Posted: 2023-02-15 08:20:25

Duangpetch Promthep, who was rescued from a Thai cave in 2018 along with 11 other boys and their football coach, has died in England.

He was found unconscious in his dorm on Sunday and died in hospital on Tuesday local time, people in his home town told the BBC. 

Promthep, also known as Dom, enrolled in the Brooke House College Football Academy in Leicester late in 2022.

The Zico Foundation, a Thai non-profit organisation that helped him get a scholarship to study in England, posted condolences on Facebook.

At age 13, he was the captain of the Wild Boars football team, which was trapped along with the squad's assistant coach for two weeks in the Tham Luang Nang Non — "the cave of the reclining lady" — in Chiang Rai.

The boys, who were between 11 and 16 years of age, were 4 kilometres inside the fourth-largest cave system in Thailand when rising floodwaters cut off their escape.

Their rescue was followed around the world. 

It took a multinational team of cavers and Thai navy SEALs more than a week to find them, after exploring 10 kilometres of passages that were as small as 38 centimetres high.

Assistant coach Ekkapol Chanthawong was emaciated, after sacrificing his share of what food they had. 

As carbon dioxide levels built up towards dangerous levels and pumps fought the monsoon season around the clock to clear the cave, rescuers coached the boys and built up their strength.

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