Cave divers first dual winners of national award

Last night, Richard Harris and Craig Challen became the first dual winners of the Australian of the Year.

Craig Challen, left, and Richard Harris ahead of the award. Picture: Gary Ramage

When two Australian cave divers, who happened to be an anaesthetist and a retired veterinarian, went into a flooded Thailand chamber last July and provided the crucial expertise to bring out a dozen trapped young soccer players and their coach, neither knew what would come of it.

Last night, Richard Harris and Craig Challen became the first dual winners of the Australian of the Year since state-based finalists were introduced in 2004.

The two men, from South Australia and Western Australia, who were presented with the honour by Scott Morrison at a ceremony in Canberra, were also chosen last Saturday as The Australian’s Australians of The Year.

For yesterday’s award they were picked from a field that included five-time Paralympian and disability advocate Kurt Fearnley and Jon Rouse, who leads a technologically advanced international operation to arrest pedophiles and free their victims.

Dr Harris and Dr Challen, who are friends, were both about to head off on a cave-dive holiday when news of the Wild Boars football team’s predicament reached them. The boys, aged between 11 and 17, were trapped more than 3km inside a narrow tunnel under a mountain and it was filling with water from torrential rain.

A global effort, led by Thai navy divers, needed the precise skills of these two Australian men. It was something of a Hail Mary pass: the boys would need to be drugged and guided in complete darkness to safety.

Dr Harris had the drugs and Dr Challen had the technical expertise. “After Thailand we had no idea that all of this stuff was going to go on,” Dr Harris told The Weekend Australian. “I had no idea it was that big, even at the time. We were underground, we were underwater most of the time and I’d come out at the end of the night and I’d have a chat to my wife and stuff and after a couple of days she started saying ‘oh, there’s a bit of stuff in the paper now’.”

Paediatrician Sue Packer was last night named Senior Australian of the Year for her decades of work to treat and protect child abuse victims and the parents of 14-year-old Amy “Dolly” Everett — Kate and Tick Everett — were awarded the Australian Local Hero gong for turning the tragedy into a national project to fight online bullying.

Northern Territory rapper and dancer Danzal Baker, 22, is the 2019 Young Australian of the Year for becoming the first indigenous artist to achieve mainstream-genre success in the Yolgnu Matha language.

The new Australians of the Year take the baton from quantum physics professor Michelle Simmons. They will have little time to soak in the honour before a round of engagements this morning and Australia Day ceremonies in Parramatta and at Circular Quay in Sydney this afternoon.

Crazy-brave, perhaps, but Dr Challen reckons the cave rescue was easier than the attention.

“I would much prefer that than all of this,” he said.

In the months since, Dr Harris has had time to think about the nature of risk and how we try to protect children, sometimes tipping the balance too far in the other direction. “I think helicopter parenting is a term we’ve all heard now and we’re all getting a bit uptight now about kids,” he said.

“We need to get outside and off the screens, that’s part of growing up, and obviously we need to be there to pick up the pieces if it all goes wrong. But without some risk-taking you don’t build up the courage and the resilience for the challenges you will face later in life.

“There is so much talk about anxiety and depression in young people. I’m not sure if it’s now more recognised or more prominent but I can’t help thinking that sheltering kids too much is promoting those sorts of things.”