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Comment by tgb | Hacker News Reader

Why wasn't the death of Saman Gunan more widely publicized? I barely heard about it - in the NYT article on this it's a single sentence 2/3rds of the way through the article. I'd have thought that the concept of someone sacrificing themselves for the recovery of 12 children would have been a major story. The Guardian's liveblog (or whatever this is) doesn't mention it in the first couple pages, nor do the responses of any of the world leaders and celebrities quoted mention it. Elon Musk's participation is cute but has gotten way disproportionate response compared to the lack of acknowledgement that I see this guy getting.

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It was the top trend on Twitter the night (U.S. time) that it happened. Many news outlets covered it:

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2018/07/06/thai-cave-diver-...

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/07/06/world/asia/ap-as...

https://www.reddit.com/search?q=saman%20gunan&sort=top

It was something that happened last week, and was very widely publicized then. I remember reading it on the front page of every newspaper site I visited.

I see, I was probably not paying attention to the story at the time. I still find it odd that these summary articles after the fact seem to be ignoring the fact that one person died during the rescue attempt. I'd have expected more "heroic efforts on the part of Thai divers, including one who gave his life,..." kind of lines in the first three paragraphs.

Edit: the NYT online front page now mentions him, so maybe it was just a matter of scrambling out the news that the rescue was complete (though I'd have expected them to write that copy in advance).

Are you basing this merely on one NYT article you read announcing their rescue a week after a diver died?

I not only got notified by multiple newspapers on my phone, I later saw pictures and a video of the funeral completely surrounded by cameras, which I learn the Thai royalty entirely paid for.

No, I wasn't. You can see in my original one that I cited The Guardian's coverage that was original story as well as all the tweets they listed there (praising the rescue work - I'm completely shocked they weren't mentioning the dead rescue workers) which included summaries of the efforts highlighting Elon Musk's activities but not the dead diver's. Since I figured right-wing news agencies would be more likely to include a story about an ex-military agent dying in an attempt to save children, I also read Fox News's front-page article on the completion of the mission. Though the article covered Elon Musk's efforts in substantial depth (including graphics with annotations about where the sub would have the most difficulty), it didn't even mention the one casualty the operation had!

For the record, I didn't see any of this coverage a week ago but have already admitted that it happened and I'm sure it was extremely significant. I'm still surprised that he's not mentioned in every recap article's opening and wasn't praised by, for example, Trump and other celebrities reacting to the event.

The BBC gave him plenty of coverage.

The man's death probably isn't a big focus of the Guardian's live coverage because it happened a while ago. There may have been an article just about him, I don't recall.

This was front page news in Ireland.

I tend to agree with you and I think you are being downvoted unfairly. The man was a hero for doing what he did and there should be more attention given to what he did and its impact on the outcome.

It's okay about the downvotes. Completely bizarre though: my comment was originally at +12 and got down to -2! HN is just inscrutable at times. I feel like the initial upvotes show that I was not alone in thinking his story is surprisingly neglected (in this round of coverage).

It was all over Reddit when it happened (which is where I heard about it).

Unfair life. I am glad the children are out of the nightmare. I feel crushed because a young man (navy seal) with bravery focused on helping as much as possible without thinking twice. RIP our hero.

God, if those children were doing an initiation endangering themselves. Remember the newborns dying in Syria, Africa and other places.

I wish the 13 well.

It was the front page story on Friday's Guardian I think.

For that matter, why wasn't this more widely publicized?

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/07/06/56-missing-in-thai-r...

It's just what happens....some people capture the public's hearts and minds, and some don't.

Group of kids vs group of tourists. Miles of cave vs capsized boat.

Just not "exciting" enough for the general public, ratings, and newspaper sales

Wasn't it? It got featured in our main TV news multiple times. But frankly, there wasn't much to hope for in that story, unlike with the cave rescue. After the first couple of hours, it's very unlikely that you'd find more survivors.

He is a solider doing his job. you will be surprise how thankless a military job is

But he wasn't. He was there as a volunteer, he had left that job behind.

You've clearly never done that "job". It cannot simply be left behind. It fundamentally changes a person. Especially in SOF.

It is probably true that in countries like Thailand, serving in the military is somewhat thankless. That's hard to imagine from a US perspective where veterans/servicemembers today receive amazing support.

One reason not to focus too much on his death might be because it seems to have been more "random mistake" than "heroic sacrifice"? The children had already been located, the system for supplying and evacuating them had already been arranged, and everyone who entered the cave had all the supplies and equipment they needed to perform their tasks.

Running out of air while diving is a mistake that any amateur diver with crap equipment can make, but we make it while 50 ft deep in open water, so we just swim to the surface if our buddy isn't close or attentive enough to help us. [0] If you're in a cave you can't do that, but if you're a professional military frogman with fancy professional equipment you probably shouldn't make that mistake. If the global media had concentrated to closely on this, embarrassing questions would have been asked. Therefore it's better that everyone just praise his courage and move on.

[0] I did this, when I was 13 and I was using a system with a bad air gauge. When everyone got to the top, the dive master said "OK, you've done an emergency ascent, now switch tanks and we're going back down to practice buddy breathing." I haven't run out of air while diving since that episode.

From the coverage, he was placing additional air bottles along the route.

I can see how, being reminded of the logistic time cost of every bottle, he might have pushed and run too close for his return. And that's not even broaching equipment malfunctions.

Things happen. Maybe it was a mistake and maybe it was bad luck. But the man's a hero for returning from retirement to play a critical role in saving 13 people.

I read he died in a flash flood. Might not have been a mistake so much as an unexpected turn of events in a dangerous, dynamic environment.

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