Twelve Boys, One Unthinkable Plan: Dr Richard Harris on the Rescue That Stopped the World
- 7 days ago
- 3 min read
There was barely a dry eye at the Ray White’s Connect 2025 Conference today as attendees listened in awe to the breathtaking story of Dr Richard “Harry” Harris.
The South Australian anaesthetist, cave diver and national hero captivated the audience for his courage and composure in one of the most daring rescue missions in modern history.
The humble doctor and 2019 Australian of the Year is best known for his central role in the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue in Thailand, a mission that captivated the world and pushed the limits of courage, teamwork, and medical ingenuity.
Today, he took the audience inside that moment with a personal retelling. “To this day, I still think - why me?
But looking back, everything I had done in my life led to that moment,” Dr Harris told the audience.
“I had a very specific set of skills, medicine, diving, remote trauma care, it felt like I was made for this one terrible, unbelievable challenge.”
“I started scuba diving at 12. I wasn’t sporty. I wasn’t particularly gifted,” he said. “But I was determined, and that gets you 95 per cent of the way. Diving gave me a sense of purpose and wonder.
I was exploring another world.”
He described his early dives through the Nullarbor and Mount Gambier, and his travels to exotic underwater caves around the world.
His role as a doctor also brought him to working in remote areas with minimal tools. When news broke of a Thai soccer team trapped deep inside a flooded cave, Dr Harris, watching from Adelaide, felt an overwhelming pull.
“By day two, I was glued to the story. By day five, I couldn’t ignore the feeling anymore,” he said.
“I called friends in the diving community. Everyone said the same thing, it was a lost cause.”
He reached out to the two British cave diving legends Rick Stanton and John Volanthen who were over there helping, two men he calls “absolute rockstars in our world.”
“If anyone could pull this off, it was Rick and John,” Dr Harris said. “They’d found the boys by day ten, huddled together on a rocky shelf, five kilometres into the cave."
“The boys couldn’t swim. The passage was pitch black. Three hours underwater. Jagged rock, zero visibility.
You couldn’t even turn your head in some sections.”
The idea that would ultimately save them was unthinkable; sedate the boys with ketamine, strap on dive masks, and guide them out, unconscious, one by one.
“It had never been done before. If anything went wrong underwater, we’d lose them. We practised on local kids in a pool, just to see if the masks could seal on their faces.”
“I had to push a child’s face into the water to test the mask once they were sedated. Every instinct told me not to. But we had no choice. If we didn’t try this, they’d all die.”
“I’ll never forget surfacing after the first day, asking,
‘How did we go?’ someone said ‘four for four’, and I thought they meant four dead.
When I realised they were alive, I couldn't believe it.
" Despite the success of the first mission, the pressure only increased.
“That night, I could hardly sleep. The weight of what was ahead, three more days, more boys, rising water, unpredictable conditions."
But one by one, they made it. All twelve boys and their coach were brought out alive.
“The last kid out, Titan, had this huge grin on his face the whole time.
After everything, he still smiled.” Dr Harris reflected on what allowed those boys to survive ten days in darkness and floodwater.
“We wondered, was it their Buddhist faith?
Their Thai culture?
Was it the fact they were country kids who had faced some adversity?
I believe that was the reason.
They were tough and mentally resilient."
The session ended with Dr Harris sharing a quote from Napoleon Bonaparte that he uses as a guide.
“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide."
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