Elon Musk Shares Videos of ‘Kid-Sized’ Submarine to Help Rescue Trapped Thai Teens in Cave

The four videos were shared on Musk’s Twitter account when it was announced that four of the 12 boys from the Thai youth soccer team “Wild Boars,” which consists of players aged 11-16, were rescued and rushed to a hospital on Sunday after being trapped inside the cave since June 23.

In the first video that Musk posted online, scuba divers can be seen testing out the submarine at the Palisades Charter High School pool.

The small submarine, which can hold one teen at a time, is carried and escorted by scuba divers under the pool.

In the third video, rescuers simulate how to extract a person inside the mini-submarine as they lift the pod from the pool and onto dry land. The man inside it remains dry despite being submerged for a long period of time.

In the last video, divers simulate how they would maneuver through narrow spaces.

On July 4, Musk expressed his willingness to help the Thai government in rescuing the 12 boys and their 25-year-old coach who have all been trapped inside the miles-long cave for more than 2 weeks.

The 48-year-old entrepreneur brainstormed several ideas to achieve the goal including penetrating the land and pinpointing the group’s location inside the cave via a radar, pumping the water out, and providing heavy-duty battery packs for the rescue operation.

A few days later, Musk tweeted that engineers from SpaceX and Boring Company were sent to Thailand to see if they could offer any help in rescuing the trapped boys.

Musk shared some of the details of the mini-submarine on Saturday.

The path to save the boys proved to be life-threatening as one of the volunteer divers, an ex-Thai Navy SEALs, died while on the rescue mission.

Graphics explaining how the divers managed to rescue the four boys have been circulating on social media.

The soccer team first made contact with rescuers from the United Kingdom last Monday.

It took divers a total of 11 hours to do a round-trip rescue mission from and to the exit point of the cave, South China Morning Post reported. It could take Thai rescuers about four days to rescue all of the remaining team members.

Featured Image (Left) via Twitter / elonmusk, (Right) via Facebook / ThaiSEAL, (Middle) via Twitter / elonmusk