On a hunt for gold, one survivor recounts his days stuck in cramped, flooded Laos cave

Through the long days and nights he and four other men were trapped inside a flooded cave, all Mued Duangsomdy could think about was food.

Through the long days and nights he and four other men were trapped inside a flooded cave, all Mued Duangsomdy could think about was food.

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They had little of it with them when they ventured last month into the mazelike cave network in a remote area of central Laos, carrying prospecting tools to try their luck at finding gold, only to have fortune turn against them.

“It was all dark, so we didn’t know days or nights,” Mued, 23, told NBC News in an interview, days after he became the first of the men to emerge from the cave amid a high-stakes, multinational rescue operation.