The last boy and Coach Ekkapol reached the surface in the late afternoon of July 10. The Navy SEALs and the military doctor exited the cave after the last civilian was out.
As the final group was being brought through the cave, a water pipe carrying pumped water broke somewhere in the system. Water levels inside rose rapidly. The personnel in Chamber 3 — approximately 50 people — found their exit route compromised and retreated to higher ground inside Chamber 3 while the situation was assessed. The broken pipe was eventually repaired or bypassed, and the Chamber 3 personnel were able to exit safely. The timing was narrow.
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## The Surface Reception
The scenes outside the cave on each of the three extraction days were documented by the international media that had assembled in enormous numbers at the site. The road approaching the cave mouth had become a staging area for hundreds of journalists, dozens of ambulances, medical tents, and the families of the boys.
The families had been asked to maintain a distance from the ambulances and to allow medical personnel to work without interference. The boys’ conditions — sedated, then recovering from sedation, malnourished, hypothermic, having been underground for more than two weeks — required immediate and uninterrupted medical attention. The boys were transported from the cave entrance directly to ambulances, and from ambulances to helicopters or vehicles for the journey to the Chiang Rai Prachanukroh Hospital.
The hospital had been preparing for days. Isolation wards had been established to prevent any infections the boys might have acquired in the cave from spreading into the hospital population; doctors were also concerned about the possibility that the boys had been exposed to diseases carried by the cave environment, including bat-borne pathogens. The boys were held in a degree of medical isolation in the initial days after their rescue, with family visits limited and conducted through windows or at distance, out of an abundance of caution.