small and large rain events over the past couple of weeks.
Thanks JKellyMap.
Is it possible to just bring cylinders of compressed pure oxygen into the boys’ chamber, then open the cylinders one at a time, slowly cracking the valve so as to release a small constant flow of oxygen into the air and boost O2 up by small increments hour by hour?
And also I wonder what is the most powerful carbon-dioxide scrubber that could be feasibly taken into the boys’ chamber?
Normal water carries dissolved air. I wouldn’t be surprised if increased flow improved air quality (assuming they don’t outright drown them out.)
Some of the cylinders shown in other pictures appear to be oxygen cylinders.
Something is afoot; I think they’re going to try something NOW, before the rain comes again and before the coach dies.
I keep thinking what a nightmare this is and how it can still get worse if one of them dies in transit. I have a seriously low bar for what I’m going to consider a “success” here, to be honest.
Yes, pure oxygen could be brought in and vented. It is a bit hard to estimate how much venting a full O[sub]2[/sub] cylinder might raise the overall O[sub]2[/sub] level in the cave. But it would raise the O[sub]2[/sub] level.
There are CO[sub]2[/sub] scrubbers designed for diving. They are commonly used in rebreather systems. But the scrubber chemical is rather bulky so getting enough into the cave to make a difference would be hard. IIRC you would need about 3 five gallon buckets of absorbent per person per day to absorb all the CO[sub]2[/sub] to just hold the CO[sub]2[/sub] level steady. And they would need a means to force air flow across tightly packed canisters of the stuff to get this to work.
Given that CO[sub]2[/sub] dissolves in water it might be more productive to deliver a few air pumps such as are used in aquariums to bubble air through the water. It might help CO[sub]2[/sub] dissolve in the water but would require electricity to power the system.
NASA uses a carbon dioxide removal assembly (CDRA) that essentially uses a molecular sieve to filter out CO[sub]2[/sub] which is vented to space or reacted. If such an assembly could be brought into the cave and powered up it would still require a place to vent the CO[sub]2[/sub].
What about sedating the boys and, when they’re being taken underwater, a rescuer holds the scuba/oxygen/mask thing to their face?
If they get any of them out, alive, it’ll be a miracle. I also wonder how many (more) rescuers are going to lose their lives trying.
Being stuck in a cave, blocked off by water, is my ultimate nightmare. What a horrible situation.
At the narrowest point the divers will have to take off tanks and proceed single file through a restriction about 2ft by 2.5ft in size. Any notion of sedating the teens seems a bit nuts since they will need to be alert to maneuver themselves through this restriction, likely in poor visibility.
uhhh… A kid sized submarine. Submarine suggests it’s full of air. A ‘kid’ sized air filled ‘submarine’ is going to need a shit load of ballast to keep it submerged. Perhaps two divers can handle it. Underwater, But your going to need to have a shit load of weight to keep it submerged. And it’s not just a dive. There are areas that need to be climbed and walked through the cave to get to them. Both going in and out. This idea is gonna take a lot of crew in the cave.
I seem to recall an article saying that some parts of the passage were little more than 2x2 feet in width. Even the smallest of submarines or underwater drones couldn’t fit.
Edit: Ninja’d by Iggy’d.
This looks like an extremely dire situation. I regret my cannibalism quip earlier in the thread. I made it before it became known how much danger the team and their coach are actually in, and in the face of the death of the Navy SEAL, it seems in extremely poor taste. Many of these kids could die in the rescue attempt. I apologize to everybody in this thread.
I thought the water in and around the chamber where the team is waiting was flowing to some degree, so wouldn’t that help with air circulation? Granted, there are 15-plus people in an area that’s the size of, what, a large closet or a small bathroom?
The rescue operation has started.
Fingers crossed they get everyone out alive.
If a boy or diver die in the narrow passageways, that might block the passage for everyone behind to come (?)
Mind that the kids will not be doing this. The way the diagrams I’ve seen and that are being reported suggest–the kids won’t have any tank on themselves at all. Each diver will have two tanks, with a tether to the child and the child will be breathing from a tank that the diver is carrying, so it’ll be only the professional divers that have to carefully know how to manipulate the diving gear.
That in no way means this is going to be safe/easy, but the most complex diving stuff the kids are not going to have to do themselves. They will have to breathe properly in a diving mask, know how to communicate if they get stuck or etc so their paired professional diver knows to help them and etc, lot of points of failure. 
The choke point is relatively near the cave they’ve been staying in, my suspicion is if this happens they will make sure to clear that boy out, but because they’re so close to air they probably have a lot of time to work with. If one of the boys gets stuck they’re going to have a professional diver with him who will try to make sure he keeps calmly breathing while they work to extricate him.
It sounds like the whole operation will take multiple days. I suspect only 1 boy at a time will be getting moved out at all, with probably a relay team of divers who ferry the boy out so that the professional divers are well rested since they’re essentially probably dragging a kid out the entire time. Due to the extensive pumping and getting lucky with the weather, there are a lot of stop areas with air. For example there’s one right past the worst choke point, which then bends back downward into another chokepoint.
If the worst happens and one dies, most likely they clear him out completely. I.e. they take his body out to the surface and they tell the remainders nothing of it–no need to panic them. Since they aren’t bringing all 13 out at once them blocking the way for the person behind them shouldn’t really be an issue.
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