0:00

My name is Andy and I film the videos

0:03

at The Imperfects. I'm the son of English

0:05

immigrants and I am grateful to call Australia

0:07

home. We at The Imperfects acknowledge

0:10

the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation

0:12

as the traditional owners of the land on which this

0:14

podcast was recorded and extend

0:16

our respects to their elders past and present.

0:19

I am inspired by the strength and endurance

0:21

of the world's oldest living culture

0:24

and we draw on and pay homage to their

0:26

traditions of story when we share stories

0:28

on our podcast. Well

0:31

top of the whatever time you're listening to

0:33

this to you and welcome to the

0:35

Academy of Imperfection

0:38

where experts in their field share

0:40

their wisdom on the subject

0:43

of imperfection. Today

0:45

Dr. Richard Harris aka

0:48

Harry the Australian anethetist

0:50

who helped save 13 trapped boys

0:52

from a Thai cave

0:54

is here to deep dive, pun

0:56

intended, on the ins and

0:59

outs of risk. You know we

1:01

need to be able to escape the watchful

1:03

eyes of their parents from a pretty early age actually

1:06

and go and do that stuff and

1:08

do some naughty things and make some mistakes

1:11

and work out where the boundaries are and

1:14

that way we start to learn

1:16

what is safe and what is not safe and

1:18

we slowly expand those boundaries and

1:21

and learn to be risk managers. So

1:23

press pause

1:24

on the current episode of Some Mothers

1:26

Do Have Em and join students Hugh,

1:29

Ryan and Josh and get

1:31

risky with Dr. Richard

1:34

Harris.

1:37

Well this is a special one today we are

1:39

joined by I mean if

1:41

you don't know Dr. Richard Harris's

1:43

name you will almost definitely remember

1:45

the story of the 12 boys and their

1:48

coach who were trapped

1:50

inside the flooded caves

1:52

in Thailand in 2018. Dr. Richard Harris was an anethetist

1:54

who was pivotal

2:00

to saving the boys' lives. He was sent

2:03

to perform health and fitness

2:05

assessments on the boys and then advise

2:07

officials on how to get them out. In

2:10

fact, I'm going to read this bit here because I don't want to get it wrong, but as

2:13

part of the rescue, he was required

2:15

to dive. I mean, this is my nightmare.

2:19

As part of the rescue, he was required to dive,

2:21

swim and climb to safety along a pitch

2:23

black tunnel that at certain points barely

2:26

allowed an adult to fit through with some

2:28

spaces only being 38

2:29

centimetres wide. And how long

2:32

was it again? It was six

2:34

hours in and five hours out,

2:36

is that right? Well firstly Hugh, congratulations

2:39

on being able to say an Aesthetist. You've done very well

2:41

on that. Yeah, I was there. Thank

2:43

you so much. That's a big tick because you're one of

2:46

the few who can say it without training, so that's

2:48

a good job. Without training? That's what

2:50

the whole degree is. In fact,

2:52

we had a business manager at our office

2:54

who couldn't say an Aesthetist, so when

2:56

she was answering the phones, it was

2:59

just a big fail.

2:59

So well

3:02

done. Now to get back to the facts

3:04

of the case. We've avoided the Dr

3:07

Richard Harris walkout. No,

3:12

so some slight exaggerations

3:14

there. So it was 2.4 kilometres long from

3:16

the entrance to where the kids were. And

3:18

this question of 39 or 38 centimetres, I don't know where

3:22

that came from. A reporter who clearly

3:24

had never been in the cave came up with this magical

3:26

number and it was one of a huge

3:28

number of bits of misinformation

3:29

that evolved during

3:32

the rescue. And I don't blame the

3:34

reporters for this because they were literally in the dark.

3:37

They were outside the cave, we were inside

3:39

doing our thing and no information

3:41

was being fed to them. So they started to fabricate

3:44

all this fabulous

3:45

factoids. And that

3:48

was one of the measurements that someone apparently

3:50

took a ruler inside to come out with

3:52

this very precise

3:54

sort of calibrated gap

3:57

in the cave. But anyway, so I'm more than

3:59

I can assure you, especially with

4:02

scuba tanks on, so I don't know where that number came

4:04

from. But yes, the answer is

4:06

it was pretty tight in places. Okay, and

4:09

am I right in saying it was six hours in and

4:11

five hours out? No, three hours each way.

4:14

Okay. That's still a decent dive.

4:16

Yeah, I know, it's a good day out.

4:18

Good day out. Good day out. I

4:21

haven't got to his awards yet, can I have it on? Yeah, sure,

4:24

give you the 10 minutes you'll need to get to it. Yeah,

4:26

because I'm gonna keep interrupting and bagging you regularly.

4:31

Please fell free, please fell free. So

4:34

Richard was awarded the Star of Courage for unwavering

4:36

and selfless bravery following the successful

4:38

rescue of the Trap Soccer team and the Order

4:41

of Australia for service to the international community.

4:43

And then in 2019, alongside Dr. Craig Challon, they

4:47

were named as the

4:48

first dual Australians of the year for their role

4:50

in the rescue mission. Richard

4:53

currently works for the South Australian Ambulance Medical

4:55

Retrieval Service. I feel like the people must be absolutely

4:58

beside themselves when you turn up. Well, all

5:00

that would have been true up until Christmas this year

5:03

when I've actually just retired from medicine. So

5:06

life has taken a new and exciting

5:08

twist. I don't know if you want

5:10

to get into that now, but yeah. Well,

5:13

you have written a book, which I am reading

5:15

right now and I absolutely love it.

5:18

It's the Art of Risk, and we will talk about it at some

5:20

point because it's such a wonderful

5:22

topic for you to be exploring.

5:26

But I think just, should we start just

5:28

talking a bit more about the cave diving? Because

5:30

I mean, because you write about

5:32

it beautifully, but I read it twice because I was

5:34

so captivated by it. You

5:38

talk about it to you being not

5:40

an overly dangerous thing or it wasn't a risk. You didn't

5:42

feel like it was a risky thing to do for you. I

5:44

mean, you were just at home in Australia and

5:46

you were reading about this in the paper. And

5:50

then all of a sudden, an

5:52

anesthetist who can cave dive

5:55

is the perfect person for this scenario.

5:58

Yeah, exactly.

5:59

I never thought that that perfect

6:02

storm of skill sets would be

6:04

something that I would never ever need

6:06

to use.

6:08

But on the other hand, I was sort of prepared

6:10

for it. And if I can sort of

6:13

go back in time a

6:15

little bit to sort of how this all came together. You

6:18

know, I grew up in Adelaide in South Australia

6:20

and have always, since

6:22

my earliest memories, you know, been in love with

6:25

the ocean and being in the water. And

6:27

for me, that started out snorkelling and so

6:29

forth. And eventually went and got my

6:31

diving ticket when I was about 15 years

6:34

of age and went on

6:36

to be an instructor at the University Dive

6:38

Club. And so it's always been a big part of my life.

6:40

What is it about the ocean? Can

6:42

you put into words

6:43

what it is that drew you to it so

6:45

strongly at a young age? There's a couple of things. I

6:47

mean, I still get a buzz out of the fact

6:49

that you can put your head underwater and be breathing

6:52

from a scuba tank. I just think that's so cool. And

6:54

every time I do it still, you know, however many

6:57

years later, I

6:59

just get a little kick out of that. You

7:01

know, the fact that I can be swimming around underwater breathing out of this

7:03

scuba tank. I think that's a very cool thing

7:05

to be able to do. And then of course, you know, I became

7:07

fascinated by the aquatic life,

7:10

you know, from the biggest fish to

7:12

the plants, to the little bugs and critters that

7:14

crawl around. I

7:17

was kind of set on being a marine

7:19

biologist when I was at school. That

7:22

sort of evolved into maybe veterinary science

7:24

and then that evolved into medicine in

7:27

the end. But you know, you kind of change

7:29

as you grow. But

7:31

yeah, that love for the ocean and that

7:34

environment still stays with

7:36

me. But in my university

7:38

days with the Uni Dive Club, we

7:40

decided to go down to the Mount Gambier

7:43

area of South Australia where there's all these beautiful

7:45

freshwater caves and sinkholes and

7:47

just try that as an experience. I

7:50

didn't know a lot about it, but I thought we'll go down there and

7:52

see what it's all about. And

7:54

initially, I didn't really relish it

7:56

because I was a poor Uni student. I had

7:58

a pretty ordinary wetsuit. the water down there is very

8:01

cold and the training is actually very

8:03

robust. As you can imagine, you need to be well

8:05

prepared for that environment. There are

8:07

some very obvious hazards and it can

8:09

be dangerous. So the training

8:11

is intentionally pretty tough and

8:14

they put you through your paces. And I came away from

8:16

it having enjoyed that training, but you

8:18

don't actually get to see very much of the caves

8:21

because half the time you've got a blindfold on or

8:23

someone's pulling the regulator out of your mouth. The blindfold

8:25

on? Yeah, I mean, they put you through all these stress tests

8:27

is what we call them. So that if,

8:30

I mean, the thing about being in a cave is

8:33

you cannot

8:33

ascend directly to the

8:35

surface. You have to be very self-sufficient

8:38

because if you have a problem with your air supply, you

8:41

have to exit the cave and

8:44

then before you can go up to the surface. So you

8:46

need to be able to look

8:48

after yourself for a period of time. You can't just

8:50

bolt up to the surface like you may be able to do

8:52

in the ocean. So they teach

8:54

you to be very self-sufficient and you need to have

8:57

redundancy in all your equipment, but

8:59

you need this extra training to be safe. And I

9:01

enjoyed all that side of it and especially the gear,

9:04

you know, sort of increase level

9:06

of technology and equipment that you require.

9:08

I thought it was all pretty cool, but as

9:10

I say, you don't actually get to see much of the caves

9:12

during that training. So I thought, well, you

9:14

know, take it or leave it. I didn't do very much for the

9:16

next few years. But then in the year 2000, I

9:19

went back to revisit those caves and

9:21

I got to see some of the really spectacular

9:24

sites down there. And I just absolutely

9:26

fell in love with it again. And so for the last 23 years,

9:28

really, I've just, it's

9:30

been a bit of an obsession, to be honest. So

9:32

I had that sort of skill set behind me.

9:35

And then in parallel, of course, I

9:38

was studying medicine and went on to become an anaesthetist.

9:41

And anesthesia is a great

9:44

specialty for someone like me because there are lots of

9:46

other avenues to explore outside

9:48

of the operating theatre where you would typically picture

9:50

an anaesthetist working. And so intensive

9:53

care work, I did some diving and hyperbaric

9:55

medicine, which is often

9:58

affiliated with anesthesia. and

10:01

also did some aeromedical. Sorry, what is that?

10:03

The diving in? Oh, so diving medicine, I guess,

10:05

is self-explanatory treating people with

10:07

decompression sickness or the bends in

10:10

a chamber. But the other arm

10:12

of that is in the hyperbaric chamber, you

10:15

know, a chamber which you can seal and

10:17

pressurize and give people oxygen as

10:19

a treatment. We also treat people

10:21

with various types of chronic wounds,

10:24

radiotherapy injuries, things

10:26

like that. So, and the other thing I got

10:28

involved with was pre-hospital

10:31

and aeromedical work, which was your reference

10:34

to the South Australian Ambulance Service.

10:36

So basically our

10:38

service covered the entire state of South

10:40

Australia, and we would fly or drive

10:43

out to people

10:45

who require critical care,

10:48

basically intensive care type patients,

10:51

either through accidents or trauma or illness.

10:54

And so the sickest people from around the state needing

10:57

to be stabilised and brought back to the

10:59

Michelin hospitals, which is really exciting

11:02

and challenging and difficult work because often

11:05

working in very austere environments,

11:07

you know, you might be in a shearing shed, you know, picking

11:10

up someone from a farm who's got some critical

11:13

illness or

11:14

near fatal condition and stabilising

11:17

them and bringing them back to town.

11:19

So, you

11:20

know, a lot of thinking on your feet, working in small

11:22

teams, a lot of trust within

11:25

the teams. And I found it very satisfying.

11:28

So all of those experiences put

11:30

me in this perfect position to be able

11:33

to

11:34

offer some assistance to these kids. And as

11:36

you know, I ended up anaesthetising the children

11:39

to bring them out

11:40

underwater because we assumed they

11:42

would panic if we didn't. Which

11:45

originally when that was suggested to

11:47

by someone, you said this is just one in a

11:49

million. There's no, oh, you basically said, I can't

11:51

see this working, is that right? Oh, 100%. In

11:54

fact, I was 100% sure in my own mind that

11:57

all those children would die if

11:59

we did that.

11:59

that because I don't think you need to be a

12:02

cave diver or an anesthetist to realise

12:04

that if you render someone unconscious and then

12:06

push their heads underwater for what will be a three hour

12:09

journey through the cave in very difficult

12:11

conditions. Well pitch black as well. Yeah,

12:14

they're not going to survive that. It's

12:17

astonishing. When it

12:19

actually happened, for whatever reason, I

12:22

just wasn't following along the story. Like I'd hear

12:24

about it, I just wasn't following the details. So

12:26

my proper introduction to the actual

12:28

details of it was watching

12:29

the Ron Howard film. And

12:32

so Ron Howard directed the film and so there's,

12:34

and Joel Edgerton plays you. And

12:38

even though I knew the outcome, it's

12:40

just one of the most tense films. How

12:43

accurate was the film in regards

12:46

to what actually happened? You know, it's Hollywood. And so

12:48

it was a bit of an exaggeration.

12:51

You know, Joel's role

12:55

was, you know, the heroic aspects

12:58

of it were fairly exaggerated, I think. Particularly

13:00

at the end when he goes rushing back into the flooding cave,

13:02

I think that was all a bit excessive.

13:05

But you know, the basic outline

13:07

is there. I think, you know, the more factual accounts for

13:09

me were the, you know,

13:12

the Rescue, which was the National Geographic documentary.

13:14

That's incredible. And also,

13:17

Netflix did a series, but they also

13:19

did a documentary which

13:21

concentrated on the kids and their families.

13:24

And they interviewed all those people. And that, for

13:26

me, was actually maybe the best of all of them because

13:30

that's what I always want to know, was what were those

13:32

kids feeling and experiencing in that cave?

13:35

And I only got to hear that,

13:37

you

13:37

know, through that final documentary, which

13:40

was the last thing to come out. I think that's

13:42

called The Thirteen Trapped. So

13:45

that's, you know, I always tell people, if you want

13:47

to know the facts, look at the Nat

13:49

Geo doco called The Rescue and that final

13:51

Netflix little doco called The Thirteen

13:54

Trapped. Because the moment that I

13:56

think that I can think of is

13:59

because they play it out in the film and

14:01

you can see Joel Edgerton playing

14:04

you talking to Viggo Mortensen

14:06

and Colin Farrell.

14:10

And the discussions,

14:13

the way they portray it is

14:16

when you arrive at the cave, you

14:18

don't know really what you're being

14:20

asked to do. Is that what? There

14:23

was a bit of a bending of the truth

14:25

there. So I'd spoken to Rick Stanton, played

14:28

by your man Viggo. Yeah. And I

14:30

thought he's now my man. And

14:34

so I knew Rick already. We'd been on a couple of expeditions

14:37

before. And he and his mate John

14:39

Volanthin are kind of the rock stars of cave

14:41

diving in our little world. No,

14:43

it's not a huge sport worldwide.

14:45

I can't really understand why. It doesn't seem to be particularly

14:48

popular. But

14:50

those two guys and actually the

14:53

other British divers who turned up, you

14:55

know, people we highly regard in the sport.

14:57

And I was very pleased when I heard

15:00

they were attending and that they were

15:02

involved because I thought if anyone can find

15:04

these kids, whether the kids were dead or alive at that

15:06

stage, it'll be these blokes. So

15:10

with the help of the Thai Navy Seals and some of

15:12

the European expats who were living in Thailand,

15:14

some other cave divers, they laid that rope

15:16

all the way through the cave to that to

15:19

when they finally found the boys in Chamber 9.

15:21

I think we all remember that incredible

15:24

bit of footage from John Volanthin's GoPro.

15:27

And, you know, when he calls out to those kids,

15:29

how many of you are there? And one of

15:31

the boys, Adul, who spoke a little bit of English,

15:33

said 13. You know, the whole world

15:35

went, oh, my God, they're alive. Against

15:38

all odds, those children have been found

15:40

alive after nine days sitting

15:43

there in the dark with no food. How

15:46

is that possible? We just all assumed they

15:49

were deceased. So

15:50

that was like when that story went

15:53

mental and the whole world started watching,

15:55

I think. And as you mentioned, I

15:57

had read something in the book. newspaper

16:00

in Adelaide on about day two that these kids were

16:02

lost in a cave and I thought That

16:05

could be something I end up being involved

16:07

with because I've had this long-standing interest

16:09

in cave rescue and in fact We'd been training

16:12

for an event like this. Although We

16:15

assumed we'd be rescuing one of our friends or

16:17

you know having ourselves rescued Maybe we'd fall

16:20

and break a leg in a in a remote cave

16:22

chamber and we'd need to be taken out Underwater

16:25

to get back to the surface. So we'd started to

16:27

think about it and prepare for that and I'd actually been

16:29

running some training programs

16:31

around Australia and a little bit in New Zealand

16:33

to Help kind of work out the

16:35

best way to do it and teach other cavers,

16:38

you know how we might approach it

16:40

So I had all the information Like

16:43

your entire life. I know it's like your entire

16:45

life was getting ready for this moment Yeah,

16:48

and that's the way I kind of felt when this

16:50

when this call finally came

16:52

So, how did I know about you? I mean

16:55

if like if I was you I'd be like, who do I call I need

16:57

to get over there I need to I can't do it.

16:59

Do I need well it to be honest? I

17:01

had been pretty Unsubtle about

17:04

my hints to the people on the ground

17:06

that I'm just saying I've got a feeling I need to be

17:08

over there You know, this is just got my name on it. And

17:10

so I was talking to Rick Stanton I

17:12

was talking to a guy called Ben Raymond. It's who's a

17:14

Belgian guy that I'd done an expedition

17:17

in in Thailand previous

17:19

year actually I think So

17:21

I knew some of the locals and I knew some of the people on the

17:23

ground and I was messaging them saying I

17:25

think I can Help and we

17:28

were sort of we were exchanging ideas

17:30

and advice and stuff but to be honest Rick

17:32

was saying I don't think there's any point because the kids

17:34

are almost certainly dead and

17:36

Then even after they were found he said well

17:38

They're alive but they might as well be dead

17:40

because there's no possible way to bring

17:42

them out So you were in contact with Rick throughout?

17:45

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, cuz yeah, cuz in

17:47

my mind the Hollywood version is like He's

17:50

like, well, we've reached a crossroads. There's

17:52

only one man that can help us now that are called

17:54

Harris I

17:56

wish that were the kind but no I

17:59

was in his fight side

17:59

You've got to get me over here, man. Is there

18:02

a Harris signal that he puts in the air? That's

18:04

right, the Batman thing. I pictured someone over there

18:06

in charge just going, if only there was such thing as

18:08

an ethertist, who was also an experienced cave

18:10

diver who'd been training people in rescue. But

18:13

that person doesn't exist. That's how I'd. Well,

18:15

in fact, I like to think, well,

18:18

people

18:19

say that surely you're the only person in the

18:21

world who was qualified. But that's actually

18:23

not the case. I know several cave diving anesthetists

18:25

around the world who are equally competent and

18:28

would have been absolutely fine to go. But

18:30

I think Stanton has actually told me that

18:32

I think he thought I was

18:35

the only person who might be silly enough to actually say yes.

18:38

So I take that as a great

18:40

compliment. But I suspect that's not. Was

18:43

there any element? So

18:46

obviously, you put your hand up, and you're suggesting

18:48

that you want to be involved.

18:49

So there's obvious you

18:51

don't really know how, but I feel like I want to

18:53

be involved. In my mind,

18:56

this is maybe just how I would feel.

18:58

But with the world watching like it was, this wasn't

19:00

just like a normal rescue. This is

19:02

like,

19:04

in my mind, I would feel the pressure of

19:06

everyone watching. Did you feel that?

19:09

No, I didn't actually. And I don't know whether it's because

19:12

I'm

19:12

naive or stupid or blind, but I

19:14

didn't really perceive this to be so.

19:17

I didn't realize the scale of the global

19:20

interest in this story. And maybe had

19:23

I known that, then I would have felt that pressure.

19:25

And even when I arrived in Thailand, and

19:29

I remember getting out of this van

19:31

that dropped me off at the cave entrance and

19:33

basically opened the door to this sea of

19:36

media. I've never seen a wall

19:38

of cameras and news people, anything

19:41

like it. And even then, I thought,

19:43

oh, a lot of interest from the ties, obviously.

19:46

And I just assumed it was all local media. But

19:49

of course, by then, everyone was there. We had Australian

19:51

reporters there and CNN and

19:54

you name it, BBC. They were all there, apparently.

19:56

But I was oblivious to that, which was good. Because

19:59

I'm not sure.

19:59

All I,

20:00

you know, I was just so focused on

20:03

the business at hand that I don't think

20:06

any of that really registered to be honest. Yeah. In

20:09

my mind, because I love sport, you know,

20:11

and you see NBA basketballs getting out of a bus arriving

20:13

at a venue with headphones on and I'm

20:15

picturing you like that. I should have put my headphones

20:17

on and you know, sort of

20:20

bounced up the road. Just the

20:22

big beats headphones on in his

20:24

own world. Just chewing gum, just like

20:27

ignoring reporters on the way through. That's right. No,

20:29

I just put my head down and ran for

20:32

it. And actually the Australian federal police,

20:33

some fairly burly

20:37

gentlemen from the sort of door kicking

20:39

section of the AFP were there and they

20:42

shepherded us and looked after us and

20:44

protected us a lot from all that. So so

20:46

that we could get on with the job. And so I just

20:49

want to go back to what you said before that an ethertizing

20:51

the boys to get them out. That was the

20:53

suggestion. You said that won't work. That

20:55

came from Rick before I left Australia.

20:57

You know, he sent me that we were exchanging messages and

20:59

he said, what do you think about sedating the boys?

21:02

And I just I

21:03

mean, I actually laughed when I saw the message

21:06

and I just texted back. No, that's not an option.

21:08

Because I'm guessing to keep people alive,

21:11

even in operating theater, there's a lot of situations

21:14

you need to control in order

21:16

to keep people alive and to keep them in a safe

21:18

position. So to be doing it in a cave. I

21:20

mean, we have the lights on for a start. You'll

21:23

be pleased to hear you're above water. Yeah,

21:26

the operating theater is not full of water. We

21:30

have monitors on the patient. We

21:32

have expert assistance. So

21:35

you're saying the cave, the conditions in

21:37

the cave were different than you would usually. Yeah,

21:40

I think a little bit different. A bit different. Interesting.

21:43

What I would have assumed. No, you wouldn't have. It wouldn't

21:45

have occurred to

21:46

me. And so but am I right in saying

21:48

the reason that you decided, OK, we'll do

21:50

this is because really

21:52

what other choice did you have? That's what I

21:54

came down to. And so what happened

21:56

very briefly was that Craig and myself dived

21:59

the cave. cave went through the cave A

22:01

to make sure we were safe in it because just because

22:04

you know guys like Rick Stanton say

22:06

that it's not too bad you know we

22:08

needed to see for ourselves that we were

22:10

safe because the first priority is always to

22:12

your own safety in these situations if

22:15

you get injured or worse than you know

22:17

your reliability and you're a burden to the

22:20

primary focus which is these kids so

22:22

we had to make sure we were safe. The other thing was

22:24

I just need to see these kids for myself and make

22:26

this very abstract of

22:29

what we were doing something more concrete

22:31

in my mind

22:32

and of course once I'd seen these kids and met

22:34

them and seen how calm

22:37

and courageous and you

22:39

know beautiful these boys were well

22:41

that was it you know I just there's

22:43

no way I was leaving Thailand without doing something

22:47

and even though right up till pretty

22:50

much till the last boy came out that

22:52

I thought they

22:54

would not survive what I was doing essentially

22:57

I felt like I was probably euthanizing

23:00

them and

23:02

you would say well why would you ever

23:04

embark on something if that's what you genuinely

23:07

believed and the answer is that the alternative

23:10

was even worse and that was that they

23:12

would die

23:14

over weeks probably from starvation

23:16

or infection and and suffocate

23:19

because the oxygen levels in the cave were falling

23:22

so

23:23

given those two choices what is anyone

23:25

going to do you are they going to do this

23:27

thing which is you know sometimes

23:29

just positive action is better

23:32

than doing nothing because you can't

23:34

I couldn't I knew put it this way I knew

23:36

I couldn't get on a plane and fly home to Adelaide

23:38

and leave them now that I met them yeah

23:41

so that left one one option give

23:43

this thing a go even though I thought it was you

23:45

know almost certainly courting disaster do

23:47

you think that you're how

23:50

do I say this properly you're I

23:53

can only say it from my perspective that having no

23:56

medical training if meeting

23:59

those boys in a, obviously I wouldn't

24:01

meet them in that situation, but an equivalent

24:03

situation. The meeting

24:05

of the boys and seeing them as real people,

24:08

I would find potentially so

24:10

emotionally

24:11

overwhelming that it would render me

24:14

potentially unable to make a clear

24:16

decision. Do you think

24:17

it was your medical training or you

24:20

were just born with the ability to find

24:23

clarity

24:24

and a sense of sort

24:27

of focus after meeting them? I

24:29

would say my medical training had the

24:31

major part to do with that because if you work

24:34

in critical

24:36

care medicine like I have done,

24:39

you are constantly faced with people

24:41

who are threatening to take their

24:43

last breath, I guess, and you know

24:45

you need to have to intervene and act efficiently

24:48

and competently to try and do

24:50

your best to save their lives. I

24:53

guess people are self-selected to

24:55

some degree to enjoy and

24:57

want to do that kind of medicine. Look,

25:00

it's not all excitement and drama like that,

25:02

but those situations arise and

25:04

especially working in that aeromedical

25:06

space, they arise pretty frequently.

25:09

So you have to look forward to the

25:11

challenge of those situations rather

25:13

than dreading them. I

25:16

remember a friend of mine who I started

25:18

my anaesthetics training with and the guy was amazing,

25:21

great doctor, very compassionate, very

25:23

skilled and competent as an anaesthetist, but

25:26

he suddenly decided to stop and I said, what are you

25:28

doing? You are so good at this and he said,

25:30

I just cannot handle that

25:32

sense of responsibility that you have every

25:35

time you give those anaesthetic

25:38

drugs to someone, you render them

25:40

unconscious, they stop breathing, you

25:43

then have to take over their vital

25:45

functions and if you fail to do that,

25:47

then obviously the clock

25:49

starts and brain damage follows

25:51

three to five minutes later if they are not breathing

25:54

and you cannot support their airway

25:56

and take over their breathing for them.

25:59

It occurred to me that that's what we do every time

26:02

we give someone an anaesthetic. This

26:05

is not to frighten people about anaesthetics, but it just

26:07

is a reflection of how good

26:10

modern anaesthesia is and how good the

26:12

training of anaesthetists is and how skilled

26:14

we become in that role that we can

26:16

just do that on a day-to-day basis. But

26:19

for this guy, he just sort of overthought

26:21

it and he thought, no, I just can't do that every day.

26:23

And I kind of get that. So if you're

26:25

not that kind of person

26:27

or that's not a responsibility

26:30

you're prepared to accept, then

26:33

that job's not for you, which is fine. And

26:35

so I guess if you settle into that line of

26:37

work, then what

26:40

you've just said doesn't apply so much. You

26:42

become deconditioned, I guess, to

26:45

that response. I have to tell you, the first

26:47

few times I did it by myself, it was absolutely

26:50

terrifying. Putting someone under. I can

26:52

remember the first anaesthetic I gave by myself

26:56

in England in the middle of the night without

26:58

supervision. I was bricking it. I've

27:00

never been so frightened. But

27:03

then, you know, that goes well or

27:05

it doesn't. If it doesn't, then maybe that's

27:07

a career stopper for you. But if it

27:09

goes well, then you just gradually build experience

27:13

and confidence. And you know, cave diving is very similar

27:15

because the risks are very clear and apparent.

27:20

You build experience slowly, you

27:22

broaden your experience slowly, you go further,

27:24

you go deeper, you become more

27:27

complex in your diving and you

27:29

have small frights regularly to

27:32

broaden your kind of comfort zone,

27:34

your sphere of experience

27:37

or if that's the way to put it, until

27:40

you look back and you go, gosh, look at what I'm doing now,

27:43

like that cave in Thailand compared to my

27:45

first few cave dives 20 something

27:47

years ago. You know,

27:49

I never would have been able to manage in

27:52

the Thai cave when I first started cave diving.

27:54

But for me now that actually that environment was

27:56

actually, you know, not uncomfortable

27:58

was what I do for free. fun on the weekends almost.

28:01

So, you know, a lot of people look at what we did

28:03

in Thailand and go, oh, you're very brave to go into that cave.

28:05

Well, that's actually not the case because that's my

28:07

recreational pursuit. Yeah. So

28:09

you can put the cave diving to one

28:12

side in the kind of, you

28:14

know, the courage stakes

28:16

in this rescue. For me, what I'm

28:18

proud of is, you know, finding that courage

28:21

to make the decision to go ahead. But at

28:23

the same time, I felt like I didn't have any choice.

28:25

So. Wow. If it

28:27

were me, thank God it wasn't. If it were

28:29

me,

28:31

did you, like, I would put

28:34

a lot of thought into what might, what

28:37

happens if it doesn't work

28:39

past the boys not making

28:41

it. So your prediction was, I don't

28:44

think the boys are going to make it. This is not going to work.

28:46

Did you put much thought into what happens then

28:50

when you

28:51

come back to Australia or, you know, did

28:53

you have any fears about what people

28:56

might think or, because that is a big

28:58

part of risk. I guess, you know, your

29:00

book is about risk and a big part of risk for me,

29:02

at least, is

29:04

weighing up the options and going, OK, well,

29:06

what is, what is the, what

29:09

is the outcome

29:10

of either

29:13

scenario, the successful or

29:15

the failed scenario? Yeah,

29:17

again,

29:19

whether it's naivety or stupidity,

29:21

I didn't sort of think it through. Yeah. Which

29:24

maybe, you know, it's a blessing, maybe, to be so short-sighted

29:26

that you can only focus on the goal in front of you and

29:28

not think maybe through the bigger implications.

29:31

My wife, on the other hand, was having all those

29:33

exact thoughts and she was very

29:36

concerned, not for my physical safety

29:38

in the cave, because I've stressed her pretty

29:40

much comprehensively over the last 20 years by

29:43

disappearing down, you know, holes all around

29:45

the world. And I think she's just too tired

29:47

of worrying to worry anymore. So

29:51

she actually said she wasn't worried about my personal

29:54

safety in the cave, but she was very worried about

29:57

my mental health if the kids

29:59

died. She was very worried about my career

30:02

as an anesthetist if the kids died. And

30:04

she was worried about the sort of fallout,

30:07

you know, the social media, you know, Monday

30:09

morning quarterbacks would be out in force

30:11

without question. And I recognise

30:14

that now. So, you know,

30:16

she's much smarter than me and could

30:18

see all this stuff coming. That's probably why you

30:21

were so well prepared for

30:23

this specific job. Because

30:25

maybe if you were someone who was more worried

30:27

about

30:28

public opinion and things like

30:30

that, then you maybe wouldn't have.

30:32

The thing is, the thing is I am

30:34

pretty thin skinned and I do worry about stuff

30:36

like that. I like

30:39

to be liked and I don't like hearing people

30:41

don't like me or that kind of negative

30:43

feedback that more robust individuals go,

30:46

well, I don't care what you think of me. Yeah, I'm not like

30:48

that at all. I'm very sensitive actually. So

30:51

we're going for a long way in the story, but just on

30:53

that point, was

30:54

there an element of stress that came with being an Australian

30:56

of the year? If that was something we're thinking, God,

30:58

now everyone knows me and I don't necessarily want

31:00

to be known by everyone. Is that? Yeah,

31:03

you couldn't have hit the nail on the head better, really.

31:06

In fact, Craig and I actively

31:08

hid from

31:10

the media, from the spotlight

31:12

as soon as we came back from Thailand. And we

31:15

suddenly realised that this was a huge

31:17

story and that we were now, at

31:19

least in Australia, the focus of it. And

31:22

it was quite a shock, to be honest, and quite

31:24

unwelcome. I remember I

31:26

got home on the Friday night and a mate of mine

31:29

turned up on Saturday morning just to say

31:31

good day and say welcome back and glad you're alive.

31:34

And he said, oh, by the way, did you know all the news crews

31:37

are out the front? I went, what? And he said,

31:39

yeah, that's like all the TV stations are out the front of

31:41

your house. And I went, oh,

31:43

bloody hell, what do I do? And so I rang my sister-in-law

31:46

who's been working in sort of PR

31:48

and marketing. And I said, Juliet,

31:51

do you know any tips? What do

31:53

I get rid of these people? She said, I'll be right around. So

31:55

she spoke to her. Sign a book deal. Right.

31:59

Well, that was. Yeah, of course, all that followed as well.

32:02

And so Juliet spoke to all

32:04

the TV people and she came in and said, right, you've got

32:06

a couple of options. You can go out there and do

32:08

a Q&A. I would highly recommend you do not

32:10

do that. I think you could advise. She

32:12

said you could go and read a statement to them

32:15

and then just turn on your heels and walk back inside. Or

32:17

you can just say something and then say thank you very much.

32:20

Thanks for coming. Goodbye. And

32:22

so I thought, oh, God, this is my worst nightmare. I was terrified

32:25

and I was far more frightening than anything entirely.

32:28

Had you done like any public speaking or anything at

32:30

this point? I've always hated public speaking.

32:33

That's been one of my biggest phobias through my life.

32:36

And I've done a little bit of stuff

32:38

with the media through just under

32:40

the sort of emergency services

32:42

stuff and, you know, just talking at

32:45

scenes and, you know. But no

32:48

global media speeches. So

32:51

I just went out the front and

32:52

babbled something saying, I hope

32:54

you can sort of respect our privacy and

32:57

not taking any further questions at this time. Thank you very much.

33:00

Goodbye. Just taking it one week at a time. Yeah,

33:02

exactly. And I ran inside and that satisfied them and

33:04

they all left. So that was brilliant. Actually, this is

33:06

a funny story. It's amazing, isn't it? Whilst

33:09

I was in Thailand, I just I love this little story

33:11

about my family sort of trying to protect me

33:13

from all this. While I was in Thailand, of course, the media

33:15

interest was growing. Who is the doctor

33:17

from Australia who's gone over there? The mysterious

33:20

Harry. Yeah. And who's his friend and, you

33:22

know, who are these guys? And then they worked out my name

33:24

and, you know, sort of slowly evolved. And anyway,

33:27

the media showed up on the front door one

33:29

night and the door

33:32

door knock came and Fiona went to the front door

33:34

and it's your wife. Yeah. It's

33:36

someone from Channel Whatever. And she said,

33:39

no, we're not talking to the media. Thank you. Goodbye.

33:42

And so James, my son, who had just done his first year of

33:45

law, I think, at that stage at uni said,

33:47

oh, mum, apparently, if you're right, no trespassers

33:49

on the front gate, they're not allowed to come

33:52

in. So James wrote this sign

33:54

on a bit of plywood, but

33:56

he spelt trespassers wrong.

33:59

We had too many S's in it. I

34:02

think we've still got a sign, a photo of that fabulous

34:05

sign, but it worked. The boy genius,

34:07

the lawyer, he scared him a lot. So

34:10

we're very proud of him. Yes,

34:12

he's just such a sis.

34:14

I wish I'd kept that sign. He

34:18

didn't continue with law. Couldn't

34:21

copy editing. Yeah, well, you do. I

34:24

mean, you have now

34:25

written this wonderful book around the art of risk

34:27

taking and you have acknowledged

34:30

in your mind, you didn't feel like for you personally,

34:32

what you're doing is putting yourself at risk, but

34:34

you have become fascinated with the topic of risk taking.

34:37

So you've talked to a whole lot of the people around

34:39

the world who do take risks every day and

34:42

to gather their knowledge. So maybe we

34:44

should go on to that now. I still have so

34:46

many questions. Well, this is an academy, I guess. We

34:48

need to get on to it. True. Otherwise,

34:50

it'll be a two-part podcast. We've

34:53

got no problems with that. I

34:55

mean,

34:55

there has to be a big element of risk taking and cave diving.

34:58

I know in this instance here, potentially

35:00

not, but you just said before that you push yourself

35:02

and you find yourselves in scariest situations or

35:05

situations that elevate your expertise,

35:09

I guess. It

35:12

would be possible, I hope this isn't a lazy question,

35:14

but just to summarise what you've

35:16

learned from different people, which you think might be really interesting

35:18

in the area of risk taking. Yeah,

35:20

I might just start if it's all right just by saying why

35:22

I kind of went down this path because

35:25

for the last 20 years or more, people

35:27

have said to me, you must be crazy to

35:30

do that thing that I do, which

35:32

is my love for cave diving.

35:34

And to be fair, that's a completely

35:37

reasonable first assumption because

35:39

it is people's deepest primal fear,

35:41

I think, to be underground, underwater

35:44

with a finite guest supply to breathe. I mean,

35:46

it terrifies me. Yeah, so the idea

35:49

that you could get lost underwater in

35:51

a labyrinth and you've got 60 minutes

35:54

of air to breathe and so the clock is ticking

35:56

and your time starts now sort of thing. And

35:59

Google Maps is not.

35:59

Google Maps is not an option. But we

36:02

do put a piece of string in the cave to navigate

36:04

by. So everything's fine. Everything's fine. Google String.

36:06

Google String. Google String. Google String.

36:09

I'm going to write that down.

36:11

So the risks, the hazards are incredibly

36:13

obvious. But at the same time,

36:16

like I mentioned with anesthesia, and that's why I feel

36:18

there's a really strong parallel in these two disciplines

36:20

of mine,

36:22

is that if you're well trained and you've got good

36:24

equipment and you're cautious and

36:26

you plan and you do checklists and

36:29

so forth, then all the

36:31

risks can be really well mitigated and it

36:33

becomes a very enjoyable experience.

36:36

I'm not a courageous person

36:38

in my view. I'm not brave. I don't

36:41

enjoy danger. I don't

36:44

get out of bed thinking

36:46

to myself, I'm going cave diving. There's a good chance

36:48

I'll die today. I say, I'm going cave

36:51

diving because I enjoy the meditative

36:53

experience of swimming through these beautiful tunnels. And

36:55

I love it. And I love being with my friends when I

36:57

do it. So then I got thinking,

36:59

well, hang on. Why do these people think I'm crazy?

37:01

I'm not crazy. I think I'm just a good risk manager.

37:04

And I wonder, and I remember seeing

37:06

that film, Free Solo with Alex

37:08

Honnold, climbing that wall without a rope and

37:11

just being aghast thinking, is

37:13

there part

37:16

of his brain actually missing that he can do

37:18

that? And then I thought, well, surely

37:20

not all these people who do stuff

37:22

that frightens me. Maybe they're

37:24

just the same as me. It's just it's within

37:26

their comfort zone. Maybe they're just really

37:29

good at what they do. They're very

37:31

methodical at planning out the process.

37:34

And therefore, it becomes a safe and

37:36

enjoyable experience for them, even though I can't

37:38

comprehend it.

37:39

Maybe for them, it's like me cave diving. And

37:42

so I thought, well,

37:43

what's the best thing to do, especially in lockdown

37:45

and quarantine, start a podcast. You guys,

37:48

I saw this funny meme where all these celebrities

37:50

are saying, whatever you do, Australia, however

37:53

bad it gets, please

37:54

don't start a podcast. Sorry.

37:57

I don't know if you saw it. So I started

37:59

the podcast.

37:59

And I thought I want to test

38:02

my hypothesis that these people are just like me.

38:04

They're maybe careful,

38:07

thoughtful risk managers and

38:09

they're just good at what they do. So I set out to

38:11

interview people and of course with this thing

38:14

in Thailand behind me

38:16

it sort of gave me some

38:18

credibility to approach some outrageously

38:20

famous and incredible people

38:23

which I did and every time they said yeah I'll do

38:25

your podcast I was like whoa really? Yeah.

38:28

So I got to interview some amazing

38:30

people and some people who were complete

38:32

unknowns but I thought had

38:35

amazing stories. Yeah.

38:37

So I did and my hypothesis

38:39

I believe perhaps with one exception which I can

38:41

mention I think my hypothesis

38:44

was correct that these people aren't crazy

38:47

they're just bloody good at what they do and they

38:49

love it and they're careful. You

38:52

know the classic one is the base jumper for

38:54

me.

38:55

That discipline seems so dangerous

38:57

and that's supported

38:59

by the statistics you know the mortality statistics

39:01

in that sport especially the wing suit guys

39:03

who fly proximity

39:06

flying I think it's called when they go really close

39:08

to the ground and through those gaps in the mountains. They

39:10

jump off the top of mountains is that right?

39:12

Yeah base means

39:14

and buildings as well. Buildings and tennis. So

39:16

not off a plane. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they're sometimes

39:19

from a plane or a balloon or a helicopter but

39:21

also mostly from the top of a big hill. Yeah

39:24

okay.

39:25

And this guy Sean Chuma

39:27

who's done the most base jumps of anyone in

39:29

the world he sort of teaches it and he does tandem

39:31

base jump experiences and all this sort of stuff

39:34

off a bridge in Wyoming I think it is.

39:36

He's at seven or eight thousand and

39:38

I said well why are you still alive Sean when

39:40

all these other people have died and he's and

39:42

he said he's actually lost count of

39:45

the friends he knows who have perished in that

39:47

sport

39:48

and he said because I can walk away

39:50

you know if it doesn't feel perfect if

39:52

the conditions aren't right I just don't do

39:54

it.

39:55

So he's found that that

39:57

balance of you know working out how to manage that. at

40:00

risk. So even that guy who presumably

40:02

gets a squirt of adrenaline each time he does

40:04

it,

40:05

which is not why we go cave

40:07

diving adrenaline is to be avoided at all

40:09

costs, to be honest.

40:11

Even he is this sort of amazing

40:13

risk manager. So, yeah. There

40:16

was one girl though who drives those top

40:18

fuel drag cars,

40:21

you know, 2.7 seconds the whole event goes

40:23

for and 300 mile an hour or something.

40:26

And she was self-confessed adrenaline

40:28

junkie. She just puts her foot down and just hoots

40:30

and hollers the whole way down the track. And then at the

40:33

end of it just goes, ah, I want to do it again.

40:35

It's like a drug fix. When

40:37

you were growing up, when you were younger,

40:40

did you, like, what was your relationship

40:42

with risk? I was

40:45

pretty cautious, timid kid,

40:48

I think. You know, I wasn't good at sports. So in

40:50

fact, I was a nervous footy and

40:52

rugby player, for example, I didn't like getting hurt.

40:55

And so that made me cautious

40:57

about running into the ball and

40:59

that made me a very second rate. A

41:02

man after my own heart. Yeah, that's gonna say I

41:04

can relate. I so wanted to

41:06

be good at football and rugby because

41:09

I love that sense of camaraderie

41:11

with your mates. It's like, you know, I imagine

41:14

it's what people on the battlefield sort

41:18

of get that sense of, that brotherhood

41:20

of sharing something slightly scary and dangerous

41:22

with a close group of

41:25

friends. I

41:27

wanted to get that sense of being part of that

41:29

team, but I was hopeless. And

41:32

so, yeah, I don't think I was, I

41:34

wasn't that crazy kid who was building, you know,

41:37

ramps to hop over on my bike. And I was

41:39

not a daredevil. I didn't break bones and that sort

41:41

of thing. So it was only later in

41:44

life when I very incrementally

41:46

started to get into this cave diving

41:48

thing. And

41:51

I think I just expanded my competence

41:53

and my horizons

41:55

to the point where,

41:57

you know, I always felt in control. Now I have to say

41:59

that. Craig and myself in particular

42:02

have a niche

42:04

interest in cave diving which

42:06

is deep exploration where statistically

42:10

again the risks dramatically

42:12

do increase but I'm fascinated

42:14

by the physiology and the physics and the stuff

42:18

we have the logistical challenges to

42:20

overcome to safely push further and deeper into these

42:23

caves so the deepest cave

42:25

dive we've done now is 245 meters and

42:28

we've got 16 hours to complete

42:29

because you have to decompress as you come

42:33

back to the surface and 16 hours so does that mean you

42:35

have to take all the oxygen with you in the one go? Pretty

42:38

much yeah we can stage it in the cave as

42:40

I say it's logistically it's very complex

42:42

to do a dive like that.

42:44

You're underwater for 16

42:46

hours. Oh my gosh. You exhausted

42:48

at the end of that? Yeah it's pretty tiring.

42:50

Hungry? Tiring day. Pretty hungry. Yeah we can eat and drink a little

42:53

bit. We have to I don't want to sidetrack

42:56

the conversation too much so we've got these habitats

42:58

in the cave it's basically imagine a bucket

43:01

upturned in the water full of

43:03

air and we can sort of crawl up into

43:05

them and sit in there so

43:07

the top half of us can be dry for the last

43:10

number of hours and so we can eat and drink

43:12

and talk in there but we're

43:14

still kind of in the water

43:16

under pressure. What is the real experience?

43:18

Talking under 250 meters in a cave. That's

43:22

wow that's an intimate conversation. What do you

43:24

talk about?

43:25

Well actually Craig hates

43:27

it when I talk because he just wants to sit there and go

43:30

into a bit of a trance because it's it's it's long

43:32

cold and painful and unpleasant you know that decompression

43:35

sitting there still six degrees in the water in

43:37

this cave in New Zealand we're exploring so it's

43:39

not it's not much fun so I like to pass

43:42

the time just by rabbeting on and having a bit of a chat

43:44

and Craig's just like yeah

43:46

yeah just leave me alone

43:48

let me go into the zone you know. Yeah

43:50

so I don't know. Remember that time we save like 12

43:53

boys in silence. That

43:55

old chest number. I

43:59

would say

43:59

I'm a risk of order and

44:03

I'm not that proud

44:06

of that. I think I wish I was keen

44:08

to take on more risk. But

44:10

I'm interested to know what you think the

44:13

value is in taking on

44:15

risks, even if, presumably

44:17

in the way you describe it, they're so

44:20

thought out and considered and calculated that

44:22

you're trying to reduce risk when you do it. But

44:25

I'm fascinated of what you see the value

44:27

of risk is.

44:29

Yeah, well, I mean, this is something that's kind

44:31

of the point of the book, I suppose, is do

44:34

we all need risk in our lives? And

44:37

hopefully, threaded through it

44:39

is this message that actually risk can be good

44:42

for us. And it doesn't have to be physical risk. It can

44:44

be putting yourself out there doing

44:46

public speaking or doing

44:49

a podcast. I mean, stuff that five years

44:51

ago before Thailand would

44:53

have filled me with so much

44:55

dread. You messaged me last night and said you're about

44:58

to give a keynote speech. Yeah,

45:00

yeah. So my life is now full of public

45:02

speaking. I mean, that's, well,

45:04

firstly, it's the source of my income now, doing

45:07

corporate speaking. It's allowing me

45:09

to fund my passion, which has always

45:11

been imaging and filmmaking. And now I'm sort

45:13

of actually trying to make a living from that, which,

45:15

you know, anything about filmmaking is a good

45:17

way to lose a lot of money very quickly. So I have

45:20

to maintain some sort of income while I test

45:23

the waters there. But

45:25

so I've had to adapt and

45:27

overcome and become a speaker.

45:30

For me, it's been a huge thing to put

45:32

myself out there. And, you know, just doing podcasts

45:34

like this is is a big step for me. But

45:38

what I've learned is that, you

45:41

know, doing things that are difficult in

45:43

life and again, not physical risk,

45:45

but doing stuff that is confronting

45:47

or emotionally challenging is

45:51

really empowering. And I

45:53

have felt so much stronger for

45:55

it. I still get nervous every single time,

45:58

but less so as time goes on.

45:59

goes on and it's made

46:02

me more confident, it's made me more extroverted.

46:04

It's actually changed me as a person. Not

46:07

that thing in Thailand, but what's

46:09

happened to me subsequently and the way I've kind

46:11

of tried to take advantage of it to

46:13

make myself

46:15

different and better hopefully. Like I

46:17

know you referenced it as that thing in Thailand.

46:21

That crazy weekend in Thailand. I

46:23

mean that is, I mean it was a life-changing

46:25

event. Again, not because

46:27

of what I did, but

46:29

what happened to me afterwards

46:31

I think. Fascinating. And along

46:33

the way, I've really

46:36

solidified my views, which I actually

46:38

expressed as Australian of the Year that young

46:41

people especially need to be able to explore

46:43

their emotional and geographic

46:46

boundaries. And I hate to sound

46:48

like an old white man, which I am, and

46:51

say that the younger generation,

46:53

they're all soft and whatever, but because

46:56

my father said that to me and his father said that to him.

46:58

But the thing is something has changed in the

47:00

last 20 years and that is the advent of smartphones,

47:03

which only appeared on the horizon about 2007,

47:05

can you believe how recently that was,

47:09

and the social media and all the stuff that has followed.

47:12

And so suddenly we're all living

47:14

this virtual life on our screens to

47:16

the exclusion of what we should be doing, which

47:18

is being out on our bikes, honing

47:21

around the park with our little gang of mates,

47:24

damming up the creek and catching tadpoles

47:26

and falling out of trees and breaking

47:29

bones and grazing our knees. All the stuff that

47:31

is normal and important

47:33

for kids. And we

47:35

need to be able to escape the watchful

47:38

eyes of our parents from a pretty early age actually

47:40

and go and do that stuff and

47:43

do some naughty things and make some mistakes

47:46

and work out where the boundaries are. And

47:48

that way we start to learn

47:50

what is safe and what is not safe

47:53

and we slowly expand

47:55

those boundaries and learn to be

47:57

risk managers. Now, if...

47:59

And this is the second old man thing I'm going to say

48:02

is that when you're at school and you're not

48:04

allowed to compete in a team against another

48:06

team, you just have to be on the

48:08

field with them and no one wins and no one

48:11

loses and everyone gets a ribbon at the end of the day.

48:13

Well, you don't actually learn

48:16

what it feels like to lose and come last

48:18

or come second. Or to fail. And to fail. Yeah.

48:22

That builds this sort of illusion

48:24

of perfectness

48:26

in life that is

48:28

going to come crashing down at some

48:30

point. It's unavoidable life, it's

48:32

not fair and it's not easy. So

48:35

what if it's the first time you go for a job interview

48:37

and you get told, no, you are not

48:39

good enough or not suitable for this role.

48:42

If that's the first time you've ever been told

48:44

you've lost or you've come last, you

48:48

might

48:48

collapse in a heap. I have

48:51

a sense, and I want to say I'm not a psychologist

48:53

or a psychiatrist or an expert at this, but I have

48:55

a strong sense that that

48:58

combination of living in this virtual world,

49:01

trying to be

49:04

perfect or trying to see all these people

49:06

who seem to be perfect around us in

49:09

parallel

49:10

with this kind of protected society

49:13

that we live in where we'd never take any

49:15

risks and explore our boundaries. It

49:18

seems like a perfect storm, which may

49:20

be contributing to this mental

49:22

health

49:23

epidemic that we're seeing in young people today.

49:26

Beautifully said. So that's the theory

49:28

of Harris without any science or... Well,

49:31

it's such a major theme in this

49:34

podcast from all the people we speak to, that is...

49:36

But yeah, exactly like you said, beautifully

49:38

said, it's spot on, spot on.

49:41

Now for a long time, I actually wondered, is this mental

49:43

health epidemic true

49:46

or is it just now we're talking about it? And I couldn't

49:48

actually decipher the facts, but having

49:51

now spoken to people who

49:53

do understand this, the psychiatrists and

49:55

tried to read the research, I think it is

49:57

a real thing. I

50:00

just worry greatly for my own kids

50:03

and for their kids and what are we going to do

50:05

to nip this in the bud.

50:06

I guess the other part of risk

50:09

is that there's failure. There can be failure

50:11

with risks. And

50:14

I guess I'm interested to

50:17

understand how you can sort

50:19

of compute and handle that calculation and

50:21

I guess also built into that is how

50:24

risk sort of interacts with our personal

50:26

resilience. Yeah,

50:29

I mean resilience is a hard

50:32

word to kind of even define, isn't it? I

50:34

think it means

50:36

succeeding in overcoming adversity

50:40

and

50:41

not losing ground but actually becoming

50:44

stronger or

50:46

building

50:47

that strength so when the next bit

50:50

of adversity comes your way you are more prepared

50:52

for it. And I think and

50:55

what I'm trying to encourage young parents

50:57

to do for their kids because kids are up for anything

50:59

at the end of the day I think they'll, you know, if you

51:01

kick them outside and push them out the door and say go and

51:05

play with your mates, they probably will. You

51:08

just got to get in early enough before they're addicted to their screens.

51:11

It's the young parents we need to train

51:13

to realise that actually the world is safer

51:16

than it's ever been. Again, let's

51:18

be clear speaking for my privileged

51:21

circumstance and in

51:23

the part of Adelaide I live in, you know,

51:25

very fortunate but by and large the

51:27

world is safer, healthcare is better and you

51:30

know, stranger danger is actually

51:32

whilst we worry about it more it's realistically,

51:34

statistically less of an issue I believe

51:37

than it was in the 60s and 70s. There's

51:39

cameras on every corner. The world is

51:41

a safer place by and large so why

51:44

are we so paranoid about, you know,

51:47

taking risk or taking a responsibility

51:50

for risk is actually a thing. Especially in

51:52

Australia we are the most risk averse

51:54

country of anywhere I go and do my

51:56

thing in. Like, you know, New Zealand,

51:58

even the USA.

51:59

And people just, you

52:02

know, we've become paralyzed by

52:04

this fear of someone

52:07

hurting themselves or someone having to be responsible.

52:10

So taking risks and challenging

52:13

yourself means building personal

52:17

accountability and that means

52:19

looking inward, not outward towards

52:23

for taking

52:25

responsibility. And

52:27

therefore we become

52:29

more robust individuals by doing

52:31

so. If you go, I

52:34

feel this way, I feel

52:38

I'm injured or I feel bad or whatever, what can

52:41

I do to fix myself rather than why

52:43

isn't someone helping me? I guess is the first

52:45

starting point.

52:48

This is much more trivial risk, but I think something

52:50

I've had to overcome and working

52:52

harder and I've found myself being better at it since

52:54

having kids because I want to try and model a different thing

52:57

to what I know I was doing internally. But

52:59

often I would move away from risk because

53:01

I was too afraid of failing and

53:03

what would happen if I failed in

53:06

any circumstance, in very trivial stuff like,

53:08

for example, public speaking. Not that I know

53:10

that can be terrifying for people and it was for me as

53:12

well, but not life or death stuff I'm

53:14

talking about. But the fear of failure

53:17

can overcome and think, well, I won't be able to handle

53:19

it if it fails.

53:24

How do you interact with failure when it happens and

53:26

push through to the next risk sort of thing?

53:29

Yeah, I mean, it depends what sphere

53:32

of endeavor I'm working in, like in medicine.

53:35

Failure is devastating to me and

53:37

whether even just missing the

53:40

IV, if I'm trying to put a cannula in

53:42

your arm before you go

53:44

to sleep, if I miss that and have to injure

53:46

you a second time, puncture your arm

53:48

a second time because I've cocked it up basically,

53:50

I can assure you

53:53

that hurts me a lot more than it hurts the patient.

53:55

I just am so critical of myself. And

53:57

so one of the problems with doctors

53:59

and

53:59

and other

54:00

professionals is we are so tough

54:03

on ourselves and we expect 100%

54:05

perfection 100% of the time, which

54:10

means that we don't handle failure at all well

54:13

professionally. I'm actually interestingly

54:15

here in Melbourne talking to doctors

54:17

about resilience and agility this week.

54:20

And yeah, I mean, sometimes

54:22

we are our own worst enemy. And one of the things

54:25

I'm trying to teach these other doctors is to be

54:27

hard, not to be so hard on ourselves

54:30

and also to look after our colleagues,

54:32

look after each other. So

54:35

failure is really hard to handle

54:37

from a professional

54:39

point of view for me. Failure in other

54:42

areas

54:42

where I maybe don't care as much

54:45

about obviously it's easier. And

54:47

for me sitting at home not doing new

54:49

things is much worse for my mental

54:52

health than inventing

54:55

projects or doing things to

54:57

keep myself busy or trying new things. And

54:59

I'm very guilty of like, oh, life's

55:01

a bit quiet at the moment. Let's destroy

55:03

that by taking on a

55:06

new book and a podcast and do

55:08

some YouTube videos and plan

55:10

an expedition next week. And suddenly my

55:12

life's so frantic and hectic that I'm going,

55:14

ah, why is everything out of control? I hate this. But

55:17

I do it to myself every single time. And I've realized

55:19

that when I'm busy, I'm happy. And

55:22

when I'm sort of, when I'm absolutely

55:26

paddling underwater to try and stay

55:28

afloat, that's when I'm actually most effective and

55:31

sort of hit that flow state where life is good.

55:35

Yeah, wow. Okay. Beautiful. Did

55:38

you ever meet the kids in Thailand? Did you ever, have

55:40

you spent time with them or? Well,

55:42

I mean, I was just, I had an intimate moment when

55:46

I rendered them unconscious and pushed them underwater.

55:48

Yeah. So post that. Probably

55:53

not something you're supposed to boast about. Oh.

55:58

Was this, was there a time?

55:59

time afterwards where you do like, are

56:02

you pen pals? What's your relationship with them? I'm

56:05

sure they're families. Their parents must have

56:07

got in touch with you at some point too. So

56:10

the short answer is yes, I've been back to

56:12

Thailand twice and I've got to

56:14

meet some of the kids and some of the families

56:17

and I've had some very emotional

56:19

meetings, especially with the mothers of

56:21

a couple of the boys. It

56:23

was really, really nice actually. And

56:27

I'm friends with a lot of the kids on Facebook. Unfortunately,

56:30

there's no common language with most of them.

56:32

So I just sort of look at their pictures and see that they're

56:34

kicking a soccer ball around. They all look happy. And from

56:37

what I understand, they've all done really well. Very

56:39

sad to hear that one of the boys died recently

56:42

in the UK. The captain of the team, Dom,

56:44

died in slightly unclear

56:47

circumstances. He was doing a soccer scholarship

56:50

in the UK and apparently he got a knock

56:52

on the head at training and was found dead

56:55

the next day in his apartment or his

56:57

room. So I haven't really heard exactly

57:00

what happened there, but it's awful. And

57:04

there's another boy, that boy I mentioned at the start, Adul,

57:06

who spoke a bit of English and said yes, there's 13

57:09

of us. He's now in the US in New

57:11

York doing biomedical engineering and

57:13

his English is great. So I've had some good chats

57:15

with him, asked him some of the questions I've really...

57:17

So how old are they now? Well,

57:19

they were between 11 and 16 at the time.

57:22

So five years on from that.

57:24

Wow, that's incredible. It's funny, there's one boy

57:26

called Titan who was this 30 kilo

57:29

cheeky little guy with this big grin who

57:31

became a little bit of a sort of a symbolic

57:34

favourite for all of us. He was just this feisty

57:37

little bloke and you've probably seen him. He's

57:39

in all the shows because he's just such a character.

57:41

He's always laughing and cheeky little bugger.

57:44

And I went back

57:46

to work on the Netflix series in

57:48

December, was it last

57:50

year? Yeah, before anyway. And

57:54

so we had dinner and Titan was

57:56

there and he's 15 and he's

57:58

taller than the coach now. So it was... I mean,

58:01

to see these kids growing up and being with their families

58:03

are obviously more reward than you can

58:05

possibly imagine for us.

58:08

Incredible. It's just amazing.

58:10

I have so many more questions. I don't really

58:12

know how much time we have. How

58:14

long have we been going for? This

58:17

is my job to know this time. We're on an hour.

58:19

My gosh. Ask another. When you're

58:21

by yourself and you think back on

58:23

what you did, how do you feel?

58:27

I don't dwell on it much, to be honest. I'm

58:30

constantly reminded of it because

58:32

of the focus on my

58:34

speaking and all that sort of stuff. But

58:37

I don't spend a lot of time actually thinking

58:39

about the rescue itself. But when I

58:41

do, I'm just incredibly proud

58:43

of what we achieved. What

58:46

a privilege to be part of a team

58:49

of upwards of 10,000 people in

58:51

or around that mountain, to be a part

58:53

of that collective human force,

58:57

mostly volunteers who

58:59

came from all corners of the globe

59:02

to help for those 13 boys.

59:04

I mean,

59:05

amazing story. It is so powerful

59:08

for me. I think that's why the story has

59:11

garnered so much interest and attention

59:14

because when all

59:16

around us it seems bleak at times, when

59:18

you see what we can achieve as a global

59:21

community, when the focus and

59:23

the goal is so clear,

59:25

why can't we just get on the

59:27

rest of the year? Yes. Yes.

59:30

That's such a good point. I'm so in awe of and love

59:33

what you did in the cave, but I'm

59:35

also so in awe of

59:37

and just love the person that

59:39

you are or the... I

59:43

mean, your personality, I loved

59:45

your humility and your

59:47

down to earth, very grounded sense

59:50

of the person that you are. I don't remember if it just meant, but

59:52

I do get that sense. What is it about

59:55

your upbringing or your life

59:57

that has helped you to be that way?

59:59

I feel like a few people maybe

1:00:02

in your situation possibly might have gone and

1:00:04

totally understandably, but it

1:00:06

would probably be quite, I

1:00:09

mean, you're so humble. You've remained so humble in

1:00:11

all this. I'm interested in that. Look,

1:00:14

I'm an incredibly privileged

1:00:17

person. I grew up middle-class family, never

1:00:19

wanted for anything, always had a roof over our

1:00:21

heads and food on the table. And

1:00:23

I guess maybe through medicine, I've

1:00:26

seen what life on

1:00:28

the other side of the coin can be like.

1:00:31

And I just

1:00:33

don't take anything for granted, I think.

1:00:36

Or I probably do because I'm so lucky.

1:00:39

But yeah,

1:00:41

I try to remember that I am one

1:00:43

of the very fortunate few on

1:00:46

this planet that has

1:00:48

no stress in their life, no genuine

1:00:50

stress. We make our own stress obviously,

1:00:53

and that is very real. But

1:00:55

compared to so many people, I have nothing

1:00:57

to complain about. I think my

1:01:00

family was and is incredibly

1:01:03

tight. I've got two sisters who I

1:01:05

see a lot of who are incredibly close, little

1:01:08

family unit. My parents were

1:01:10

amazing. My father was an incredible

1:01:12

role model to me. He was the most

1:01:14

relaxed, laid-back bloke you could ever

1:01:17

meet and taught me some

1:01:19

incredible lessons about how to treat other

1:01:21

people. It was quite a prominent

1:01:23

surgeon in Adelaide, but he had this

1:01:26

manner about him of treating everyone as equals.

1:01:29

And he had friends from the hospital. One

1:01:32

was the guy who operated the boom gate at

1:01:35

the hospital, and one was one of the

1:01:37

guys who worked in

1:01:39

the basement pushing trolleys around or

1:01:42

something. And because they shared this interest

1:01:44

in birds with him, he had all

1:01:46

these avaries at home full of parrots

1:01:48

and budgies and things. These guys had

1:01:50

that same interest, so he would go around to their houses and they

1:01:52

would trade

1:01:54

parrots and stuff. So

1:01:57

it just sort of taught me that, you know, to...

1:01:59

to find out people's backstories before

1:02:02

you judge them. And

1:02:05

one thing I've noticed is, the last

1:02:08

few years doing all these talks and things, when you get

1:02:10

invited somewhere, they often send a car for you and you

1:02:12

get, there's someone driving the car. And

1:02:14

so I like chatting to them and finding out what

1:02:16

they're about. And the

1:02:19

stories of some of these people, especially people who've

1:02:21

come from overseas who have been professionals

1:02:23

in their country, doctors, lawyers,

1:02:25

teachers, whatever, and they've basically

1:02:28

left that country because it's not safe

1:02:30

or it's not a place they wanna bring up their children. And

1:02:32

they've sacrificed everything to

1:02:34

bring their family here and to make ends meet.

1:02:37

They're now driving a cab or a car

1:02:39

or whatever,

1:02:40

basically putting

1:02:42

food on the table so that their children

1:02:45

can go to university in a country like Australia

1:02:47

or something like that. I mean, to

1:02:49

me that just, I don't know, it just blows

1:02:51

me away when people are prepared to sacrifice

1:02:54

stuff like that. So I don't even

1:02:56

know if I've approached answering your questions beautifully.

1:02:59

I love that. What did your

1:03:01

dad say to you before you took off for the

1:03:03

caves? Well, he was

1:03:07

literally, as it turned out, on his death bed. He

1:03:09

died on the last day of the

1:03:11

rescue. And

1:03:14

he hated me

1:03:17

cave diving. He was, all

1:03:18

my life, he was trying

1:03:21

to say, oh, I don't think you should

1:03:23

do that anymore. You know, it's really dangerous. And he was worried

1:03:25

about it.

1:03:26

And I had this running joke with him where

1:03:29

I would say, yeah, you know what, dad, you're

1:03:31

right. That was my last trip. I've decided not

1:03:33

to do it anymore. And he'll go, oh,

1:03:35

that's great news. And then he'd look at me and he'd realize that

1:03:38

I was bullshitting. And he'd go,

1:03:40

oh, you killed me again. You know, it

1:03:42

became a kind of a running joke. And

1:03:45

so I think he said something to that effect like, oh,

1:03:47

I hope this will be the last trip. And,

1:03:49

you know, but- So that was the last time

1:03:51

you saw him? Yeah, last time I saw him. And then, I mean,

1:03:55

it's kind of bizarre that as

1:03:58

that last kid came out of the cave. was probably

1:04:00

about the moment that he died. And I

1:04:03

went back to my hotel and texted

1:04:06

Fiona as I had done each day after

1:04:08

the end of the rescue just to tell her I was

1:04:10

safe. And of course we were pretty full

1:04:13

of it by then. We were very excited all these kids

1:04:16

had come out but we're also exhausted. So

1:04:18

I was having an early night. I got back

1:04:21

to the hotel about midnight and I rang her up and

1:04:23

she sort of burst into tears and told me that Dad had just

1:04:25

died. And I went, how's that possible? You

1:04:27

know, what should be the happiest day of

1:04:29

my life? Just suddenly got this devastating

1:04:33

news. But he

1:04:35

was a guy who loved

1:04:38

life so much and loved people so much.

1:04:41

And with this cancer diagnosis

1:04:43

that he had, the end for him was actually looking pretty

1:04:46

awful. And he had always

1:04:48

talked about quality of life and not quantity.

1:04:51

And so I sort of realized that when he had suddenly

1:04:53

just popped his clogs as he did that day,

1:04:55

he just dropped dead. I realized

1:04:57

actually what a blessing that was. He was 88. He'd

1:05:00

had an amazing life. And

1:05:03

he went out with a bang

1:05:04

and I just realized it would be selfish for me not

1:05:06

to celebrate his life alongside

1:05:10

what had just happened in Thailand. So

1:05:13

I just sort of managed to turn it all around in my head and

1:05:15

just for the next days, a few days I

1:05:17

decided to stay in Thailand and

1:05:19

we partied on something shocking. And the

1:05:22

Thai's were incredibly good hosts. I can

1:05:24

tell you for a few days, they just laid it on for

1:05:26

us. And it was amazing way

1:05:29

to sort of tie it all up.