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Hey, I'm Mike Corey, host of Against the Odds, where we tell true stories of people trying thing in the toughest conditions.

Since we launched the show a year ago, we've shared accounts of people surviving kidnapping, plane crashes and shipwrecks.

But one of our favorite stories was the one we debuted with. The harrowing rescue of a boy's soccer team

trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand. That tale really showcased humanity's capacity for ingenuity, determination, bravery and the will to live.

The story is so compelling that it's given rise to books, a documentary, and now a feature film directed by Ron Howard called 13 Lives.

To coincide with that film's release this summer, we are re-airing our series on the Thai Cave Rescue.

It's late afternoon, on Monday, July 2, 2018, and Rick Stanton is swimming through a submerged hellscape.

He's 57 years old, and his tall, lanky body moves through the water smoothly. The glow from his LED headlamp illuminating the jagged walls of a narrow rock tunnel in front of him.

Under different circumstances, Rick might be enjoying himself right now. He's one of the best cave divers in the planet after all.

And this tunnel is exactly the kind of underwater maze Rick loves to explore. But this isn't an adventure. It's a rescue mission.

Nine days ago, a boy soccer team disappeared down here. Rick has to find them and get them out. If they're still alive.

Rick pauses and checks his levels. He's running low and needs at least a third of a tank to make it back to base.

But he senses an area of the cave, perhaps not completely flooded just ahead. If they're going to find anyone alive down here, it will be in an air pocket, just like that one.

So he gestures to his dive partner, John Vaughan Finn. Rick's been diving with John since the early days. They met as members of their English cave diving club and set a world record for deepest cave dive in England.

By day, John is an IT consultant who makes his own diving equipment. But in his other life, he's a superstar and one of the most dangerous sports in the world.

Rick motions with his flashlight and swims ahead. Emerging from the Inky water into a dark chamber. When he reaches the center, he lifts off his mask and he enhales.

You smell that, John? I sure do. Rick and John have come across some pretty unusual odors in their adventures. But this smells like shit, like human waste. Someone is here.

Rick pulls out a flashlight and scans around. Razor sharps the lactites, stripped down from the ceiling.

Oh!

The hello bounces off the cave walls. Nothing. But then, something glints in the beam of his roving flashlight. A pair of frightened eyes staring back at him.

He can't believe it. They're in the shadows. A few feet in front of him. Shivering at a live is a child.

...