Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Heroic Decision Making - The Tham Luang Cave Rescue | Dr. Richard Harris

Episode Date: June 9, 2021

This week’s conversation is with Dr. Richard “Harry” Harris, an Australian anesthetist and cave diver who played a crucial role in the Tham Luang cave rescue. For those of you unfamiliar, it’s an incredible story… In June 2018, Harry was about to depart on a cave diving holiday to the Nullarbor Plain.He and dive partner Craig were requested by the Thai government, on the advice of British cave diving experts attempting to rescue twelve Thai children and their soccer coach who were trapped in the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system… to provide assistance with the rescue efforts.They were jointly awarded 2019 Australian of the Year as a result of that rescue.I wanted to speak with Harry to understand how he did it… what gave him the courage to put his life on the line on a whim for strangers?I think you’ll be fascinated to not only hear about Dr. Harry’s first hand experience but also the mental skills he utilized – imagery, calm, confidence, focus… it’s all there._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. In the end, you know, people keep saying to me, if you genuinely believe that it would 100% fail what you were proposing, why or how could you possibly have entertained that? And to me, the decision became very binary. It was either leave them to die a very slow, awful death from starvation, exposure or infection, let alone the psychological terror that that would impart upon them. Or you take them out and probably they'll die, but they'll be anesthetized and asleep when that happens.

So essentially euthanizing them. And, you know, I think there's a very pragmatic answer to that question, one or the other. All right, welcome back or welcome to, if you're new here, to the Finding Mastery Podcast. I'm Michael Gervais, and by trade and training, I am a sport and performance psychologist. And the whole idea behind these conversations is to learn from people who are committed to both their craft and their inner life. We want to better understand what they're searching for. We want to know their psychological framework, which is really how do they use their mind? How do they make sense of the world around them, themselves included? And if you want to learn more about how you can train your mind, it's just a quick little reminder here to check out the online psychological training course that I created with the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, Pete Carroll. And you can find that at

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Finding Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. I'm pretty intentional about what I eat and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals on a demanding day, certainly I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein Bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put them on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly. They're incredible, Mike. I love them. One a day, one a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell.

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So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Now, this week's conversation is with Dr. Richard Harry Harris. He's an Australian anesthesiologist and a cave diver who played a crucial role in the Tom Long Cave Rescue. This podcast, it might change you. It might change you in ways because it's going to force you to take a look at the way that you make decisions in your life. And it's going to force you to examine how would you act under the conditions that Dr. Harris, Dr. Harry, as he's known by, how he makes his decisions. So in essence, in 2018, Doc was about to depart on a cave diving holiday with his friend.

And they were requested by the Thai government on the advice of British cave diving experts attempting to rescue 12 Thai children and their soccer coach who were trapped in the Tham Long cave system. And the whole idea is that like they are trapped. These two gentlemen, Dr. Harry in particular from Australia, were the go-tos across the planet. But as this story unfolds, it is absolutely remarkable, the decision-making tree that he had to go through. And so I wanted to speak with Harry to understand how did he do it? What were the bumpers? What were the frameworks? What were the ways that he was trying to sort out what was right? Was it intuition? Was it science? Was it something else? And really what gave him the courage to put, well, I'm going to, I'm going gonna leave the punch line for later but what gave him the courage to be able to do what he did and i think you're gonna be fascinated not only to hear

about dr harry's first-hand experience but also the mental skills that he employed i mean we talk about imagery we talk about mechanisms for calm how he generated confidence and deep focus because there's deep fatigue involved in this thing as well. And one little note here, this is just a heads up during the first 10 to 15 minutes of the recording. We had a bit of an audio challenge, but it should still be audible for you. And I left it in there because it sets the tone and then the quality of the recording gets much better, you know, as we get into the heart of the story. So please be patient. I think you're going to find it meaningful for you. So with that,

let's jump right into this week's conversation with Dr. Richard Harris. Richard, how are you? Right, Michael. Thanks for following me on the show. I'm so excited to spend time with you. I first met you when you left a mark in your skill meets heroism meets readiness to do something extraordinary. Watching what you did and how you navigated and how you conducted yourself. And much of it was left to my imagination because there wasn't not a whole lot of behind the scenes. And then knowing that there was a book and a movie and, you know, that had folded out of it and a podcast that folded out of it. I'm so excited to talk to you. You represent so much to me and I just can't wait to learn from you.

So thank you for spending your time. Well, it's been a bit of a crazy journey. So it's good to chat about it with you. You can tell me some insights into me, hopefully. Okay. Well, you know what? I'm here to learn, too. So let's roll to chat about it with you. You can tell me some insights into me, hopefully. Okay. Well, you know what? I'm here to learn too. So let's roll up our sleeves.

One of the things that, let's just start with this. So you're an anesthesiologist as well as a cave diver. And they seem to be a bit at odds with each other. But I'm hoping that you can link those two i'm sure that you know that divergent path that dichotomy between the two crafts and practices um they don't seem to make clear sense to me but i'm sure that there's a link that you've made can we just start with that the linking between those two that's really easy actually because for me, those two disciplines are extraordinarily similar in many respects.

And I think the adage of wartime, you know, 99% boredom and 1% terror can apply to both of those things very, very easily in anesthesia and in cave diving. You know, if you're well prepared, you're well trained, your equipment is good and checked and tested and the conditions are right then it should be very relaxing and pleasant endeavor where and to be an anesthesiologist you couldn't do that every day if you're on the interview seat the whole time when you're at work you've got to be able to relax and enjoy yourself so I find those two those two disciplines to be very simple because if it's all going well, then it's actually fun and it's safe and it's relaxing. One is what I do for a living and one is what I do for my sport.

But when it goes bad, it can go bad very, very quickly and the outcomes and the catastrophic health decision. Yeah. In anesthesia, so I was partners with a group of neurosurgeons and they were always kind of talking amongst each other that people will kick their tires when it comes to neurosurgery and they'll want to really do a checkup on like who this surgeon is. It's going to cut me open and work, you know, on my nervous center. And they would never ask about the credentials of the anesthesiologist. And the anesthesiologist, tell me if I have this wrong, is the one that actually puts you the closest to death that you can imagine. And so there's an art and a science, of course, but the art is a little bit of a dance

with life and death. Can you shape that up just a little bit for me? Yeah, that's absolutely true because all practicing anesthesiologists have passed their examinations. I've done the training in the USI and in Australia and the Western world. You know, the training is very good. It's very robust and comprehensive. But there are still practitioners out there who you would think twice about obtaining their services. And that's the same for an anaesthetist or a neurosurgeon

or your mechanic. You know, they've all got their piece of paper, but there's something that separates the reasonable ones. And I'm not saying whether I'm average or fantastic, but I believe I'm above a necessary standard to keep people safe. And most doctors, like most people in whatever part of their life they work in, they have an appropriate level of skill. And so that's what you want to know, of their life, what they work in, they have an appropriate level of skill.

And so that's what you want to know, that you're in the best hands possible, in the reasonable hands. But there's just the odd one who's not quite there, and it's very hard to work out why that is. And I think that is the art side of it. We all know the rules, but there's some nuances that we put into our practice. For example, I've seen other doctors, friends of mine who say, oh, this is the way I do this.

And I've tried to do the same and it just didn't quite work as well. It just didn't feel like it was as successful. And so there's something that person does that I can't quite detect that they do and makes it successful, whereas in my case it wasn't. So you find your own way, you find your own patterns and recipes that work well for you. So in this dance, you've got science on both sides of your life efforts, and you've got art, and you're also dancing with this thin membrane between life and death. And it doesn't necessarily seem that way on a regular basis with cave diving, but it's there, you know, anytime that you're in

hostile environments where we're not necessarily, um, or not at all designed to, to be able to live and survive meaning underwater or pressured environments. You know, I want to understand your early years. I want to understand how you grew up that led you to have this interest in science, this dance with life and death and, you know, the thrill and the excitement that comes with the way that you've designed your life. So can you, can you rewind backwards just a bit? And what was it like growing up? Like, and I mean, like, like what was money for the family like? How many kids did you have? Really rock solid stuff to just paint the picture of growing up. I don't know if you were wealthy or you came from humble beginnings.

I don't have that context. Yeah, well, I was very lucky. I grew up in a very middle class family. Dad was a doctor, mum was a nurse. We never had any trouble putting food on the table. We lived in a nice suburb. So I was privileged to the point of almost feeling a bit guilty about it, to be honest, because we never struggled.

And secondly, we had a very loving family environment. Parents who were very loving, took us on nice holidays. I mean, we were wealthy, but I think, you know, growing up, it was always a summer holiday on the beach somewhere local, and Dad had a small boat and his passion was fishing. And so I grew up on the ocean with my father catching little fish to eat. And very early on, I realised that I was fascinated by the ocean and I think he instilled that in me. And very early on I also realised I had a slightly scientific interest

in the ocean and I decided I was going to be a marine biologist from a very young age and I had books. I tried to learn the Latin names of the fish I was seeing and I did a lot of snorkelling and spearfishing and similarly tried to learn all about the habits of the fish I was seeing. I did a lot of snorkelling and spearfishing and similarly tried to learn all about the habits of the creatures that I was slaying with my little hand spear. It was actually a marine biologist friend of the family who one day lined up these dead fish on the beach for me and asked me if I knew the names of them and what did they eat and so forth. I

realised I didn't know anything about them. I didn't even know whether I could eat them when I was about 10 years old and she very cleverly pointed out that none of these were edible and you know they were one of my mates for life and basically I was a murderer and I should rethink my strategies so that was a real light bulb moment for me as a young boy that I remember and I then, well first I became very selective about what I would experience, I would experience stuff that I would eat but it made me start to look at the fish and the environment and become really even more fascinated with it. Yeah I grew up as a scuba diver as a teenager and then at university, in the university dive club we had a dive instructor and that led me to cave diving as a group of people the instructors decided to go and give that a try so i wasn't really looking for adventure

i was just looking for different experiences within that conference richard did you identify as being a cave diver was that part of your identity or not cave diver as a diver when you're a kid or was it just a thing that you did on the side and it was kind of cool, but you also did A, B, and C, other things that were part of your normal activities? I identified as an ocean person

I think. Whether it was boating, fishing, snorkeling, diving, all of those things. Not sailing or boating. You know, boating, but boating for them um you know the point of boating but boating to get into parts of the ocean other catch fish or sea fish and yeah but but it has become a huge part of my identity as you know i'm now 56 so uh it's been part of my life when i was growing up

I grew up surfing and so I think once you get bitten by the ocean there's so many lessons to learn and there's a depth and a fascination it's like a never ending unfolding learning environment

and so when I was in high school I couldn't wait to get out of high school to get in the ocean and so did you have that unsettled scratchiness or was there a different type of discipline in the way that you organized your life? I'm not sure really. I knew that I wanted to study, keep studying, and I thought marine biology would be the thing. There's actually another friend of mine who was doing marine biology

who talked me out of it in the end because he said, no, I'm going to get a job and it's just a bit hopeless at the moment. So I turned my attention to being a veterinarian. I thought that would be the next best thing, working with animals and still with that science and biology bent. And I also put my name down for medical school, but that would be the next best thing to being a vet. And unfortunately, I missed out on vet school by a couple of marks

and got into medical school by a couple of marks. So I was right on the cusp, I guess, of that academic achievement. And that was it. That was my destiny. And to be honest, it's been a fantastic career course for me. It's been brilliant. I love it. Destiny. Let's pause there for a me. It's been brilliant. I've loved it. Destiny.

Let's pause there for a moment. It's a big word. It means a lot of different things for different people. Do you map that to a deity and like a spiritual framework, or do you map that in some other way? Definitely not a religious person so no I don't think it was any anything was all day or pre-planned perhaps destiny was the wrong wrong term for me but what I would say is that I can't imagine life without medicine now it's a hugely fulfilling productive and also

perfect for all my other pursuits and extracurricular activities because it's allowed me the medicine and the time, especially being an anesthetist. I'm not sure whether to say anesthetist or anesthesiologist. I'm sure we're perfect, but take it as both meaning the same thing. How do you pronounce it? Anesthetist. Oh, yeah, we say anesthesiologist.

I know you have nurse anesthetist, but you have anesthesiologist. Anesthesiologist, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, alright. Being an anesthesiologist gives me one advantage over your neurosurgical practice, and that is that when I walk out of the hospital at the end of the day, as long as I've left my patients in good shape, my responsibilities are finished which means that i can then go away that weekend and have a clear weekend without those responsibilities unless i'm on call so that has given me the freedom to take time off

and and go on expeditions and do stuff that i wouldn't be able to if i was a surgeon for example that's that has actually been a massive and unintended benefit of my choice especially and then that's cool i wouldn't put that together and then so one feeds the other in time and expertise i think also anesthesiology allows you to understand deeper um you know breathing mechanisms, all of the sort of compromised states that might happen on a gurney or in an operating room, but also those same compromised states with deep water fatigue or shallow water fatigue for folks. So there's probably a blending there that makes some sense too. Oh, it's been a massive overlap with my interest and studies in diving medicine

and the applied physiology that I have to know about to do particularly very deep dives, which have become a bit of a subspecialty for myself and my budding friend John. It's kind of a niche interest for us. So there's an enormous amount of physiology, which is very wise to understand to do some of those okay so for folks that are not going to cave dive but want to understand some of the breathing patterns for health and wellness and relaxation and a sense of calm you know recovery there's lots of ways that breathing can help with our physiology and in particular with the vega system or the respiratory

i'm sorry the parasympathetic system what what do you think of tumor breathing what do you think of long exhales um and is there a precision in long exhales that you found to be valuable for triggering the parasympathetic state? Well, it's not something I've really studied or practiced, to be honest, Michael. I'm aware of that box breathing where you have equal periods of inspiration, breath hold, expiration, breath hold. And I've used that to help some of the kids that I go bushwalking with. I work with some charities that work with disadvantaged kids

who are struggling a bit. We've taken out bush for eight days in a very remote part of Central Australia, and through that sort of wilderness therapy, we've helped bring them back down a bit and sort them out a little bit. So I've found that very useful when they're all getting a bit uptight and a bit frenetic. But I don't know if I consciously do that myself with the exception of when we're actually doing these dives because part of the strategy

to avoid some of these respiratory issues is to keep your work rate down and keep your breathing very regular and very calm. If at the moment you have a problem, of course, at 250 metres underwater in a cave, it's very easy for your heart rate to start coming up, for your breathing to start increasing in speed and for you to start very quick and unproductive movements. So we have sort of a conscious strategy to stop and slow

everything down and try and problem-solve in a very time-pressured environment where speeding up is actually very helpful and productive on so many levels, both psychologically but also physiologically. And Craig and i particularly talk that through before it dies and say okay if you get the the guideline wrapped around your leg you know in 10 meters of water that would be a very minor issue to sort out at that depth when every minute on the bottom means another 15 or 20 minutes of deep depression time on the way back to the surface it's a huge clock ticking in your head you have to the surface. It's a huge clock ticking in your head. You have to just stop

and take a breath, relax, solve the problems and be very aware of the speed you're doing. It's very hard to go slow when every nerve is screaming to go fast. Even when you're just describing it right now, you slowed down. You got more quiet.

Your physiology, I think you're using imagination right now at some level as you were describing it. Is that true? Did you notice that? And is that true that you're using your imagination? I was thinking, I was picturing myself underwater in that situation. That scenario has happened to me at that time.

But I wasn't aware of the slowing down yeah and then well that's I think it's a phenomenal thing that when we use our imagination it changes things for us and it can it can freak us out and it can also prime particular memories and how we engaged and it could also be an accelerant for our potential and high performance, you know, mental imagery for success, if you will. And then in your preparation to go into compromising potentially consequential environments, do you do mental imagery or is it not something that you pay attention to in a disciplined way? We do pre-visualize our thoughts a lot. Well, I know I do and usually in my tent the night before and you know spend

a week or ten days setting up the cave building up to this exploration dive which we're planning we usually only do one dive per trip because A there's a lot of setting up time and B it's so physically exhausting that by the time the dive is done

that's kind of it. You've lost your mojo for any more diving, really, for another period of time. So, yeah, I tend to lie in my tent and think through all the steps of the cave and plan what I'm going to do in each phase and how I'm going to respond to different emergencies. It reminds me a little bit of the film with

Alex Honnold, the free solo, which many of your listeners will have seen, and the way he choreographs every move on that, the face of that wall, his mind down on paper. It's an extraordinary performance. I don't think I'm at quite that level, but I certainly try and think through all the steps i had him on the podcast after his um that adventure that expedition and one of the things he talked about which was an interesting way to you know understand his craft is he says no i'm not a risk taker he goes you know i've thought this thing through and i'm highly skilled and I've got all of the capabilities to be able to execute it. But if I make a mistake, it's consequential.

I had the same conversation with him. My podcast is a very good podcast topic and a fascinating study for a psychologist, I'm sure. But just as a fellow risk taker, because for me, what he does is absolutely terrifying. And I'm sure for most of us, watching a film was sitting on the edge of a seat and holding your breath. And there were all these references or implications that he was somehow on the spectrum or somehow a freak or there was something different about his brain. He's a big dealer not working on the PET scan that he had. And I wanted to get into that with him.

And being Australian, we can be quite rude. So I just asked him, you know, are you autistic? And he said, I wish people wouldn't say that because I really don't think I am. And then he explained to me what you've just said about how he knows what he can do. He's done it every day in the last, I don't know, many years. He is so confident of his own abilities and limitations that for him that decreases the risk and makes it acceptable because he knows if he goes for this move, he will succeed.

And barring a rock coming loose or something that he can't control, he knows he will succeed. And if we're like that, what would it be from? He managed to convince me that he's just a very good athlete, but there's nothing wrong with his brain. He's just very talented. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits,

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just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FINDING code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. What major obstacles did you face down as a kid? You know, what were some of the hard things that you had to sort out as a young kid?

Because I've read your take on parenting and, you know, you've got a fear, a healthy fear that parents are doing a little too much and that there's some hardiness that we're going to miss out when we become Zamboni parents or helicopter parents or really smooth things out for our kids. And there's a value in allowing our kids or creating the conditions where they get scraped, sometimes even bruised, sometimes even broken bones, dare I say. I can hear the parents right now going, you know, but there's so much to learn from challenge and adversity. And I don't mean something that fundamentally alters their ability to have mobility in life, but what were the obstacles that you experienced as a kid? It can be anything from bullying to broken bones to, you know, whatever. So I did grow up in, in this fairly

perfect world with a family that I've described. And I couldn't say that I had any major obstacles growing up, certainly no physical disabilities or any particular problems, no, no family disharmony or violence or anything like that. I think the main challenges I faced were within myself with a couple of problems. At school, I was very disruptive, very poorly behaved, had a lot of problems with discipline. And I guess that reflected low self-esteem looking back. So I didn't achieve the potential academically or in other endeavours at school that I probably could have. And I don't look back at school as a happy time for me. I really did struggle trying to find my tribe

and trying to find my niche. And I think looking back now, struggle trying to find my tribe and trying to find my niche. And I think looking back now, I was hanging out with the wrong crowd, trying to fit in with the cool kids and the party scene and testing that environment a bit rather than finding perhaps the bushwalking group or the sailing club and those sort of pursuits would have suited me a lot better.

But, you know, with the insecurity of a teenager, you want to be one of the cool guys maybe. Did you feel like an insider or an outsider? I feel like I had a foot in both camp. Like I was in that group of the cool kids, but I didn't feel like I belonged. And I didn't really like a lot of the cool kids, but I didn't feel like I belonged. And I didn't really like a lot of the values, the social values that were being imparted by those guys, or in fact, the school, which was quite a posh private boys school. And if you unpack that struggling self-esteem and not quite

fitting in, but being in the crowd, where did that come from? What was unique about your childhood experiences? Maybe go back a little earlier and say, well, I think it might've been this. And, you know, it was, I'm imagining mom, dad, some, something like that. But if you unpack that a little bit more, how did that play out? Yeah, I don't know, because, you know, I feel like I grew up with very strong social conscience, very strong values of being kind to other people and standing up for the underdog. And, you know, with that group of the cool kids, maybe they were, you know, sometimes the ones who were being bullies or picking on some of the weaker kids. And maybe that's, that was causing the inner turmoil for me.

I didn't realize I was going to get a counseling session here. This is very, very insightful for me to think back on all this. That's good. I'm just asking questions. I'm trying to learn. Oh my God, we're talking. I've got so much to tell you. Oh my God.

You won't charge for this, will you? No, no, no no as long as you don't charge you don't charge me right yeah good um i think the um i think what i'm trying to understand is i want to get to that moment in 2018 where you had a contemplative moment to jump on the plane and go risk your life, knowing that real risk. And I'm not, this isn't like a make-believe like, Oh, I would go do that too. Like, this is like, Whoa, these kids might not come out. So there was a risk of going. Once you entertain something, there's a risk of going and there's a risk of not going. And I want, I'm trying to get all the frameworks I can possibly put in place to understand how you made that decision.

This whole conversation is like, how'd you make that decision? And I'm wondering if let's call it some struggling early self-esteem stuff. Not sure why that showed up with some of the resources that you had but it was there like what were you trying to sort out by going for it i feel like the decision to go to thailand was the easiest decision i've ever made i wanted to go there um as soon as i heard those kids were in trouble i wanted to be there i wanted to be part of it too because i knew i had some skills that could be of use and it was a cracking good adventure and you know I enjoy performing medicine in strange environments

and I enjoy cave diving so for me it was you know doing all the things I love. In addition to that I'd spent the last 10 or 12 years pretty much practicing for this event, unknowing that it would be this particular event. But we've been running cave rescue training in Australia for some time, as have other people around the world. And I had actually generated a course for fellow cave divers to practice bringing someone who might be injured or medically unwell through an underwater section of a cave out to the surface if they had found themselves in strife. And this started in 2008

when I was diving in a very remote cave on the Nullarbor Plain in Western Australia. And the cave's actually six kilometres long underwater, but there are two air chambers along the way, one at about a kilometre and one at three and a half kilometres. And each time you reach these air chambers, you have to climb out of the water, carry all your diving gear across basically an underwater mountain of boulders and then back into the water to continue the exploration. And I was walking through one of these rock chambers one day and realised that if I fell over or injured myself in that space, then who on earth and how on earth was someone going to come and rescue me if I had a broken femur or pelvis or a head injury? I could see no possible way of escaping that situation. So that's when it dawned on me we needed some kind of capability to rescue people. And that was kind of a purely selfish interest at that point. And so I came back to Adelaide,

starting talking to the police divers, to other rescue authorities and other cave divers. And we had this weekend of scenario training. And then from that, I wrote a course basically that we've been running pretty much every year since. So I was starting to feel like a fireman who'd never put out a fire, I suppose, because we'd done all this training and I had this equipment and preparedness. And so when a genuine rescue came up, then I was very, very keen to get it. Okay, that I did not know. And that makes perfect sense that you would be the one. And then mechanically, how does, how does it happen? Like who pays for your flight? Who pays for that? Is that you saying I'm a citizen of cave diving and I'm going to go fund this and

because I want to be there to make a difference. Um, or is there some other mechanism at play that I'm not aware of? No, so any international incident like this, and I learned a lot of this working in the ambulance service in South Australia as a doctor. So any kind of major incident like this, first of all, the country has to invite people. They have to invite volunteers to come and assist. And we learned this from things like the Haiti earthquake

where a large number of American orthopods, orthopedic surgeons went down there to help fix bones. And of course, in their day practice, all they do is knee arthroscopies or hip replacements, which is not really very much used to a lot of people who have bones sticking out through their leg and with dust and concrete ground into the legs. They need a wartime trauma approach to their surgery, not elective joint replacement type surgery. So sometimes volunteers are more of a hazard than of a use. So the country needs to invite people and Australia was invited to contribute. And so we had representatives from our federal police and military on site, as did the US, as did many other countries.

And it was one of the British cave divers who first became involved, a guy called Rick Stanton and his dive buddy, John Valanthan. They had been asked to attend because they had a track record of doing other cave rescues. And those guys had been on site for about four or five days until finally they were the ones who broke into Chamber 9 and found those children. And I knew Rick already from several previous expeditions, so we had a personal relationship,

and so I'd been in communication with him throughout. And it was Rick who, in fact, came up with this idea of sedating the children to bring them out. And, of course, when that idea was proffered, he said, what do you think? I said, forget it. It's just impossible. It's not going to happen. But I reiterated my offer to come over and assist.

And so he spoke to the Australian government people on the ground. And then I had a call from the Australian government and that's how it all started. So from that point on, I was an Australian government employee and I was sent over there as, as an Australian government representative and all the costs were paid by Australia. Okay. Brilliant. All right. So set the scene for folks that are not familiar with this cave dive. And,

and I'd like for you to do it in as abbreviated ways you can, because the story is remarkable. And I want people to learn the story, you know, from you, but I want to get to the stuff about the decisions that you were making. And so I want to leave much of that to it. But I also want to add one thing is that you were part of an experience where you had to recover the body of one of your friends. So here we are with some of that in your history, as you're going to potentially rescue. How many kids was it? Was it 12 or 13? 12 plus the coach.

So it was 13 total 12 plus the, yeah. Okay. So I'm going to want to know how that set up inside of you. And, but maybe it didn't, maybe that was just kind of a distant memory, but okay. So you get the call, you're headed out there. Um, but just set the frame of the conditions that, uh, the kids, you know, and I know it was a birthday party. They were going to go do this thing and, um, put their names on the back of a wall and, you know, like I know it was a birthday party. They were going to go do this thing and put their names on the back of a wall. And, you know, like they're just going on a fun expedition with a coach and it was meant to be a quick little day trip. Ha ha fun, fun. Let's go do something together. And mother nature had different plans. And basically, as I understand it, that

there was a hazard flooding, you know, mother nature just did its thing and they got caught in um in the back of the cave and so sharpen that up a little bit but give the main frames of the of the setting and and the conditions you know this all takes place in a very remote far northern village of thailand it's right on the border with myanmar it's a beautiful area, you know, a remote rural area, pristine mountains and jungle and so forth. But every year, pretty much at the same time, the monsoon rains start. And when they come, they stick for about three or four months.

There's actually a sign out in front of the cave saying, July to November is the cave flooding season. And these boys went in on the 23rd of June. So they, in theory, should have been okay. The weather that day was perfect. There was no sign of any problems. So they went in and sure enough, it was raining on the other side of the mountain range and that happened to be the main catchment area

for this cave. So they got all the way to the back of the cave, five kilometres in, and they turned around to come out and they found that the passageway was blocked by water and the water was rising pretty much in front of their eyes so they tried to one the coach tried to duck dive through the obstruction nearly drowned himself in the process came back and they slept on the beach that first night woke up the next day to find the water pretty much lapping at their feet, and so they had to retreat further into the cave until they found this very tall, muddy slope

with a small, flat platform at the top, about 30 feet above the water, and that's where they camped for the next nine days until they were found. How about that? Nine days. So no food. No food. No food, just drinking the cave water. And pretty cold, I imagine. It was 23 Celsius.

I'll leave you to work that out. So not cold, but sitting there in damp T-shirt and shorts on the wet mud, you'd lose heat pretty quickly. So very miserable. Not to mention the fear fear not to mention the unknown not to mention maybe some of the compromised understanding of night and day i don't know if if sun made it to the back of that cave but there's a dysregulation that takes place if you don't have your circadian rhythm um intact and so was there light in the back of the cave no no zero light pitch dark and i think they

had a watch between them at least and they all had a headlight which they sensibly conserved and rotated but by the time they were found they only had one or two with any power left so they were being careful to keep the lights out for much of the time and you're absolutely right having slept in caves overnight for a couple of days you very quickly become disorientated and uh from from a time point of view it's really it's quite unhealthy yeah it's really unhealthy your brain goes what have you just done that's why one of the advents of like i think it's the last decade probably just how powerful it is to get your eyes because your eyes are one how powerful it is to get your eyes, because your eyes are one of the gateways.

Well, actually your eyes are the brain, but it's a gateway into deeper regions of your brain. And to get your eyes on first light and your eyes on last light, so sunrise and sunset, is a pretty powerful way to reset your circadian rhythm, to prepare you better for sleep and wakefulness for efficiencies. And so I'm not saying look right at the, at the sun by any means, but I'm just saying be in the environment for two to 15 minutes at first light. And at last light, it's a,

it's a pretty remarkable gift to give your brain. But also, also means you also means you got up very early. So you're probably tired. Yeah, right. Yeah, you're ready. Yeah, right. There's always confounding variables there. Okay, so disorientated, agitated, fearful, hungry, wet, not knowing how to solve it. There was a young kid who tried to, they had a rope, right? And they tied the rope to the kid's waist, I think. And then- Yeah, that was the coach. That was the coach.

He wanted to swim out on that first evening. And they pulled him back in. He said, if I feel like I'm going to run out of breath, I'll pull on the rope and you guys have to haul me back. So that's what they did. So he was very lucky. It was a very tight part of the cave that he was trying to get through. That could have ended very badly.

How old were these kids? So the youngest was 11, the oldest was 16, and the coach was 25. So pretty young lad himself. And who taught them meditation? Who was meditating with them as a strategy to calm them down? Yeah, that was really important, actually, because the coach had spent some time as a monk in training, I think. And he was a really interesting character in all of this, very mature 25-year-old. He was essentially a stateless lad from Myanmar.

He'd come across the border, as many people do up there. And he had been essentially adopted by that local community. And so he was, yeah, very, very calm, sensible guy. And he was instrumental in keeping those boys calm, I think, and helping them to meditate and get through it. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that.

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how am I going to do this? How do you filter that? How do you make sense of that? Knowing that there's lives on the line and you've got to work quickly. Yeah. You've got to take care of your safety and you've also got to be incredibly accurate because, um, I imagine that as you're assessing it, it's probably not an easy swim for you.

But I don't know that. I don't know the conditions. But I have been in those situations like, oh, I'm barely doing this. How am I going to help the other? Well, exactly. Yeah. And the other thing is, you know, arriving on site, you know, you're immersed in chaos. And I've learned this through my work with the ambulance service.

You arrive at a big car accident scene and it's night and it's raining and there's flashing lights everywhere it's very disorientating you know there's the firemen there's the police there's the ambulance people and and it just it's a shock you know when you jump out of that helicopter or get out of the car to at that scene well that's what I felt like when we arrived on site at Thailand. There were people everywhere and they're all wearing different uniforms. They're up to their knees in mud. It's raining. The media is enormous in its presence. You know, we've got all these cameras poked in our faces.

Who are these people from Australia? What are they going to contribute? Are you welcomed? No, we had a local fixer, a Thai guy who worked for the Australian embassy who was shepherding us through all this. But it was still very chaotic in a sense and overwhelming. So my first feeling was I need to find Rick and John, the British divers, and just talk to them to ground myself and to get some information about the cave. Because as you rightly pointed out, my first priority was to my own safety i have to make sure that i can safely traverse this cave to where the kids are and i remember rick saying oh harry you know the cave it's a bit sporting but i think

you'll be all right i mean that's like edmund hillary telling you that it's just a bit of a jog to the top of the hill you know i mean these guys are so good these are legends yeah these guys are like world-class legends these guys are the best yeah are legends yeah these guys are like world-class legends these guys are the best yeah and and for rick and john to swim through this cave and say it's not too bad really i had to find out for myself because if i can't get myself to the end of the cave and home safely then there's nothing i can do for these these children so initially there was quite a lot of pressure on me to just go in the next day and start anesthetizing these children. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

I want to go to the pressure piece for a minute. What does that mean? There was a lot of pressure on me. Well, you know, Rick and John and by then two other British cave divers had arrived. They were working with the Thai Navy SEALs. They were working with some other expat cave divers on the scene, and they were working closely with the local government. And this plan to anesthetize the children and bring them out unconscious had started to really take hold, despite the fact

that I'd told Rick that I thought it was preposterous and impossible. But you brought your medicine. No, I didn't bring any medicine, but I brought a plan in my head. You don't really jump on a plane and fly to Thailand with a bag full of scheduled drugs. So that doesn't end well for quite a few Australian tourists who have done the same thing. They're still there. Yeah, they're right. They didn't come back okay good uh so no i wasn't going to do that but um you know i knew i had the um the whole thai army medical corps at my disposal if i you know to get me what i needed and i'd actually sent a recipe list you know a whole list of

medications which i had toyed with the idea of using so i'd sent that ahead so that everything would be in place should we go down this path. But I was a long way from being convinced that this was the best option. And furthermore, since I was the guy who would be wielding the syringe, I had to make sure that it was the only option before I was going to go anywhere near it. Because for several reasons, I was convinced that this would result in the death of every single one of those children. So I wasn't embarking on that lightly. Right. So you're in true expedition in a different way. You're not trying to summit something, you're trying to save someone.

Was this your training that was leading to that decision or was this an intuition that you had that there was some sort of psychology involved some sort of human behavior that was involved that putting a needle in these young compromised humans is going to be far more dangerous than trying to relax them to swim for a long period of time underwater or or be dragged however it goes well i guess this was equal parts the science and the art that we were talking about before. On a scientific level, there were several major concerns that I had about whether this could possibly work. And some of those had been validated in the training that we'd done, the scenarios that we'd run. For example, on one occasion, I was wondering whether it would be possible to bring out an unconscious caver underwater. And so I modelled

that by pretending to be unconscious, put a full face mask on so that I didn't have to hold a regulator in my mouth, I could just breathe in and out of the mask, and got people to drag me around underwater on a stretcher. And very quickly, I found that incrementally, a little bit of water started to enter the mask. And unless I took active steps to clear that, then inevitably I felt I would have drowned. So based on that and several other sort of physiological principles around anesthesia and diving, I could just see all these little holes opening up that would inevitably kill these kids. The second thing was this was completely unprecedented. No one has ever been anesthetized and immersed with the exception of one person, Edgar Pask, who was a British physiologist who was working in the Second World War. And I'd learned about Edgar Pask during my

anesthesia training because he invented a piece of equipment that we use. But the way he invented it was that he wanted to test the Mae West life jackets that the pilots were using in the English Channel. And the idea was they needed to know for sure whether the life jacket would keep the airman's head out of the water if the airman was unconscious. And so he'd got some people to float around in a pool and feign unconsciousness, but he couldn't be convinced that they were really being unconscious and properly floppy and maybe they were writing themselves at the last moment so he had himself anesthetized intubated and put in the pool uh on with the life jacket and thus proved that the the life jackets do work so that's that is physiology and science in its most heroic form to me. In fact, he ended up in

hospital with a fair bit of pool water in his lungs, apparently, but he did prove the point that this would work. And he then anesthetized a bunch of other airmen volunteers to do the same thing. So he's always been one of my heroes. And in fact, I received the edgar pask citation from the association of anesthetists of great britain and ireland after thailand which is actually the most um beautiful award i received really after all this it was really gratifying so anyway we digress so edgar's the only bloke who's tried this before and i was going to be the next guy and um you know the stakes were quite a bit higher it wasn't a clear swimming pool it was two and a half kilometers of flooded cave passage in a dive that was going to

take three hours now you don't have to be an anesthetist or a cave diver to conceive that if you render someone unconscious and then push them underwater unable to observe or monitor them really in any way for three hours they're not going to be alive when you bring them out the other end um so that's what i was faced with and i was dead against the idea i can tell you okay and then how did you how do you or how did you in that moment feel pressure well it was intense um and the pressure from the british and other divers to carry on and perform this meant that i had to stand up and basically say no i i'm not doing it um i need 24 hours to a dive the cave myself visit the children and see the environment that they're in uh with a view to

looking at it as my operating theater how am i is there a place that I can do this? Is there a suitable, you know, is it possible? And secondly, and thirdly, to look at the children themselves, you know, were they panicking? Were they calm? What physical state were they in? Were they all sick with chest infections or diarrhea? You know, what sort of patients would they be from a purely

medical point of view? And until I'd done that, I couldn't even conceptualise going to the next step and performing the anaesthesia. But equally important, I had to make sure I was safe in that environment. So I asked them for 24 hours. So I had to review all the other plans that were in place, the water pumping efforts, finding other entrances, the idea perhaps that we could provision the kids with food and just keep them in there for the duration of the monsoon season. All these other ideas, I had to be sure that none of those things could possibly work before I was going to embark on a plan that I felt had a hundred percent chance of failure. Okay. So you're really calm as a human, you're even keeled. Is that your nature or did you train to have this interface

with, with life? Yeah, I don't know the answer to that because, um, uh, you know, I suffer from anxieties like anyone. And, um, there are some things that frighten me and there are some places or scenarios where I find I can at least exude calm. And I think in critical care medicine that can be a learnt behaviour and it's very important behaviour because if you're leading a team in a resuscitation, for example, and you're panicking outwardly, then it's very hard to get people to be coherent and follow and stick to the stick to the plan and does your pressure and or anxiety come from or is it experienced from a thought loops you know like i don't know i don't know i don't know like

what if what if what if like thought loops or is it more physiological where you recognize that your hands tremor just a little bit your heart rate comes up is it a combination of both somatic or cognitive anxiousness yeah definitely both when i feel anxious i definitely get both both and probably i i think sometimes it's pathological my anxiety but it tends to be from things that aren't important it tends to be from you, social anxiety or public speaking or things that actually don't have a significant outcome apart from myself, you know, how I, how I look or appear. And so that probably again, goes back to that, that insecurity of my own, um, self rather than, you know, genuinely difficult situations when I tend to actually feel better and step up perhaps.

With all of your capabilities and all the extraordinary experiences you've had and the success you've had, what is it about other people's opinions that is scary? It's a good point. I think I do worry a lot about what other people think of me. And the older I get the less important that becomes to me I think that's a natural part of aging but as a teenager and man in my 20s I was I'd say I had a very thin skin I was easily wounded by by words and and and opinions whereas as I get older I care less and I guess you know it's easier to care less when you've had some recognition for doing something which Thailand um you know that that was one of

the the outcomes I guess is that suddenly you know we're in the media in Australia and and we're getting the recognition and awards and people are telling us that we're wonderful blokes all of a sudden, and I'd never, ever had that in my life. You know, I was always terrible at sports and, you know, just did my own thing, but, you know, I didn't have a shelf full of trophies and medals behind me. So, you know, whilst I didn't go out looking for recognition or reward, I think it's been good for my self-esteem, certainly. It's super interesting because most of the time it becomes a hollow endeavor, meaning that you're craving the knowing that you're okay.

And then somebody gives you some evidence that you are okay. But now there's a little bit of a snake eating its tail is that somebody else gave it to you rather than you being and knowing that you're okay because you breathe. You're okay because you have, you matter just because you are alive. And so there's this external validation that becomes a bit of a trap. And it doesn't feel like you got caught in that snare well i think again that's part of being a bit older and more mature if this happened in my 20s then i might have gone to my head and you know you see young people say you know a pop star who suddenly gets a gold record and you know life can go off the rails pretty much because suddenly they've got fame money and and and fake friends all around them.

I think when you're in your 50s, it's a lot easier to see through those traps. And, you know, already who your proper friends are and you don't really care about opinions so much. But that's taken a long time for me to develop, I think. to your 20-year-old self, in context of what we're describing right now, what would you offer as guidance to your 20-year-old self that has that fear of other people's opinions, that is still trying to figure out how do I belong? Where do I fit in? What is my role? Am I okay? What would you offer as some guidance? Well, I would offer what I'm telling young people that I talk to now. I readily give them the insights that I've given you about how shaky I was at their age and that I was very lucky to find a single passion in life, which was the ocean and scuba diving.

And if any of you are lucky enough to have a passion, however, you know, kind of unusual or potentially useless in terms of a career or furthering your life, it appears you're incredibly lucky if you just have one thing that you're passionate about and you should absolutely pursue it because you never know where it will lead. So, you know, I encourage young people to cling to one little thing that they're good at or that

they love and build a base from that and i think the scuba diving turned out to be very very important in in my life for that reason okay cool all right back to the cave so you you're gonna scout expedition and um as as you're going through to the back of the cave, were there moments where you're like, Ooh, I don't know how, how are we possibly going to get these kids through here? Or did it be like, were you navigating like, Oh, okay, I can see how we're going to move through here, this section, that section? Or was it something that was way more complicated than I can even imagine? Yeah, the cave itself was challenging, as Rick had suggested, but it wasn't the worst cave dive we'd ever done. I mean, we would never dive in an actively flooding cave by choice because there are extra hazards there. If a flood flood pulse comes through then it's quite dangerous place to be because the cave was flushing out it was the water was like coffee colour it was zero visibility you couldn't see your hand in front of your face and there were some very tight and difficult

restrictions and the cave line that Rick and John had placed in the cave for us all to follow and safely navigate in and out which is is essential, hadn't been perfectly placed because it was placed in an emergency, not in clear water with all the time in the world. So there were some difficult places to navigate. So all of that was in my mind that this is a difficult cave, but the overwhelming concern was that it was the duration of the dive rather than the complexity of the dive that was the big hazard for these children you know three hours underwater

doesn't matter whether it's in a swimming pool or in a difficult cave they're just not going to survive that that period of time and I knew that we had the best cave divers in the world there to help navigate these kids so if anyone could they would get them through this particular cave, but that wouldn't help the fact that they were being immersed for that period of time in an unconscious state. When you finally get back there and you see the kids, what happens? Well, that was a very memorable moment, as you can imagine. Until then, it had all been really hypothetical i've had well over a week to contemplate this moment and i remember as i approached the surface and i could see that sort of mirror-like shimmer on the surface the water in that section was relatively

clear and i thought this is it i'm about to actually look these kids in the eye now by then four thai navy seals were camped in with the kids. And so we're very lucky that one of them was a doctor, sort of very highly overachieving fellow who was a special forces in the army, the Navy and the Air Force paratrooper, I think, and a medical practitioner who's amazing guy. And he spoke some English. So he was able to interpret and explain to me how the kids were doing and so forth and the kids actually looked incredible they were all walking talking smiling they just looked like a bunch of teenagers on a camp in a cave you know they there was relatively little sign that they were facing almost certain death and I was immediately impressed by the courage and resilience of these kids who

remain for me the greatest heroes in this story. There's no doubt that if they didn't have that demeanour, it would have been very, very difficult to deal with them. In fact, a really important point for me was, yeah, there's no way I was going to drag a child kicking and screaming down to the water and assault them and anesthetize them. They had to be willing participants in this if it was going to happen at all. So I was very pleased to see that they were cooperative and looking in pretty good shape, I have to say. Okay. So then you come up and you've got this grin on your face and you're like, huh, okay, this doesn't look so bad.

And then next, how do you mobilize to the rescue? Well, the first thing I tried to do, obviously, in terms of the children was to put on a persona of someone that is having the best time of their life. What a great day. Here we are in the back of the cave. What a great adventure. Yeah, sure. We're going to anesthetize you and bring you out of the cave what could possibly be simpler i think that's really important skill for a medical practitioner or a rescuer to portray confidence and uh relaxed

demeanor because if you look like you're shaking your head going we're okay we're all buggered there's no way um you know then the kids are more likely to panic. So I did work very hard on presenting a confident face to them. But I was really not impressed with what I was seeing in terms of, you know, what I'd seen on the way through with the lack of visibility in the water, the muddy, very toxic environment that they were in. I mean, the smell was overpowering. Obviously, they'd been in there for 12 days, I think, by now, and doing their business, they'd had food taken into them with the inevitable result. So it was pretty awful in there by then. But that helped me realise that to leave them in there was going to be unsurvivable. They would

rapidly succumb to infection. I could hear a couple of them already coughing. And it was only a matter of time before they developed gastroenteritis and started to deteriorate pretty rapidly. So I realized then they had to come out. There was no way we could leave them in there. They would have died a very slow and awful death. And that was the point where I realized that we were just going to have to give this a try because to leave them would condemn them to death but in a much more dreadful fashion than what I was offering so in the end you know people keep saying to me if if you genuinely believe that it would 100% fail what you were proposing? Why or how could you possibly have entertained that?

And to me, the decision became very binary. It was either leave them to die a very slow, awful death from starvation, exposure or infection, let alone the psychological terror that that would impart upon them. Or you take them out and probably they'll die, but they'll be anesthetized and asleep when that happens so essentially euthanizing them and you know i'm i think there's a very pragmatic answer to that question one or the other um and for me the answer was simple we had to give

this a try and if they died at least they wouldn't know anything about it wouldn't be good for me but it's a better option for them. So that kind of made it simple. And once I made the decision, then I just went with it and I started to believe that it had to work. Beautiful dilemma that you're setting up between two unfavorable conditions, one better than the other. And the consequence is obviously life and potential torture for you. And at what point did you wrestle with at all imposter syndrome?

You know, for the first time in my life, perhaps, I actually believed I was the right man for that job. Okay. You know, I had years of working in medicine in difficult, remote, unusual environments, expedition medicine, working in the Pacific Islands for two two years um you know with very rudimentary equipment and assistance and you know holding a torch for the surgeon into the abdomen that kind of experience i mean that that gives you some uh some experiential credibility i guess

if that's a word to to have have faith in yourself in some situations. You know, working at a car crash at night in the rain, in a ditch, in the mud, delivering critical care medicine in those environments, you realise that you're either proficient or comfortable in those environments. The cave diving itself wasn't a barrier to me. It's what we do on the weekends. It's what we do for fun and pleasure. And I think that's something that I have to emphasize to people when I'm talking to them, because for most people, their phobias are around

the cave and the cave diving. And you have to just eliminate that from the equation, because that's what we love doing. So that was fine. So I was able to put these kids into that work box you know this is my next patient i just have to do my best for them and send them on their way with the british diver who's going to be taking them out through the cave once i've been laced the tires okay and do you do you have a sense that um your ability to be a leader in that moment was something that you would also train for. And it doesn't sound like it. It sounds like you're comfortable in that position, but now you're thrusted as all lights on you for next calls. But maybe that's something that feels very familiar to you. I think it does feel familiar in both the expedition space and the medical space. It's different times in medicine.

You have to be a team leader. That's right. And I enjoy working in small teams of like-minded, competent people. And that's exactly where I found myself. If you were put on the spot, like on a podcast right now with me, what are the characteristics of leadership that you would say if there was just three? I hate to be a reductionist, but if there's like, hey, listen, this is what a leader means. I don't know if I'll be able to find three, but I think the important thing to me is the ability to make a decision. You need to look at an impossible decision sometimes and you have to

choose because to not decide is to be paralyzed and nothing will happen and certainly nothing good will happen so you know in in anesthesia where you know you know the old adage about three minutes without oxygen three days without water and so forth well we work in the three minute department and so you have to make quick decisions sometimes when suddenly there's a problem and the patient has three minutes before you start to hurt them or hurt their brain so you can't be paralyzed with fear you have to move forwards always move forwards and that comes from being well prepared and having plan a b c d and e in your mind and sometimes even vocalize before you start to the rest of the team members.

So good communication, preemptive communication and ability to make a decision, even though it might be a bad one, but the alternative is even worse. So you get in and you're in the cave, you have an aha moment. And with that aha moment moment how do you get to the first kid you say right joey you're up or do you say who wants to who would like to be the first one to go yeah well we didn't actually start the we didn't start the rescue that day we we went away and came back the next day because the thais had to sign off on the plan yet and so that was a late night very long meeting that night but what I did say to the doctor the Thai doctor in there is tomorrow we hope to come back and start doing

this anesthetic plan and I had had a dot point recipe written out in Thai for me by the the doctors on the surface to give to the Thai doctor to read out to the kids and it basically said tomorrow we'll come back you'll be dressed in wetsuits you're going to receive a tablet which was alprazolam a benzodiazepine sedative just to make you feel relaxed then you're going to come down to the water sit on my lap you're going to get an injection in each leg and then you're going to go to sleep we're going to finish dressing you in diving equipment take you out of of the cave, and when you wake up, you'll be out of the cave in the hospital. So the Thai doctor, Dr Puck, amazing guy,

he's halfway through reading this through to himself and he sort of gives me this sideways look as if to say, are you completely mad? You know, I can't believe I'm about to read this out to the children. But being a very professional guy, he sort of looked back to his paper and then he read it out to the kids. And I was just watching the children's faces. And to a boy, they were just like nodding. Yep, no worries.

Thumbs up. It was like the most normal, natural thing in the world that was being proposed. But I think, you know, by that stage, I could have told them we were going to take them out on a flying carpet and they were just ready to ready to leave they would have done anything to get out of that place yeah so here's the adult in the room he's a doctor and he's saying this is the right thing to do and so we're going to do it i think so and in thailand they still respect their their elders over there so uh you know people in a position of authority are to be listened to and respected in thailand which is uh quite convenient for this situation

okay so first kid up and uh you're you're preparing the patient if you will and you're cleaning you're you're giving him the the benzo you're cleaning the legs, and you give the injection. No cleaning of the legs. No cleaning of the legs. We're sitting in mud. He's wearing a wetsuit. I just stab it through the neoprene wetsuit into his thigh. This is not clinical anesthesia as we know it, Jim.

No, it's not. Take me to that moment. Do you look at the child in the face? Are you rushing? What is your state in that moment with this child? I do quite a bit of pediatric anesthesia and I have a little patter that I talk to the kids as they're being anesthetized. Often we're giving them a mask Richard I'm starting to get Richard like I'm starting to get nauseated you are so perfect for this gig like it's unbelievable you know like each time I'm like okay and this and you're like yeah I've got a framework there and I've got a reference point here and I've got a reference point there well you really were the one like it's it's remote but this in itself is like remarkable but for you to be able to cobble all of these experiences together have all of these reference points and and to be able to

execute against them okay i want to pause right now like did you how do you think about life's design yeah don't ask don't ask for any deep and spiritual answers from me michael because i'm a man i'm a man you know that's coming sometimes it's like the swiss cheese model of accident analysis you know that sometimes the holes in the cheese line up the arrow goes through and the o-ring on the space shuttle gets cooked and the thing blows up right well this was the reverse. This was the Swiss cheese accident analysis of good outcomes. When all the cheese lined up, the arrow came through and hit me right in the chest,

and there I was. I was the guy. And I just had the right set of skills. All right. All right. Go back. Go back to the kid in the cave. And so you're looking at him, and you've got a needle in your hand is the thumb

on like the kind of classic you know thumb or you is it in your palm of your hand so this sort of so this sort of thing but it's going down into the leg so i'm i'm just chatting to the kid and trying to make him comfortable uh he doesn't speak English. I don't speak Thai. The doctor is right there doing a little bit of interpreting. So I'm asking his name, where does he play on the soccer team, all that sort of stuff, just trying to have a bit of banter. Then I hold up the syringe and tap his leg so he knows it's coming, and in it goes.

And, look, it's uncomfortable for them. It's going through the wetsuit, which doesn't do anything for the sharpness of the needle, I'm sure. So it's probably painful, and it's quite a big volume of of ketamine going in and um takes about four or five minutes and they're asleep in my arms which is unusual uh because i'm in water up to my waist i've got a knee sort of cocked up in the mud to try and keep them from falling into the water. And suddenly you've got this rag doll on your lap and you're trying to, with the assistance of the British divers, to dress them in the rest of the diving gear, which was unexpectedly difficult, you know, to put a mask on someone and make sure it's all secure and safe.

As I'm listening, I don't know what's happening, but I'm flooded with emotion. I think I'm maybe thinking about my son and like it's right behind my eyes, like it's in my throat, where I'm feeling the fatherly nature. Do you feel that too sometimes? Well, I certainly felt a very strong connection with these boys at that time. I don't think I was not specifically thinking of my own children, but thinking very much about the fact that these boys are going to start this dive alive and that their dead bodies are coming at the end of the cave, almost certainly. And basically, I felt like I was euthanizing them at that point. It was very, very confronting. What happens right now to you as you tell this story? Do you feel at all what I'm feeling? Oh, absolutely. In this moment?

In this moment? Yeah. I mean, I can't tell this story and I've told it many, many times now, but I can't tell this story without that emotion. It's still very real. And I i'll tell you there were two things that i did after that which were in some ways the lowest points of my medical career or my sense of humanity was that the first thing i had to do once the mask was on was push their face into the water to see whether water would enter the mask or not and I did that about three times and then held them back up after about 30 seconds to check the mask. And I will remember till the day I die the first time I did that

on the first boy, you know, that sense that I am now drowning. Yeah, that was difficult. The second thing we did was we decided to restrain the boys' hands behind their back and tie their ankles together because we didn't want their arms floating out and getting caught up or injured in the cave with all the stalactites and projections. But also if the child woke up halfway through a difficult

underwater section, their first response would be to reach up and either rip their own mask off or disable the British diver who would be taking them out and that would mean certain death for both of them probably so that act of having the boy lying face down in the water and clipping his hands together behind his back with cable ties and a carabiner you know that was very symbolic as well for me of the, you know, the appalling level that I'd stooped to in terms of what I was doing to these kids. It just felt, you know, went against everything that I'd been trained in and believed in. Whew. I mean, your whole history was saying yes and no at the same time yes and no right the idea of handcuffs

and the constraints and the lack of dignity that uh the choice that was being like no yes this is the best best plan and yes i'm fit to do this job yeah i had to push through i had to push through that i I have to say. Yep. How did you do that? Because it's that type of ambiguity, nimbleness, competing ideas that I think is at the center of leadership as well to make decisions. But there's competing information, there's ambiguity about the outcome, and there's both

science and intuition embedded in here and you're brand new you are brand new at this so how did you how did you navigate that did you shove down the emotion did you recognize the emotion did you want to panic but say hold on keep your shit together come on you got this this is what we agreed on. Like, how did you do that? Yeah, I don't know. I didn't feel, I didn't feel close to panic, but the, the grammar test didn't escape me. Um, you know, I recognized that this was a pivotal moment in my life and, uh, I had agreed to do it and I wasn't going to turn away from it, but I knew how impactful it was at that moment. And, and, and the same for the four British

guys who were with me you know observing this and we were talking out loud I usually talk out loud when I'm doing something in medicine that is difficult or I need to share with the team so I was probably verbalizing what I was thinking and yeah it was um yeah it was tough. But isn't it incredible how the most appalling things in the world can become familiar and even routine? Because I can tell you in three days' time, when I was doing The Last Child, that this was becoming a familiar and almost interesting thing to observe like i was starting to make observations about physiological changes in the kids as i was pushing their faces in the water and and um you know commenting again to the on some academic stuff to the british divers rather than the horror of this moment so you know we really are very good at adapting and uh accept normalizing what should be never normalized i think normalizing which never this is this association that you're describing is um

maybe one of the reasons why people aren't well there's lots of reasons ptsd happens or post-traumatic stress, right? There's a disassociation that takes place to try to make sense of it. But this association, that part of those regions of your brain where you're associating, creating new reference points, accessing a logical sequential type of patterning probably was one of the things that was a buffer to be able to, um, to, to work through it. Yeah. Okay. And then what were the other boys doing when they were watching? Their friends pass out in your arms and then be handcuffed?

Yeah. I'm not really sure because they were 30 feet up the slope and we'd asked the tie doctor and the other ties to keep them around the corner out of view so they didn't watch. But I would be pretty confident if I was a 15-year-old boy in there, I'd be having a pretty good look at what was happening to my mates down the hill. So I'm sure they were watching at some point.

Yeah. But again, you know, when I came back on the second day and I was thankfully able to tell the boys that all their four friends were alive and well in hospital, then, you know, who's next and every hand shot up sort of thing. They were keen to go. Get me out of here. Yeah.

Yeah. Based on this experience that you've had, what have you come to understand about the psychology of being human? What have I learned? Well, I mean, we are capable of so much more than we think we are there's no doubt and you see that every time someone runs a marathon for the first time i'm sure they didn't get out of bed when they started their jogging career thinking i'll be able to run a marathon it's just it's i i do keep coming back to this thing you've just got to

put one foot in front of another and you never know how far you can go and what you can finally achieve. And I am a bit obsessive compulsive in terms of when I take something on, I will see it through to the nth degree. I will learn everything about it. If I start a podcast, I will become a podcast expert and research all the audio equipment and you know try and be the best podcaster i can possibly be that's just the way i roll if i

start a project you know get out of the way because i'm coming through i'm going to be the the world champion by the time i finish and then i'll probably discard it and move on and try something else. So I tend to, you know, operate that way. And so I think we have great potential and we can achieve things if we decide we want to. And if, of course, we have the resources to enable us, you know, you have to have food on the table and a roof over your head. But, you know, given those basics, it's unimaginable what we can achieve as individuals. So I don't know if that even remotely answers your question, but that's the way I feel. I've asked that question a bunch. And one of my friends, he was a commander for Navy SEALs, Team 5, and Master Chief.

And he says exactly what you just said. He says two things. He says, when something matters to you, you'll do whatever it takes. And we are, how does he put it? As a species, we are not even scratching the surface of what we're capable of. Yeah, I'd agree. So, yeah. So it's, I mean, that message keeps coming through over and over again.

So I want to honor your time and I just want a quick hit on how do you think about mastery? Like the defining of it, the characteristics of it, wherever you want to go with it. Yeah. So I asked myself, have I ever truly mastered anything? And I quite like, and you've probably heard this from many of your guests, the Maslow steps about, you know, reaching that point of unconscious competence where you don't even have to think about what you're doing and you're doing it very, very well at a very high level. And I think I've achieved that in the sphere of anesthesiology in In my routine practice, I go to work.

I can be very comfortable and assured that my patients are going to go to sleep and wake up safely and have good outcomes. But there is also there's always the challenges that come from left field. occur that one percent terror uh which i started out by talking about with cave diving and anesthesiology that's when um the you know sometimes that's that's when you know whether you've mastered it or not whether whether you resolve that situation quietly confidently and efficiently or whether you um you know whether everything when if the cracks start to open in what you're doing and i think there's a level of difficulty that can pop up which will test all of us and prove to us actually maybe we never fully have mastered this thing that we think we're good at so you always

have to be on your guard um you always need to look for the for the traps and whether it's in cave diving or anesthesia when the outcomes can be very significant uh in terms of life and death then you can never relax and assume you've reached that level of mastery so uh mastery is about keeping your eyes open and and watching out because you never know when it's going to come and bite you in the ass and are there a couple habits that you have found to be paramount for you in on your commitment to mastery things that you do on a regular basis that support your adventure in life well i've got routines um maybe rituals if you like um in in both disciplines it's about checking and checklists and uh i don't tend to use written but i certainly have mental

checklists which are very brief very robust and um tick off the very important things and i use those every single time i jump in the water or commence an anesthetic so and how how long is the yeah how long is the checklist is it like three four three four five things 60 seconds 60 seconds yeah on my anesthetic machine you know um there's there's 60 seconds of checks which will make sure this machine has all the important life support functions and in my diving it's the same thing but you know it is a bit long checking your nozzles your gauges your this that and the other so it's mechanical and is there anything psychological as physical hands-on physical hands-on touching things turning knobs um testing equipment to make sure it's all there where it's

supposed to be when i need it do you sleep well usually not always but mostly sleep very well mostly i sleep with a clear conscience i sleep with a clear conscience model Usually. Not always, but mostly sleep very well. Mostly. I sleep with a clear conscience. I sleep with a clear conscience, Martin. I bet you do. I bet you do. Hey, I'm going to remember that. I actually do too. You know, there's a lot of freedom in that. And, um, you know, I've, I've got this understanding that I want to live in alignment with my virtues and my values, right? My first principles, if you will. And they're not mine until I've had to pay for them. And so, you know, you can talk about living a life of honesty, let's say, but it's not yours until you've been challenged, until you have to, in some respects, pay dues,

to be honest. Otherwise, it's just easy. It's not really yours. It's just something you've kind of made up that is aspirational. Okay, Doc, thank you. Well, you've got a lot out of me that I wasn't planning to share, Michael. So you're a crafty bastard, as we say in Australia. Oh, God. Listen, I love the Australian ethos.

I've got a lot of friends that are living there. And I love the ethos. I love the culture, you know, the tall poppy kind of bloke approach to life. And I appreciate in that in mind, I appreciate where you've gone and the life you've lived and also expressed in this conversation. So I just want to say thank you. And let's get people to your podcast. What's the website that we can drive people to or social media? Just Google real risk. Basically real risk interviewing risk takers to find out that in fact, they're not all mad. They're all very careful, methodical,

pragmatic people who have developed their skills to keep themselves safe and enjoy their sports, which is what I sort of, that was my hypothesis. Are they crazy? Was Alex Honnold crazy? Or is he just really good at what he does? And I think I'm finding the answer in the latter. And I found from working with some of these folks as well that they actually have a bit of an aversion the ones that last a bit in our version to uh let's call it risk but adrenaline and risk absolutely you know it's like yeah that that's not part of the sequence this is not this thrill-seeking gene that we once thought was around no there's a there's an incredible

amount of control. And so would you categorize yourself as a risk manager or risk taker? Absolutely. A risk manager. Yeah. If my heart rates up or I'm frightened, then I'm doing something wrong. But you took a risk to get on the flight and to go try something that's never been done before with other people's lives in your hands. There's risk involved in that. And so that's where there's like, there's like the first primer, I'm going to take a risk. And then once I'm in the amphitheater of risk, I think that we manage. And so that would be my hypothesis there in my thesis.

Yeah. Well, it was a risk that had to be taken. And I didn't, I never felt physically in danger for myself that's right and perhaps i was naive but my wife was quick to point out how it could have been a career and a psychologically life-ending event for me had any of those children died let alone all of of them. You know, social media, the main press would have been pretty quick to point out that I was now called the Dr Death of Thailand or some similar pseudonym had it all gone pear-shaped. So, you know, I'm kind of cynical about the awards and the accolades

and the title of heroism and so forth because, you know, I could have gone there with the same courage, intent, and more morality. If it had a different outcome, the judgment would have been very, very different. So I don't think anyone should take it too seriously when people tell you that you're a great fella. I totally agree, you know? And so I, the thing that kept me up at night on like the Red Bull Stratus program was, did we do it right? You know, and is he properly prepared? And is this going to work? And the work and do it well and take the risks that make sense that you're capable of executing against. And so, again, thank you for sharing. Thank you for bringing me to a place to appreciate the fragility of life even more. And as well as, you know, the edges and the boundaries of capabilities

and the excitement that comes with that. And so, yeah, thank you. Thanks, Michael. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you.

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