Clinical investigation results of cave trapped victims in acute phase after being rescued: Data on case of 2018 cave crisis in Thailand

Beuy Joob, Viroj Wiwanitkit

1Sanitation 1 Medical Academic Center, Bangkok, Thailand

2Dr DY Patil University, Pune, India; Hainan Medical University, China

Dear Editor,

Being trapped in difficult situation is considered as an important crisis that requires rescue. The good example is being trapped in cave. In July 2018, there was a worldwide news about 13 persons trapped in the cave in northern region of Thailand. Finally, those persons were able to be successfully rescued by the rescue team after more than 10 days trapped period. The interesting issue is on the clinical management of these persons in acute phase after being rescued. In fact, acute management of those who are rescued from difficult places is an interesting issue in acute disease management. Focusing on the case of being trapped in the cave, there was a similar case of being trapped in underground mine in Chile[1]. In the present Thai situation, all victims were immediately sent to hospital for management. All cases recieved primary care and obtained immunization.

Here, the authors discuss the first report on observed routine clinical investigations among those victims. An important finding from complete blood count investigation is the leukocytosis which might imply the exposure to stress. Regarding the chest X-ray result, 3 from all cases have the abnormal lung appearance as pneumonitis. Being trapped in cave is considered as a stressful event. Also, the risk of exposure to the pathogen in the cave is possible, hence, there must be the investigation and follow-up on possible infectious diseases among the victims. The observation on lung problem might be the early sign of the infection by some uncommon pathogens. In fact, lung histoplasmosis is an important cave associated infection that is sporadically reported in cave visitor[2,3]. As is known, this report should be the first report of observation on clinical investigations data in acute phase of hospitalized patients after being rescued from being trapped in cave.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict.