Richard Harris

Richard Harris, , is an Australian anaesthetist and cave diver who played a crucial role in the Tham Luang cave rescue. He and Craig Challen were jointly awarded 2019 Australian of the Year as a result of that rescue. Education and career After completing school at St Peter's College in Adelaide, South Australia, Harris completed a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery at Flinders University in 1988. He subsequently completed anaesthetics training in the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Harris has worked on medical assistance teams in natural disasters in the Pacific region and taken part in Australian Aid missions to Vanuatu. he works as an aeromedical consultant and anaesthetist for the South Australian Ambulance Service's medical retrieval service. Cave diving Harris is a cave diver with over 30 years of experience. Harris's cave diving experiences include leading a team of Australian divers to record depths of in 2011, 2012, and 2020 whilst searching for the source of New Zealand's Pearse River, the mission was filmed for National Geographic. In 2011, Harris was requested by the South Australian Police to participate in the recovery of the body of his close friend Agnes Milowka, who had died whilst exploring a cave near Tantanoola in the south east of South Australia.