Mobley now teaches others how to rescue anyone who may be trapped in a cave.
Emily Mobley knows all too well how it feels to be trapped in a cave like those boys in Thailand.
More than 25 years ago, she was rescued from the deepest cave in the U.S. More than 200 people helped bring her to the surface after she became stranded in the Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico.
She had been part of a five-person team surveying a new section of the cave when a rock handhold broke loose and crushed her leg. She was stuck there for four days.
Rescuers later carried her out on a stretcher, through narrow openings and up cliff sides, using an intricate system of ropes and pulleys.
"We stopped at night," she told Inside Edition. "The team rested ... [It] was a lot of vertical work. There was a mile of rope that was used."
She says she has been closely monitoring the Thailand crisis.
"This is a very complicated rescue," she said. "They're having to spend some real energy to figure out the best and safest way to bring the boys out."
Some of the best engineering minds have been brainstorming ways to help.
Elon Musk and his SpaceX company built a one-person submarine from a fuel tank. It was tested at a California high school pool and appeared to work. But it's too large for the Thailand cave.
Instead, the boys are wearing wet suits and face masks as divers escort them on a grueling, five-hour climb to the surface. They will be quarantined for three days as they readjust to life outside the cave complex.
"When you're in a cave ... without the sunlight — your body goes haywire," said emergency room Dr. Robert Glatter at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan.
"You mind starts to hallucinate."
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