#Diving - Amid the jubilation surrounding the rescue of 12 boys and their football coach from a cave system in Thailand, The Irish Times notes an Irish connection to the story.
Belgian national Jim Warny, who lives and works in Ennis, was part of the international team of diving experts who mounted the daunting rescue operation at Tham Luang in northern Thailand over the past week, racing against time to save the soccer team before the cave flooded completely.
Warny was recruited for his expertise in cave diving — including his part in the recovery of friend Artur Kozlowski, who died during a dive near Gort in Co Galway in September 2011.
Kozlowski and Warny had together set a British-Irish record for a cave traverse the previous year.
Meanwhile, BreakingNews.ie highlights another Irish link to the Thai cave rescue, as a Limerick man donated crucial equipment to the effort.
The Cappamore man, who wished to maintain his privacy, volunteered some much-needed ‘last generation’ SCUBA tank regulators in response to a worldwide appeal for the specialist valves.