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The final rescuer to leave a Thai cave lost his dad after the last of the soccer team was freed

In this undated file photo provided by Royal Thai Navy on July 7, 2018, Thai rescue teams arrange a water pumping system at the entrance to a flooded cave complex where 12 boys and their soccer coach were trapped. Royal Thai Navy via AP

The last member of the rescue team to leave the Thai cave, Australian doctor Richard Harris, has lost his father.

Harris’s boss Andrew Pearce says in a statement the father had died shortly after the last of the 13 soccer team members was freed from the cave.

Coverage of the Thai cave rescue on Globalnews.ca:

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Pearce says: “This is clearly a time of grief for the Harris family, magnified by the physical and emotional demands of being part of this week’s highly complex and ultimately successful rescue operation.”

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Pearce says the anesthetist and experienced cave diver would return to his home in Adelaide city soon.

READ MORE: ‘9 days, 7 missions and 63 hours inside’: B.C. diver part of daring Thai cave rescue

Harris played a part in deciding the order in which the 13 were freed.

Pearce did not say how the father had died and asked for the family’s privacy to be respected.

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