As the world held its breath after the discovery and daring rescue of 12 boys and their coach in a Thai cave, many people may have wondered – how would you react if faced with adversity?
For the 13 inside the cave, they appeared to be in good spirits after 10 days of complete darkness, in cramped and damp conditions, knowing 10 kilometres filled with murky floodwater and narrow passageways obstructed their release.
Rob Hewitt, a former Navy Seal of 20 years, believes the boys who spent weeks within the Thai cave held on for so long because they were in a team environment. In Hewitt’s opinion having someone around you helps ground you in a survival situation.
“They just need to set small contingency goals for [the boys] now.”
Having that team was something Hewitt did not have when he experienced a similar situation. He clung to life for four days and three nights while adrift off the west coast of New Zealand, after a rip pulled him away from his diving boat in 2006.
He had lost skin and nails but had gained 20 kilograms from absorbing salt water for 75 hours.
Hewitt admits that loneliness was what would have killed him. He tried taking his life several times after two days of being afloat.
Hewitt explains how the experience of 12 boys and their coach differs. “They don’t have to work with their own mindset, when they move into the void they help each other out,” he says. “As soon as the boys got discovered, they would have had another mental push.”
That mental push can be the reason to survive or not survive. Professor Richard Bryant explains how the body responds to to a traumatic situation.
“We're all wired differently in terms of how our brains function and how it's set in terms of how we react,” Professor Bryant tells Insight on an episode about survival. “As a species, we’ve worked out ways to survive; adrenaline is released, and it creates all the body reactions that we need to deal with the threat.”
This second biological response, Professor Bryant says, is meant to regulate the initial reaction once the body decides it doesn’t want to remain in a heightened state of alertness. “We need to settle down so we can actually then regain functioning and do what we need to do.”
Despite being out of the danger zone, Hewitt’s struggles continued long after his discovery.
“I stayed in that high about two days after I got rescued,” he explains. “After four days I slumped, went down into depression, spiritually you drop right down.”
He relied heavily upon his family to bring his spirits back up and hopes people don’t take advantage of what the Thai soccer players have experienced and instead allow them to move forward.
“They just need to set small contingency goals for [the boys] now.”
"The hardest thing for these boys mentally is that they've been in a cage of darkness for weeks, once they get out they are just going to want to jump around and people should let them."
