The 12 members of the Wild Boars soccer team and their coach subsisted on water that flooded the cave where they were trapped for two weeks — and they now regard the divers who saved them as family, they said at a news conference on Wednesday after finally leaving a hospital and preparing to return to their homes in northern Thailand.
The boys looked to be in good health as they approached the news conference, smiling as they walked and wearing matching green and white jerseys bearing a wild boar. They kicked a soccer ball around for a moment before they were briefly reunited with classmates.
Asked what the moment was like when they finally were found in the cave — and got their first sign of hope — one of the boys, Adul Sam-On, told the media that they had heard a strange noise but that “we were not sure if it was a hallucination.”
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