Thai soccor team rescued with the help of ANZEC member Richard Harris

ANZEC member Richard Harris, an anaesthetist from South Australia, was an important member of the team of divers and navy seals sent to rescue the Thai soccer team from the Tham Luang cave complex.

Risking his own life, Harris made the treacherous trip into the subterranean chamber early Sunday to check on the boys after they had been trapped for more than two weeks.

Critically, he pushed to convince the team to change their strategy of evacuating the strongest soccers players first. Cave rescues are notoriously dangerous with a list of dangers that includes drowning, hypothermia, rockfalls and the prominent diving dangers of compression sickness and running out of air. The entire procedure would be in pitch black, with only a small point of light to guide them through a mountainous maze of tunnels.

Dr. Harris argued that the weaker players were in more critical need of evacuation, even though their removal from the cave would be the most time consuming and difficult.

Richard Harris works for the South Australian Ambulance Service’s aeromedical evacuation service MedStar, and has over 30 years of diving experience, and disaster relief.