The dramatic rescue this week of the Thai soccer team trapped in a watery warren deep below the ground was perilous, gripping and impossible to avoid — a saga equal parts Jules Verne and Baby Jessica, with breathless reporters on the scene and endless news coverage of the joyous ending.

So what did Baby Jessica — who drew saturation coverage in 1987, when she fell down a well in Texas and remained wedged there for 58 and a half agonizing hours — think of this daring rescue mission halfway around the world?

“I didn’t know about it at all,” said Jessica McClure Morales, now 32, who learned of the ordeal in Thailand from a New York Times reporter on Tuesday. “We live in the country and we’re pretty unplugged.”

Ms. Morales’s rescue 31 years ago coincided with the dawn of round-the-clock cable television news, becoming at once a cultural touchstone and a template for the juggernaut coverage Americans have come to expect of certain events. But as she grew older, Ms. Morales largely retreated from the crush of media attention, choosing instead a quiet life away from the news.