Conrad Pfeifer of the Middlesex Township police, talking about the rescue operation in the flooded cave in Thailand, shows the gear for such a mission Monday at his home in Adams Township.

Middlesex Township police officer and certified cave diver Conrad Pfeifer has a unique perspective on the rescue of the 12 Thai boys and their soccer coach, and he would like to clear up a term in the news that is annoying him.

“They're not oxygen tanks,” Pfeifer said emphatically. “They're air tanks. They contain what you and I are breathing right now.”

Pfeifer, who teaches dive instructors, said breathing pure oxygen is fatal at a depth of 20 feet below the water's surface.

“It's driving me batty,” Pfeifer said.

Due to his decades of experience diving in flooded caves and as a board member for International Underwater Cave Rescue and Recovery, Pfeifer was able to explain the basics of what the crack British diving team is doing in its successful rescue effort.

But Pfeifer stressed that IUCRR has refused to discuss the rescue effort in Thailand with every major news organization in the world since the effort began. The group only comments on a specific rescue if they have “boots on the ground.”

Pfeifer explained that Thailand has no cave divers, only open-water divers, and no Navy SEALS of any country, including the U.S., are trained cave divers.

He said the British divers were called in because their expertise is in “sump” caves, which have chambers containing waters that rise and fall and become choked off in low areas if water rises.

The cave containing the trapped boys is a sump cave, Pfeifer said.

The Americans, he said, normally perform rescue and recovery missions in flooded caves that are totally underwater. Those caves are prevalent in Florida and Mexico, Pfeifer said.

He said from what he can see on television and the Internet, the British sump cave divers are proceeding by the book and according to their training.

“They are the absolute best team to be there,” Pfeifer said.

He explained that it appears the distance from the mouth of the cave to the trapped boys and their coach is about 3 miles.

About 1,000 total feet of that distance is under water, he estimated.

In a cave dive, Pfeifer explained, the team first sends in a diver with a reel of rope or heavy string, which the diver allows to unfurl as he traverses the winding cave channels.

In the case of the Thailand boys, that diver emerged from the water when he came to the end of his reel and was looking for a place to tie it off and start a new reel when he looked up and saw the boys and their coach, Pfeifer said.

The divers then begin “staging,” or placing aluminum air tanks at certain distances so the rescuers can stop and change tanks if they are running low.

That task, said Pfeifer, takes time because the divers are walking most of the cave and the tanks probably weigh about 30 pounds a piece.

“It's exhausting,” he said.

When the staging is complete, a diver and at least two helpers will enter the cave and begin heading toward their subjects. The helpers carry the air tanks until the diver comes to a flooded area.It is then the diver attaches the tanks to the sides of a specialty vest that has harnesses for the tanks and air bladders to keep the divers from sinking.A normal air tank, Pfeifer said, lasts one hour at 60 feet underwater. But the Thailand operation is underwater only occasionally, when the rescuers come to a “sump,” or flooded area.“I'm guessing they're swimming about 1,000 feet, but it takes them three hours of walking to get to (a sump),” he said.The rescuers do not need to use the air tanks inside the cave in between sumps because the porous limestone in the cave allows the oxygen level to remain acceptable.Professional cave divers know they must return to base camp with one-third of the air tanks remaining full, per safety protocol.The British divers, Pfeifer said, train each boy on the mask that will provide air when they reach the narrow, swirling sumps. The boys chosen for rescue also practice diving with the masks for one hour before being connected to a driver and removed from the cave.He said the boys, who are reported to not be swimmers, are probably instructed not to kick or panic as they are swum through the opaque water at the sumps.“It's chocolate milk,” Pfeifer said of the visibility facing the British divers at the sumps.Regarding the length of time it takes to refill the air tanks in between trips into the cave to retrieve the boys, Pfeifer said the location is deep inside a jungle and not within access to hundreds of air tanks.The team may only have the use of a single fire truck to refill the tanks, instead of the equipment that would be available in a more accessible area, he said.If Pfeifer could have one question about the operation answered, he said it would be how did young boys in soccer clothes and flip flops traverse a cave chamber that rescuers need climbing and repelling equipment to traverse?“How did they get there?” Pfeifer wondered. “I think they took another passage (once inside the cave).”He said once water began to pour into the cave, the group probably climbed higher and higher out of instinct.Pfeifer said he would not have hesitated if asked to go to the scene of the rescue in Thailand.“The only thing that would have stopped me from going to Thailand would have been how long I'd be there and be away from work,” he said.All divers, including the IUCRR and the British divers now rescuing the boys, are volunteers and do not get paid for their time.Pfeifer said he was introduced to diving during a SCUBA class in a pool in college. The adrenaline junkie then moved on to cave diving.“Being my nature, I got into cave diving for the skills required,” he said.Deep water diving and diving with something overhead — like a cave roof or thick ice — are Pfeifer's specialty. He has submerged to 300 feet below the surface and participated in about 200 recovery efforts in his tenure as a cave diver.Asked how long he plans to continue, the 56-year-old physically fit Pfeifer said he talks about retiring every year and teaching diving classes exclusively.But he feels he still has much to offer in the world of cave diving.“Guys my age, we use our experience for efficiency,” he said.Cave diving also affords Pfeifer the ability to stop and turn around anytime he feels a space is too tight or dangerous.“I have the risk, but it's calculated risk,” he said.Pfeifer said cave diving is definitely not for the claustrophobic, but he doesn't mind the closed-in spaces. He prefers being confined somewhat, and always sleeps against the wall in a hotel, he said.“My wife makes fun of me,” Pfeifer said.He will continue to keep a close eye on the situation in Thailand, and will try to tolerate the term “oxygen tanks” as he does so.“I almost threw something at the TV yesterday,” the affable Pfeifer said.

Thai rescue team members walk inside a cave near where 12 boys and their soccer coach have been trapped since June 23 in northern Thailand. Some of the boys have been rescued, but the operation is ongoing.