Confirms what many people thought.
LOS ANGELES (DPA) - The drug ketamine has enjoyed a long career as a workhorse anesthetic. It had a brief career as a party drug known as "Special K."
And just last month, it won recognition from the Food and Drug Administration as a fast-acting antidote for treatment-resistant depression.
But if you thought the drug ketamine was out of surprises, you'd be wrong. In a new account of the bold operation that freed 12 soccer players and their coach from a watery cave complex in Thailand last July, ketamine is credited with playing a key role in the rescue.
In a letter published on Wednesday (April 3) in The New England Journal of Medicine, the medical professionals responsible for masterminding the safe extraction of the trapped team revealed the evacuees were anesthetised with ketamine as they "were swum out of the cave wearing poorly fitting wet suits in cold water."
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/boys-trapped-in-thai-cave-were-drugged-with-ketamine-for-risky-rescue-dives