Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Craig Challen and Richard Harris, with Ellis Henican, Viking, $34.99.
This book tells the inside account of the Thai cave rescue in June 2018 and the courageous Australians at the heart of it. It is appropriately titled Against All Odds, especially when you bear in mind that even the cave rescuers in Thailand were “absolutely convinced” no one would survive.
Unquestionably, this is an amazing real-life account!
The 2019 Australians of the Year – Dr Richard Harris and Dr Craig Challen – were part of an international cave-diving team during the daring rescue mission to save 12 boys in Thailand.
World attention focused on divers in the Tham Luang cave during rescue operations in Chiang Rai. After unexpected rains, members of the Wild Boars soccer team were trapped deep, marooned beyond flooded cave passages. They were finally rescued, one-by-one, against almost impossible odds.
The Australian experts involved were Challen, an Australian veterinary surgeon, technical diver and cave explorer. Harris is an Australian anaesthetist and cave diver who played a crucial role.
The boys entered the cave on June 23 and all of them were safely extracted by July 10 over a meticulously planned, three-day operation. It is a courageous story, but Challen discloses the emotional and mental torment they went through in the moments before the incredible rescue. Both Challen and Harris began to accept that anaesthesia was really the only practical option. Harris speaks of his concerns over their risky plan of drugging the children to get them out.
“I remember pretty clearly anaesthetising that first boy and pushing him into the water, thinking what on earth am I doing, this is really madness. But I managed to convince myself to continue because there was no other plan, and the alternatives were possibly even worse.”
As James Cameron says in the foreword: “… you’ll live it, hour by hour, minute by minute, as it was experienced by two divers at the front lines of the rescue. Harry and Craig repeatedly stress how many skilled and heroic divers were involved in the rescue besides themselves…”
“It is an inspirational story of what we humans are capable of when we come together to help others. It chronicles the international outpouring of empathy and effort to save those innocent lost boys. It is also an epic underwater adventure, the stuff of novels and movies, told in a humble, matter of fact way. But this isn’t some Hollywood screenplay – this actually happened.”
