Heroic Doctor From ‘The Rescue’ Recounts Dramatic Mission To Save Kids Trapped In Thai Cave: “I Was Certain It Wouldn’t Work”
29.01.2022 - 05:37
/ deadline.com
Help wanted: seeking anesthesiologist with world-class cave diving skills and experience in underwater rescues. Volunteer position.
If a job listing like that went out, it’s hard to imagine anyone with the necessary background to apply. Fortunately, one person ticks off all those boxes and more – his name, Dr. Richard “Harry” Harris. The mild-mannered Australian physician stepped up when all those abilities were called for – urgently – after 12 young members of a Thai soccer team and their coach became stranded in a flooded cave in the summer of 2018.
Dr. Harris – Harry, as he prefers to be called – flew to Northern Thailand to join an ad hoc team of British amateur cave divers, Thai government officials, Thai Navy SEALs, and American military personnel hastily assembled for a mission with very poor odds of success. The heroic endeavor is told in The Rescue, the National Geographic documentary directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin that is a favorite to earn an Oscar nomination.
“We’d been gently pushing to get involved since I first heard about the rescue,” Harris recalls, “which was probably on the Sunday or Monday after the boys went missing.”
The extreme challenge involved had become evident even before Dr. Harris arrived on site. A group of Thai pump workers who had unexpectedly become trapped in the Tham Luang cave nearly drowned as they were being transported to safety. Those men had been underwater only 45 seconds. The stranded boys and their coach, marooned deep within the cave system, faced an underwater journey of three hours.
Before arriving in Thailand, Dr. Harris and fellow Australian cave diver Craig Challen had been monitoring developments on the news. But watching coverage was one thing;
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