Irish Water Safety honours Jim Warny, rescuer of the Thai junior boys soccer team, in Athlone ceremony

Irish Water Safety honoured Jim Warny, one of the rescuers of the Thai junior soccer team that were trapped in a cave for 18 days, at their conference for members in the Hodson Bay Hotel in Athlone last Saturday 20 October.

Irish Water Safety recognised the extraordinary contribution made by Jim, as a rescue diver to the Tham Luang cave rescue effort earlier this year. Twelve boys, aged 11 to 17 and their 25-year-old assistant coach were rescued in this unprecedented operation exercised to military precision.

On 23 June, the football team were trapped in a flash flood inside Tham Luang, 4km from the cave’s entrance. After days of pumping water from the cave system and a respite from rain, the rescue teams hastened to get everyone out before the next monsoon rain, which was expected to bring a potential 52 mm (2.0 in) of additional rainfall and was predicted to start around 11 July.

Between 8 and 10 July, all of the boys and their coach were rescued from the cave by an international team including Jim who transported the boys through flooded, narrow sections of the cave in the dark using guide ropes, rescuing them all.

The rescue effort involved more than 10,000 people, including over 100 divers, many rescue workers, representatives from about 100 governmental agencies, 900 police officers and 2,000 soldiers, and required ten police helicopters, seven police ambulances, more than 700 diving cylinders, and the pumping of more than a billion litres of water out of the caves.

There was one fatality, Saman Kunan, a 37-year-old former Thai Navy SEAL who died of asphyxiation on 6 July while returning to a staging base in the cave after delivering supplies of air.

Irish Water Safety congratulated Jim on his contribution to this humanitarian achievement by awarding him a SEIKO “Just in Time” Rescue Award.