Originally published 2018-07-17.
Photo: Thai Navy SEAL / Facebook
Saman Kunan, often written Saman Gunan in English reports, was a former Royal Thai Navy SEAL who volunteered for the 2018 rescue of a youth football team trapped in Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand. On the night of 5 July 2018, while returning from a dive to place air tanks along the flooded route, he lost consciousness underwater. Fellow divers brought him out, but he was pronounced dead at about 1 a.m. on 6 July. He was 37, though some early reports gave his age as 38. Days later, all twelve boys and their coach were brought out alive, and Saman became the face of the sacrifice behind that success.
The team trapped in Tham Luang
On Saturday 23 June 2018, twelve members of the Wild Boars junior football team, aged 11 to 16, entered the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system in Chiang Rai province with their 25-year-old assistant coach, Ekkaphon Kanthawong. It was meant to be a short trip after practice. Heavy monsoon rain flooded the passages behind them and cut off the way out.
For nine days nobody knew whether they were alive. On 2 July, British cave divers Richard Stanton and John Volanthen surfaced in a flooded chamber and found all thirteen sitting on a muddy ledge, a few hundred metres beyond the chamber known as Pattaya Beach and more than 2 kilometres from the entrance. Finding them was only half the problem. The route back was long, dark, cold and partly underwater, and most of the boys could not swim, let alone dive.
The operation grew into one of the largest rescues of its kind. By most counts around 10,000 people took part, including more than 100 divers, hundreds of police officers, about 2,000 soldiers and volunteers from many countries. Pumps removed huge volumes of water while teams searched the mountain above for other openings.
Who Saman Kunan was
Photo: Thai Navy SEAL / Facebook
Saman had served in the Navy SEALs and left the force in 2006. By 2018 he worked in security at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport, but he kept close ties with former comrades and stayed extremely fit. Friends and family described a keen cyclist and runner who took part in endurance events and enjoyed charity rides.
When the news broke, he travelled north to offer his skills. Before he set off, he recorded a short video in which he said he wanted to "bring the boys back home", a line that was widely shared after his death. He joined the Thai SEAL teams working inside the cave, where his job was to carry supplies deep into the system.
What happened on 5 and 6 July
Photo: Royal Thai Army
Air was the most urgent supply. Oxygen levels in the chamber where the boys sheltered were falling, and the extraction plan depended on hundreds of full diving cylinders being staged along the route. Saman's team was laying out those tanks. According to the official account, he set off from one of the chambers on the evening of 5 July, completed his delivery, and lost consciousness on the way back. His dive partner tried to revive him and brought him out, but he could not be saved.
His death shocked the rescuers and the country. It also showed how dangerous the route was even for trained divers in good health, and it influenced the decision to move quickly before more rain arrived. The Thai Navy SEALs posted a tribute promising to finish the mission he had died for.
The rescue that followed
On 8 July a mixed team of international cave divers and Thai SEALs began bringing the boys out one at a time. Each boy was sedated by Australian anaesthetist Dr Richard Harris so he would not panic underwater, then guided through the flooded sections by a diver, with others waiting at stations along the way. Four boys came out on 8 July, four on 9 July, and the last four with their coach on 10 July. All were treated in hospital and recovered.
Shortly after leaving hospital, most of the boys were briefly ordained as novice monks, a traditional Buddhist act of merit that was reported to be partly in Saman's memory.
Honours, family and a second loss
Photo: Thai Navy SEAL / Facebook
Saman's body was flown home on a military aircraft. He received a royally sponsored funeral and was posthumously promoted to lieutenant commander. A large bronze statue designed by the artist Chalermchai Kositpipat now stands near the cave entrance, showing him with thirteen wild boars at his feet, one for each person he helped to save.
Image: BBC
His wife, Waleeporn, spoke to the BBC soon after his death about the man she married: affectionate, energetic, generous with his time. She said they told each other they loved one another every day, and that he would send messages to check she had eaten lunch. Remembering how he used to say nobody knows when death will come, she said the lesson was that "we need to cherish every day".
Photo: Chiang Rai Times
The rescue claimed a second life. In December 2019 the Thai Navy announced that another SEAL, Petty Officer Beirut Pakbara, had died of a blood infection he contracted during the operation, after more than a year of treatment.
How the story has been told since
The rescue has been retold many times: in the feature film The Cave (2019), the National Geographic documentary The Rescue (2021), Ron Howard's film Thirteen Lives (2022) and Netflix's Thai Cave Rescue series (2022). Most of them give Saman's death a central place, because it captures what was at stake.
His story also corrects a common myth: that the rescue was the work of a few heroic divers. In reality it relied on thousands of people, from farmers who let their fields flood to volunteers who cooked for the crews and engineers who ran the pumps. Saman was one of them, and his choice to help strangers' children, without being asked, is why he is remembered.
Sources: Wikipedia: Tham Luang cave rescue; interview with Waleeporn Kunan by BBC News (July 2018); reporting by USA Today and Shared (2018). Photos: Thai Navy SEAL Facebook page, Royal Thai Army, BBC and Chiang Rai Times.
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