Then, just 20m or so further on they encounter Jari Huotarinen, exactly as Gronqvist had left him seven weeks earlier. John has been involved in a number of search, rescue, and recovery incidents in the UK, Ireland, France and further afield. Hes an old, single white guy from England whos been traveling or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years, Musk wrote, adding that Unsworth moved in Thailand for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time, according to the lawsuit. When 12 members of a junior soccer team by the name of Wild Boars and their assistant coach decided to explore the Tham Luang caves on June 23, 2018, they never expected it to become an ordeal. As part of an International team, John set a world record for the longest cave diving distance from surface, well over 10km. Rick has deliberately never married or started a family because his work is his whole life, which he touched upon in his June 2021 book Aquanaut: A Life Beneath the Surface The Inside Story of the Thai Cave Rescue. Where is Dr. Richard Harris Now? Looking upset, he explains in the film that he slept badly and is simply not in the right frame of mind for the operation. This is a pocket of air that divers can use during decompression stops, allowing them to get out of the cold water, remove their masks and even eat. Dont miss out on opportunities to do something different, something outside the box, the veteran diver and motivational speaker said during his acceptance for the latter in 2019. ", Listen to Vesa Rantanen and Sami Paakkarinen speaking to Outlook on the BBC World Service, Follow William Kremer on Twitter @williamkremer. Rick Stanton, from Coventry, He was offered free legal services. The lawsuit states that with the tweet, Musk sought to tell the average reader that Unsworths failure to sue at the time was evidence that Unsworth is a pedophile. The Two hours later, after the sediment raised by the first divers had been allowed to settle, three of their friends followed behind. The Tesla founder responded with a series of tweets accusing Mr Unsworth of paedophilia. "I decided to go forward, and that was a very good decision for me. Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox. Equipped with a dry sense of humour and a passing physical resemblance to Hollywood tough guy Vin Diesel, Paakkarinen had been diving longer than any of the others. Then Gronqvist steers a dive scooter towards the surface, towing the body, while Paakkarinen follows to help manouevre it. Mr Musk has made several accusations against Mr Unsworth without evidence, including that he was a "child rapist". In gripping footage, the divers' torches catch the jagged edges of the cave walls. john@volanthen.com, or visit the contact page. However, this incident is nothing but bittersweet for him because he learned his father passed away shortly after the mission came to a positive close on July 10, 2018. Rantanen later found out that while he had been struggling to pass Huotarinen's body, the diver behind him, Jari Uusimaki, was also running into difficulties. Read about our approach to external linking. "If you have to do anything physical - swim harder or faster or anything - that's very dangerous," says Gronqvist. World-renowned for his rescue and recovery work in caves, Stanton had a feeling he would be asked to travel to Plurdalen to retrieve the bodies - he had done a recovery there in 2006 - and had already started to find out what he could. "If we had done a practice run then, things would have been different. The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles federal court Monday, Sept. 17, seeks more than $75,000 in damages and a court order stopping Musk from making further allegations. Avengers references are made, but the way this team is assembled smacks more of Armageddon (especially when one of the cave-divers mentions that he ducked out of a stag party to catch his flight). Unsworth is not a pedophile. Described as not the most domesticated of men, Stanton considers cave-diving to be a thinking activity which Influencers: Profiles of a Partnership 2022, How to Pitch Stories and Articles to IndieWire, Where to Watch This Week's New Movies, from 'Are You There God? Sure enough, before long Stanton received a request for help from the Norwegian police, and two weeks later, he and two other British divers, John Volanthen and Jason Mallinson, clambered into Steinugleflaget. The boys, ages 11-16, were found July 2 by Volanthen and Stanton, according to the lawsuit. Stanton was also part of a team that attempted a cave rescue of Eric Establie, in the Dragonnire Gaud Cave near Labastide-de-Virac in the Ardche region of France, in 2010 which was ultimately unsuccessful. He had trained both the victims and counted them as good friends. Yes, Vasarhelyi and Chin have cobbled together a true life men-on-a-mission movie intense enough that even Michael Bay and Peter Berg should be able to recognize that no mega-budget dramatization could match up to it. 2023 BBC. Video, The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure, Listen to Vesa Rantanen and Sami Paakkarinen, Go to the Diving into the Unknown website, Trump mistrial request denied in NY rape lawsuit, US rock band Aerosmith announce farewell tour, MasterChef Australia host Jock Zonfrillo dies, Explosion derails train in Russian border region, DeSantis-backed board votes to countersue Disney, Father tells how gunman opened fire on Texas home, Street piano confiscated as public 'break rules', NFL player's daughter, aged two, drowns in pool, Russia launches missile attacks on Ukraine. Then in a second email to BuzzFeed, Musk accused Unsworth of being a liar and said he wasnt on the cave dive team. Gronqvist gave him a cylinder of gas to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in his system, but while Huotarinen was switching mouthpieces, he started helplessly swallowing water. A post shared by John Volanthen (@jvolanthen), John seems to be based in Bristol at the moment, where he combines his expertise in electronics and diving to develop safer gear, runs marathons to stay in shape, and continues to explore as much as possible. Later on Twitter, Musk wrote Bet ya a signed dollar its true.. Mr. Thanks to a combination of GoPro video, 87 hours of footage captured by a Thai admirals wife, and brilliant re-creations that were shot with the actual divers in a pitch-black England water tank during COVID and cut into the archival material with surgical precision, the two-week rescue effort seems as if it were staged and storyboarded with this eventual documentary in mind. These two unlikely heroes, along with a handful of other people who are roped into the cause over the course of the movie, feel a personal responsibility to save these kids because they know they might be the only people in the world who are capable of getting the job done. 3' Review: These Intergalactic Weirdos Are the Real Heart of the MCU, 2023 Emmy Predictions: Outstanding Talk Series. They were Finnish divers who knew one another from explorations they had made of the Ojamo mine, west of Helsinki. But this advantage was offset by the fact that the men knew the victims they would be rescuing. Krisher reported from Detroit. The whole operation had taken 101 hours of diving time. It was another six months before the group was told that they would face no charges for their illegal dive. Harper, who had just returned from exploring Thai caves with Unsworth, brought two other divers, John Volanthen and Rick Stanton, to help with the rescue. The film's director, Juan Reina, laughingly agrees that there is little in his film to contradict the national reputation for cool-headed composure. The pair first clashed over Mr Musk's offer of a mini-submarine to help with the cave rescue. (National Geographic) The group held a moment's silence in the beautiful cave. Thai cave rescue: Rick Stanton says he is 'not a hero' The phrase "kaveria ei jateta" - "never leave a friend behind" - was used by Finnish soldiers, who put themselves in grave danger to recover the bodies of fallen comrades during the Winter War against the USSR in 1939-1940. Free Solo filmmakers E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin further cementing their reputation as rock stars of the extreme non-fiction cinema scene with their most absorbing and ingeniously crafted stress-fest to date so intimately embed us with the ragtag team of cave divers who attempted the impossible that we feel worthy of a medal just for watching them do it. "But these two people should never have died in the first place.". John continues to explore and document underwater caves throughout the world. Stanton is on [] He never married and has dedicated his life to cave-diving, in which he has become one of the most accomplished people in the world. The Rescue begins the day after the Wild Boars soccer team and their twentysomething coach have become trapped in the waterlogged recesses of the Tham Luang Nang Non cave after monsoon season arrives a full month early. This time they took no chances. "Last time I didn't know whether to come back up or stay down there," he adds, hinting at what Huotarinen's death has cost him. The Finnish president awarded Gronqvist the First Class Medal of the White Rose of Finland, after he was nominated by his colleagues in the fire service. For this reason, Paakkarinen says they tried to process "all the emotional stuff" in the month leading up to the rescue, so that when the time came they could focus on the task in hand, working almost like robots. Rick has deliberately never married or started a family because his work is his whole life, which he touched upon in his June 2021 book Aquanaut: A Life Beneath the Surface The Inside Story of the Thai Cave Rescue.. Up until the summer of 2018, not many people had heard of Stanton. The three survivors were all hospitalised with decompression sickness. The hero British diver who rescued 12 Thai boys and their football coach from a flooded cave is dating a local nurse, MailOnline can reveal. Retired firefighter Rick Stanton is an almost 60-year-old British man who vaguely resembles the Hound from Game of Thrones, and seems to possess equivalent social graces. cave diver This body was more buoyant and unwieldy than the first, and Paakkarinen came close to disaster when a part of the cave collapsed on him. But The Rescue ultimately isnt as fraught a story of people coming together to save 13 strangers from certain death as it is one about why people cant be moved to save 130 million strangers from a similar fate. Documentary follows the divers who risked it all in the Thailand Living in Bristol, in the UK, John spends his spare time running ultra marathons. Every once in awhile, people are caught by rising water and the conditions can quickly become deadly. The authorities said it was too dangerous to retrieve their bodies, but four friends of the men decided to take the risk - and seven weeks later they descended into the dark and glacial waters. Gronqvist is the first to surface, eventually, in Steinugleflaget, where Vesa Rantanen is waiting to greet him. The men's breathing, the bubbles released from their equipment, and the occasional muffled command complete the soundtrack. The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. Paakkarinen says that he sensed the Norwegian police were pleased that they had recovered the bodies, but "they let us know that we had broken some rules and they had to investigate that". Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. But since leaving high school in the 1980s, hed quietly established himself as the pre Such as watching the Thai Navy Seal footage of the boys as John Volanthen draws on his skills as a father and scout leader to positively encourage the boys in Would they become upset and breathe more quickly, or make a silly mistake that could lead to another tragedy? FILE- In this June 14, 2018, file photo, Tesla CEO and founder of the Boring Company Elon Musk speaks at a news conference in Chicago. A British diver who helped rescue soccer players trapped in a Thai cave is suing Musk, alleging that the Tesla CEO falsely accused him of being a pedophile. He says that while people who have never been cave diving might think it's so dangerous that a few people will inevitably die, with proper training and planning, accidents such as this should never happen to experienced divers. Read about our approach to external linking. He also worked with Mortensen and the other actors to make their movements feel authentic to cave diving. The documents said a separate lawsuit would be filed in England. "He was pivotal to the entire operation," said British diver Rick Stanton. Stephens did not say when Unsworth planned to file a claim in the British courts. Why was Elon Musk at the Thai cave rescue? And when he learned of the soccer team trapped in Tham Luang, he didnt hesitate to call them starting with record-holding cave-diver (and IT consultant) John Volanthen, who becomes his stalwart right-hand man.