Dr Richard Harris SC OAM // A deep dive into the anaesthetist, adventurer and Australian of the Year 2019

RE-RELEASE - We had a freshy ready for this week, but it's been one year exactly since one of our most popular episodes ever so it felt like a good time to bump it back into your ears. Especially with so many of us still in lockdown, I personally loved the escapism of this one so hope you do too! Please ignore any time specific references, although most of our yay is evergreen so hopefully you enjoy as much as I did!

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Sometimes, I choose our guests out of purely selfish curiosity to converse with a particular person regardless of whether anyone else would find them interesting, although I suspect most of you will be as fascinated by Dr Richard Harris as I am. After a random news article led me off on a multi-hour internet tangent a few weeks ago, I bought Dr Harris’ book - Against All Odds - and got it in my head that I HAD to talk to him and I’m so glad he kindly agreed to jump on the show.

You know I get overly excited about the unique way our talents and interests can intersect to create a yay-filled life and Dr Harris (or Harry as he insists I call him) has a truly unique set of skills as an anaesthetist and technical cave diver. So unique, in fact, that he was pretty much the only person in the world equipped to help sedate and thereby save the 13 young Thai boys of the Wild Boars Soccer team who got stuck 4km into a cave in Thailand in the rainy season of 2018 (along with diving mate and co-author, Dr Craig Challen with whom he won Australian of the Year last year). I don’t think I need to say much more to explain why I’m fascinated by his story - I gush a LOT in this one but I just couldn’t fathom the enormity of the task before him the details of which definitely went over my head watching it on the news at the time.

Among many other things, Harry also has his own wonderful podcast, Real Risk, so was equipped with a proper mic - such a pro - I highly recommend both his book AND his podcast the latest episode off which is with legendary James Cameron of Titanic fame. See links below! Hope you enjoy!

>>> LISTEN TO THE REAL RISK PODCAST HERE <<<

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