1 miner rescued in dangerous operation after over a week trapped in flooded Laos cave: "He's healthy and he's alive"

One gold miner in Laos was brought out of a flooded cave in a perilous two-hour operation where monsoon rains have trapped a group for over a week, one of the divers involved in Friday's rescue told CBS News in an exclusive interview.  

Seven artisanal gold miners have been in the cave for nine days. Five of the seven miners were located, and two remain missing. Conditions inside the cave are dangerous and complex. Even before the flooding due to monsoon rains, it was nearly impossible to get in and out of the cave. 

Lead rescue diver Mikko Paasi told CBS News that he and his fellow rescuers essentially "sandwiched" the rescued miner between them through the partially submerged cave. 

The miner was scuba diving for the first time through the kind of murk that challenges world-class divers. Paasi explained that there was no real time for scuba training, describing the situation as a "trust-me dive."

"I got him through the restrictions and everything and, and he's healthy and he's alive," Paasi said.

The round trip to where the group is trapped takes a trained team of divers about five hours. Complicating efforts is Laos' monsoon season, which creates a "ticking clock," Paasi had previously told CBS News.

"The environment is so hostile that anything can happen," Paasi said.

The rescuers carried five oxygen tanks and an extra breathing device — known as a regulator — for the miner, but he was essentially tethered to them. The diving portion of the rescue took about 10 minutes, Paasi said.

"It's not a nice place to dive," Paasi said. "The guy was super strong and... props for him for that."

Paasi, who was also involved in the rescue of a youth soccer team from a flooded cave in Thailand in 2018, said the operation was risky because the fear of suffocation is the primary cause of panic, and when people panic, they typically claw at their rescuers, which could be fatal or cause a blockage. 

In some portions of the climb, the tunnel was about the width of a hubcap, Paasi said.

"Today we were lucky, you know, well... let's say not lucky, but everything worked out as we planned," Paasi said. "But there's... a lot of... like moving parts that can go wrong, obviously."

Rescue Volunteer for People said on social media that the rescued miner, who was not named, was brought out safely at 8:37 p.m. local time Friday. The organization said the person's name would be announced later. 

The rescue team had hoped to be able to pump the water out of the cave, but five days of those efforts have not succeeded. 

The scuba idea was "the last option," Paasi said, because it would put both the miners and the rescue divers at "quite high risk." The waters inside the cave are murky and difficult to navigate, and the system is filled with dead ends and knife-sharp rocks. Panic or uncertainty inside that environment could be fatal.

Paasi said Friday there is still hope that they will be able to pump the water out of the cave and have the remaining miners crawl out. But so far, the pumping process has had limited success. 

The timeline to extract the four remaining miners is still being worked out, according to Paasi. He said new rescue personnel are on scene, as well extra equipment.

"We need to make a plan," Paasi said. "How do we make everything the most efficient that we can? ... Now we know that it can be done, and it can be improved for the safety of the guys and for the rescue teams as well."

Paasi said the rescue team is no longer searching for the two missing miners because they are believed to either no longer be alive or trapped in spaces too small for the divers to enter. 

The rescue team has asked the Laos government for immunity from charges in case someone dies during the rescue mission. 

"Finding them was difficult, but finding them, in a way, was the easy part," said Josh Morris, who also helped lead the 2018 Thai cave rescue. "You have to have a whole practiced, well-thought-out plan to move people in conditions where the risks of serious problems is very high."