Duangpetch ‘Dom’ Promthe, one of the 12 boys from the Wild Boar team trapped in the caves of Chiang Rai’s Tham Luang in 2018, died this week in Leicestershire, UK.
Dom was the captain of the team of boys trapped in the caves in an incident which was closely followed across the world. Following the rescue, he announced last year that he had won a scholarship to a football academy in the UK.
Today, teachers and students of Wachiralai School in Chiang Mai’s Saraphi District, where Dom was a student in the years following the rescue until his recent move to the UK, a mourning ceremony in his honour. Photographs of Dom, practicing with his friends, many of whom are fellow survivors of the cave floods, were shown.
“I last talked to Dom on Saturday,” Dong, a close friend of Dom’s who was not part of the cave rescue told CityNews. “We were talking about everything, That was the last time we talked. Dom doesn’t complain about anything, we normally just talk about practice. He never told me that he was unhappy or tired in anyway. I am so sad, I can’t believe this has happened. We were supposed to go away together when he came home in June.”
Bew, a fellow Wild Boar trapped in the cave in Chiang Rai said that he felt that his breath had been taken away when he first heard the news. He thought it must have been fake news, but then was shocked to find that it was real. He reminisced about Dom’s positive attitude and how it kept all of them in good spirits in their darkest days. He said that Dom was always the one in the group that encouraged everyone else and kept everyone positive.
While Dom had received a three year scholarship at the UK football academy, he also maintained his grades long distance at the Chiang Mai school as he wanted to return to Thailand for university.
