Their Majesties the King and Queen have received as a patient under royal patronage the British caver who played an important role in the rescue of young footballers from the Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand in 2018.
Vernon Unsworth, 70, has been admitted for treatment of lung inflammation at Maechan Hospital in Mae Chan district of the northernmost province of Chiang Rai.
Authorities from Chiang Rai visited Mr Unsworth at the hospital on Monday and reported his condition was stable. He could talk normally and communicate with the visitors, they said.
A cave expert and longtime resident of Chiang Rai where he worked as a financial adviser, the British-born Mr Unsworth had surveyed the Tham Luang cave complex in Chiang Rai.
He played an important role in helping to plan the rescue of 12 young members of the ‘Wild Boars’ football team and their coach after they became trapped in the flooded cave in June and July 2018.
The rescue effort attracted worldwide attention and saturation coverage by international media, as experts from many countries travelled to Thailand and volunteered their expertise to bring the boys and their coach out safely.
Tham Luang has since become a well-known tourist attraction.
Mr Unsworth was at the centre of a related drama after he brought a defamation case against Elon Musk, who insulted him in an angry tweet for criticising a rescue plan proposed by the tech billionaire as a ‘PR stunt’.
A Los Angeles jury found that Mr Musk did not defame Mr Unsworth by calling him a ‘pedo guy’ on Twitter. The billionaire’s lawyers had argued that their client had used the expression as an insult but did not mean it literally.