ATLANTA, Ga. — A local expert on the culture of swimming in Thailand sat down with Channel 2's Rikki Klaus as Thai Navy SEALs gear up to rescue the remaining soccer team members trapped in a cave.
Dr. Michael Linnan of Brookhaven is an expert on why many Thai children don’t know how to swim like the soccer players trapped in a flooded cave in northern Thailand. He says it starts with mothers with good intentions.
“They leap to the assumption that if a child learns to swim, they’ll seek out water to play in,” Linnan said.
They regard that as dangerous. But the retired epidemiologist who lived in Thailand for years says drowning is one of kids’ top two leading causes of death.
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“Water is ubiquitous there, and in rural areas, the drowning rate is astonishing,” Linnan said.
In a rural cave, water cut off the Wild Boars soccer team from the outside world on June 23. By Monday, expert scuba divers had led eight children through winding cave passages to safety. They’ve been holding swimming and diving lessons in the cave.
“It’s dark. It’s a scary environment. You’ve been trapped there for a while, and you’re going to have to put on this unfamiliar apparatus, learn to control your anxiety,” Linnan said.
Linnan understands why it’s so difficult to rescue the remaining four kids and their 25-year-old coach.
“I’m a scuba diver as well as a doctor, so I have a technical understanding of all of the risks involved, and it’s a really, really hazardous endeavor to get those kids out,” Linnan said.
Linnan helped set up swimming lessons across the country through the Alliance for Safe Children.
Now, he says pools are required in each new school.