Rick Stanton, famed for his role in rescuing a team of teenage soccer players trapped in an underground cave in Thailand in 2018, will be sharing tales of that experience and more when he gives two talks in Cayman next week.
Stanton, 62, a former firefighter from Coventry, England, was among a group of veteran cave scuba divers who brought the 12 boys and their coach to safety, after they had been stuck underground in the flooded Tham Luang Nang Non cave system for more than two weeks.
Stanton has been involved in a number of rescues around the world, though the Thai rescue is perhaps the most famous. That rescue gripped TV audiences around the world as they watched with bated breath the boys being brought to the surface. It has been made into a Ron Howard-directed movie, ‘Thirteen Lives’, in which he is played by actor Viggo Mortenson, and a number of documentaries, including ‘The Rescue’ and ‘Thai Cave Rescue’.
During the filming of ‘Thirteen Lives’, which also starred Colin Farrell, Stanton spent two-and-a-half months on set in a technical advisor role.
“The underwater scenes have not been criticised by divers, so I guess we did a good job,” he told the Compass.
Stanton has also written about the cave rescue in his book ‘Aquanaut: A Life Beneath The Surface’.
First visit to Cayman
This will be his first trip to the Cayman Islands, but he said, “I feel I already have a form of connection here because my friend Chris Cooke lived on the island for [12] years and often talked about, or posted pictures from, his extended stay.”
During his visit, he said, he wants to see some of the island from a kayak, “which is my current activity of choice. Plus, of course, check out some of the haunts recommended to me by my absent guide Chris.”
He says he also would like to go diving while here. “If the opportunity arises, then I would most certainly wish to take a look at the underwater world that Cayman has to offer.”
Before coming to Cayman, he’s spending some time in Florida, where, he says, he’s using the time to escape the UK winter and to kayak in the Everglades.
He hasn’t dived in Florida on this trip, even though it is regarded as one of the primary cave diving regions of the world.
“Ocean diving isn’t necessarily my thing,” he said, “even though I have an interest in fish, and I simply love the experience of being underwater.
“I do prefer the challenge of cave diving, yet as I’ve become older, I have become more selective in the dives I undertake and so am less likely to dive ‘for the sake of it’. However, when I do, I always enjoy myself in any underwater realm.”
Stanton will be appearing at a ‘Beyond the Talk’ event at The Vault at the Compass Centre on Thursday and Friday, 11 and 12 Jan. Tickets for 11 Jan. sold out quickly, so a second night has been added to enable more people to hear Stanton’s amazing tales.
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