People glued to their screens - phone, tablet, television or otherwise - followed with a mixture of anxiety and relief as one by one, the boys of the Wild Boars football team emerged from the northern Thailand cave that had trapped them.
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It filled conversations and airwaves as the world stayed transfixed on what has turned out to be an extraordinary story of survival, determination, tragedy and joy. All 12 boys and their coach are alive, against the odds, and despite fears they could be stuck for months in a flooded cave, or could face a worse outcome.
Saman Gunan, a former Thai Navy SEAL who died after entering the cave to lay oxygen tanks along the exit route, will be remembered by his family and people around the world as a hero. Others who helped rescue the boys will rightly have that status too.
Stories that are life-affirming and full of heroes rarely get the attention this one had. Pundits, academics and journalists will long try figuring out why. The result of the rescue operation, better than many had hoped for, has been a welcome relief from the gnawing, often volatile and entrenched anger and division captured in other news dominating screens in recent years.
One suggested outcome to follow the rescue - a visit for the boys to the World Cup final in Russia - looks off the cards due to their medical condition. But it's somehow fitting that one international forum extended the invitation to the survivors of an incident that has been powerful in drawing out feelings of world co-operation, even friendship.
The rescue of the boys in Thailand was a uniting experience for everyone who followed it, regardless of race, nationality or creed. Everyone could relate to the pain of potentially losing a son, grandson, cousin, brother, friend or nephew. They also imagined themselves in a situation that would send jitters through anyone, picturing being trapped in a cave, blocked by water, unable to swim.
It's a story that stands for something that seems to recede more and more in a world of fracturing alliances and conflict. The Thai rescue effort involved an international effort, and people from around the world cared about the outcome.
A team of 20 Australians was involved in the Thai-led rescue effort. The frantic effort to even find the boys and their coach drew cave divers from around the world. Rescuers came from China, Japan, Sweden, Myanmar, Laos, the United States, and Thailand. One cartoon drawn during the rescue aptly depicted the boys being guided out by a kangaroo, Chinese dragon, Japanese crane and English lion among other emblematic animals.
When those who found the boys after they were missing for 10 days told them they were from the UK, the team replied "whoa", nearly in unison. The world had reached their pocket in northern Thailand to find them.
There are lessons, mostly self-evident, to draw from this international response and the feelings everyone had following the boys' amazing escape from Tham Luang cave. Forgiveness, teamwork, compassion, and understanding are some. To set them out in more detail would be to labour the point, but they're worth remembering. The lessons might live on, even as the world's attention goes to other news.
