Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, Welcome to conversations. Now, let me set the
Speaker 1: background for this, because in November twenty twenty three, in
Speaker 1: the northern Indian state of Ultrakhan, they were building a
Speaker 1: tunnel through the mountains. It's in the Himalayas, and unfortunately
Speaker 1: there was a collapse in the tunnel and when it
Speaker 1: trapped forty one Indian workers. There was a one hundred
Speaker 1: meters of the tunnel collapsed and they're having trouble reaching
Speaker 1: them until they reached out to our next guest, Arnold
Speaker 1: Dix's president of the Geneva based International Tunneling Underground Space Association.
Speaker 1: He's a polymath. He's got so many qualifications and so
Speaker 1: much talent. He's an engineer, he's a geologist, he's a lawyer,
Speaker 1: he's a farmer who grows flowers. He's even been a
Speaker 1: truck driver and he joins us now. Arnold Dix, thank
Speaker 1: you so much your time. How are you.
Speaker 2: I'm well, Thank you for having me on your show.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've got so many talents.
Speaker 2: Oh, I just love it. Like I you talk about
Speaker 2: as talents. I'm easily distracted, and when I get distracted,
Speaker 2: I enjoy just immersing myself in different things. So yeah,
Speaker 2: great to be with you.
Speaker 1: Your book is called The Promise How and everyday hero
Speaker 1: I made the impossible possible. Did you see yourself as
Speaker 1: an author? And I know you've written lots of papers, lots.
Speaker 2: Of not an author. No, absolutely, not a book, Oh
Speaker 2: my God, like I know. Never, never in my wildest
Speaker 2: dreams had I thought I'd be an author like of
Speaker 2: a book. And I'm sure my English teacher also rest
Speaker 2: her soul jam Lions if any of her family are listening.
Speaker 2: No way she would have thought I'd ever write a
Speaker 2: book either. But there you go, I have.
Speaker 1: We might come, but we might come to those early
Speaker 1: days because I'm always interested in the formative years. There's
Speaker 1: no doubt about that. You're in Slovenia in November twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three and you get a call, can you can
Speaker 1: you walk us through it? Please?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure? So So because of the war in Ukraine
Speaker 2: with Russia, the world's looking for alternative roots to put
Speaker 2: energy and freight from the sort of the East to
Speaker 2: the West. So Slovenia is part of one of the
Speaker 2: roots for an alternative connection between the East and the West,
Speaker 2: and that involves tunnel. So I was there talking sharing
Speaker 2: ideas and things in Slovenia and literally my phone rings,
Speaker 2: but in the modern sense it's a WhatsApp call and
Speaker 2: it's the Chief Engineer of India on the line and
Speaker 2: he says, look, got a problem, had a tunnel collapse.
Speaker 2: Things aren't going so well with the rescue. What do
Speaker 2: you reckon? And he shared with me some stuff and
Speaker 2: I told him what I thought, and then he just
Speaker 2: said to me, oh, can I just introduce you to someone?
Speaker 2: And he spins the phone around. There's another guy in
Speaker 2: the room and it's the advisor of the Prime Minister
Speaker 2: of India and he says to me, why do you
Speaker 2: what you said? And I explained why, and they just said, oh,
Speaker 2: can you come and give us a hand?
Speaker 1: What did you say to them? Oh?
Speaker 2: I just said nothing too complicated. I just said to them, look,
Speaker 2: I think it's really really fragile, situation, really delicate. And
Speaker 2: if I was you, I'd go really really soft, and
Speaker 2: I'd go really really slow because I think from what
Speaker 2: you've shown me, the whole thing could come down. So
Speaker 2: I'd take it like like just just chill, like turn
Speaker 2: the volume right down and take it easy. And I
Speaker 2: think they're expecting me to say, you know, send in
Speaker 2: hercules and you know, do all of that. But but
Speaker 2: it looked really bad. And and then they just said,
Speaker 2: could you come and give us a hand? I said, yeah, sure.
Speaker 1: How's that? When they say come and give you a hand?
Speaker 1: Who who does the airline booking two pays? How does
Speaker 1: that work?
Speaker 2: I just it's like, so again, it's a bit of
Speaker 2: a surprise. I think to people that in the real
Speaker 2: work world, it's just like your neighbor leaning across the
Speaker 2: fence guard. Hey, Graham, I got I got a problem
Speaker 2: with the with me radio over here. Can you give
Speaker 2: us a hand? And you go, yeah, no worries film,
Speaker 2: I'll be over in a tick. And so it's just
Speaker 2: like that on a global scale, because it's not about money,
Speaker 2: you know, it's not about I've got like I'm not
Speaker 2: big and tough, like it's not like I can lift
Speaker 2: rocks that other people can't. I don't have any sort
Speaker 2: of patented machine that can do the job. But but yeah,
Speaker 2: they just so. And they didn't tell me there's no contract,
Speaker 2: there's no money. It's I organize my own tickets. Oh
Speaker 2: well I organized them as well. I had to go
Speaker 2: to Libyana is like the edge of the earth. So
Speaker 2: I had to go Libyana, do Bay Do Buy, Mumbai, Mumbai, Deli, Deli, Deridin.
Speaker 2: So I organized all of that and then from Deridin
Speaker 2: up to the mountain, they got me a helicopter. So
Speaker 2: it was worth it, like so cool, Like there's this
Speaker 2: chopper and it's like really old one, like as old
Speaker 2: as me. And yeah, they packed me into that and
Speaker 2: flew me up to Himalayas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what happened? So your land? And is it
Speaker 1: the au? Is there a reception party for you?
Speaker 2: Na, it's not like a reception party. On the way,
Speaker 2: I was doing my research because I was trying to
Speaker 2: figure out what I was getting myself into. It's not
Speaker 2: it's not the first time I've been called like I
Speaker 2: do this. What's different is this becomes public. Normally everyone
Speaker 2: keeps a lid on it, and there's it's like stum,
Speaker 2: you know, Mum's the word. We don't talk about it.
Speaker 2: But somehow other this had become public. So on the way,
Speaker 2: I was doing my research into what's going on, and
Speaker 2: I discovered that this was a special pilgrim tunnel, so
Speaker 2: it was going to one of the four most holy
Speaker 2: places for the Hindu people, and that the local priests
Speaker 2: believe the reason for the collapse was religious based, was
Speaker 2: they'd upset the gods by doing something up there. And
Speaker 2: so I realized I was getting myself into something quite
Speaker 2: different to your average engineering collapse. There was this whole
Speaker 2: cultural religious dimension to an engineering collapse. So by the
Speaker 2: time I landed there, I was sort of getting quite
Speaker 2: tuned into this is something, this is a bit unusual,
Speaker 2: this particular collapse. So no, there was no big reception party.
Speaker 2: The guy who rung me Rajal, he was just sitting
Speaker 2: there and wow, you could call it a taxi, but
Speaker 2: it's not really. It's just like a car and sort
Speaker 2: of barely a car. And he just picked me up
Speaker 2: and took me. He took me up to the tunnel
Speaker 2: and went had a look.
Speaker 1: What was there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so not good. So the place that they put
Speaker 2: the tunnel through the mountain is what we call a sheers,
Speaker 2: So it's where the two two lots of rock sort
Speaker 2: of joined together and rubbed together a bit like a
Speaker 2: fault or something. And unfortunately the tunnel was running right
Speaker 2: along that and so when I put my head inside
Speaker 2: the tunnel was like oh dear, because you could see
Speaker 2: it was I think twenty one prior collapses between the
Speaker 2: beginning of the tunnel and where the collapse was this time.
Speaker 2: So it just was awful. And it like if it
Speaker 2: was in Australia, you wouldn't be allowed in, like you
Speaker 2: just it' a bit have a big sign, you know,
Speaker 2: like keep out sort of thing. Like it was like
Speaker 2: it was just terrible. Yeah, so not good.
Speaker 1: I've heard you say and read about you. How you
Speaker 1: talk to the mountain? Can you take can you walk
Speaker 1: us through that process? You talk? Yeah, you feel it?
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 1: Is that spiritual? Is that? Is it a practicality to that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. So that all talking to the mountain
Speaker 2: or touching the rocks or listening to the rocks. So
Speaker 2: I'm a scientist, engineer kind of guy, right, So I'm
Speaker 2: into the mass and science and all the tools and
Speaker 2: things that go along with that. But in addition to that,
Speaker 2: and it was taught to me from when I was
Speaker 2: a kid of a gender mind from the old time
Speaker 2: snowy mountains guys, and reinforced during my mining placements at
Speaker 2: when I was doing geology or like mining geology at Monash,
Speaker 2: the people who actually survive and make old bones in
Speaker 2: this business, there's usually something more to them than just
Speaker 2: digging and the sort of the science and the engineering,
Speaker 2: and what they always say is trust your guts, like
Speaker 2: trust your instinct, and in the case of rocks, that's
Speaker 2: that is actually touch them, feel them, taste them, smell them,
Speaker 2: put your back against them, just sense what's going on.
Speaker 2: And so I that's part of how I roll. I
Speaker 2: do all the tech stuff. But I also I'm not
Speaker 2: I'm not adverse to how do I feel about it?
Speaker 1: And what did the mountain tell you when you are.
Speaker 2: Unhappy to it? Was? It was in a bad mood,
Speaker 2: and I I it was obviously traumatized. And so if
Speaker 2: I use the analogy that the mountain is alive, and
Speaker 2: in a sense it is alive because it's at this
Speaker 2: collision point between the Indian plate and China, so the
Speaker 2: Himalayas are this big collision, and so it's moving and
Speaker 2: and does all of that sort of stuff. It told
Speaker 2: me that it was very much alive. It told me
Speaker 2: that was very much in distress. And when I touched
Speaker 2: it and listened to it, but I also felt that
Speaker 2: we still had time. I know that sounds odd, but
Speaker 2: it didn't feel like it was about to collapse on me.
Speaker 2: It felt like it wasn't. It felt like it was
Speaker 2: going to collapse, which it did actually, but it just
Speaker 2: wasn't going to do it right then. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: did that on a daily basis. That's like taking its
Speaker 2: pulse all the time and you're listening and it's like
Speaker 2: you've got your spidery senses on high alert, like what's
Speaker 2: going on here?
Speaker 1: Professor Arnold Dix is my guest, folks. He's a president
Speaker 1: of the Tunneling, Underground and Space Association. There's been a
Speaker 1: collapse in a tunnel in North India and he's been
Speaker 1: summoned to help rescue the forty one miners. I suppose
Speaker 1: you call or workers at a trap there and we'll
Speaker 1: find out how he did it after the break back shortly,
Speaker 1: welcome back to conversations. Arnold Dix is my guest. Arnold
Speaker 1: is an expert on everything. He's a geologist, an engineer,
Speaker 1: a lawyer, farmer. But if you just tuned in, been
Speaker 1: called to India to help with the rescue of some
Speaker 1: forty one workers trapped in a tunnel collapse. As they're
Speaker 1: trying to bore a tunnel through the through the Himalayas.
Speaker 1: But as we're talking in the break, Arnold, you told
Speaker 1: me that your phone's going on now and there's there's actually,
Speaker 1: as we're speaking, another tunnel collapse in India.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, So I'm getting like, literally while we're talking,
Speaker 2: I'm getting messages. Got a collapse. I've got let's see
Speaker 2: this is I've just I mean, you can see it.
Speaker 2: But here's a message coming in a bit hard for radio.
Speaker 2: It's got I've got a great face for radio, and
Speaker 2: that's a great message for radio. But here's one of
Speaker 2: the rescue guys. He's saying, I've just reached Telangana a
Speaker 2: tunnel operation, Dudy, there's a collapse. He sent me through
Speaker 2: a picture of himself in when we were doing our collapse,
Speaker 2: which is that's us together there we worked on. He's saying,
Speaker 2: you know, wish me luck. I've got videos coming in
Speaker 2: showing me the collapse. I've got the chief engineer again
Speaker 2: messaging me asking me. He's saying, what's he saying? I
Speaker 2: went inside presence Award muckinded. Further advanced collapse occurred over TBM.
Speaker 2: TBM is buried in Mark NDRF on their way. No
Speaker 2: signs of life. Right, that's that's now like in the break,
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, So that's life another day in the
Speaker 2: life of Arnold.
Speaker 1: So you've been there. Some of your comments have been fatalistic.
Speaker 1: You often say that you don't often have an opportunity
Speaker 1: to save lives and collapses like this, the outcome is
Speaker 1: generally tragic.
Speaker 2: So this text, this collapse. If I was a betting man,
Speaker 2: I will say all dead, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Right, But in Ultra Khan, you've got forty one still alive,
Speaker 1: and they've tried to reach them using big machineries and
Speaker 1: big augers, but that's failed. So how did you approach
Speaker 1: a different strategy for them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, by the time I got there, their promises
Speaker 2: that they're going to rescue the forty one at all
Speaker 2: not come true. And to be honest, feeling pretty sad
Speaker 2: because at the beginning of a rescue there's always this like,
Speaker 2: we're going to do it. You know, the hormones are
Speaker 2: running big, We've got a big machine. Big machine means
Speaker 2: we can do the job, blah blah blah. But by
Speaker 2: the time I got there, that hadn't happened. And so
Speaker 2: I got their. First thing I do is just immerse
Speaker 2: myself in the situation. I might be many things, but
Speaker 2: what I'm not is a great, big, elder plus sized,
Speaker 2: white bearded barbarian who comes in bang and you do
Speaker 2: it highway or the highway. That's not me. Instead, what
Speaker 2: I do is I just disappear into the group. So
Speaker 2: I'm with everyone, talking to everyone, just trying to get
Speaker 2: an understanding of what's going on, find out what the
Speaker 2: data is saying, find out what our like. We had
Speaker 2: things called light our data, so we're doing digital be
Speaker 2: twin modeling, looking for change data, just any any factual
Speaker 2: material I could get my hands on. And also how
Speaker 2: people are feeling, like, how's there one feeling?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: What? What's the mood? So that's what I did when
Speaker 2: I got there, and pretty quickly I felt that they
Speaker 2: needed hope. That sounds really sounds really odd, you know,
Speaker 2: like I'm a technical person, but they needed hope. And
Speaker 2: it's this is really unusual because normally everyone's either dead
Speaker 2: or soon will be, but in this case, everyone's alive,
Speaker 2: and so we've got everything to lose.
Speaker 1: And what contact did they have with them?
Speaker 2: Oh, we had we there was a compressor. They were
Speaker 2: using some air compressor tools, and there was we had
Speaker 2: lots There were initially lots of pipes going down there
Speaker 2: because we're building a tunnel. But when it collapsed, it
Speaker 2: crushed everything, including air supply. Everything filled the whole tunnel
Speaker 2: up except for one little pipe that was for the
Speaker 2: air tools. So what we could do is we could
Speaker 2: blow air down the pipe, and we could also yell,
Speaker 2: so you could go literally hollow flowing, and then you
Speaker 2: hear a little voice down the other end, so we knew,
Speaker 2: you know, so we kind of know that there's people
Speaker 2: there on the other end, but it's only a little pipe,
Speaker 2: and but that let us send, well send, which is good.
Speaker 2: So at least we know and they know that we
Speaker 2: know that they're alive, so that's okay. Some food And
Speaker 2: when I say food, I don't mean like food rations
Speaker 2: or something. I mean like you get a handful of peanuts,
Speaker 2: you stick them in the pipe and then you blow
Speaker 2: it with air compressed air, and so presumably it's like
Speaker 2: a bazooka of peanuts going down at the other end,
Speaker 2: and you can blow a bit of water and stuff
Speaker 2: down there, like literally put a tap and then they
Speaker 2: catch the water at the other end, so we could
Speaker 2: get air and a bit of food and a bit
Speaker 2: of water and a bit of communications. And that was
Speaker 2: fantastic because at least they knew that we knew that
Speaker 2: they were alive, and we could tell them that we're
Speaker 2: coming to get them.
Speaker 1: And Dad used a big orger when you come in
Speaker 1: and say, look, this is the wrong strategy. I think
Speaker 1: we should go smaller and more slowly. How do they
Speaker 1: receive that advice?
Speaker 2: Oh, well, so gee, you cut right to the that's
Speaker 2: you know, it's not even in the book, like You've
Speaker 2: gone straight to the point a bit. So look, there
Speaker 2: was a difference of opinion amongst the different experts, and
Speaker 2: certainly I was I'm only one of many who's there,
Speaker 2: and I was not. I was very uncomfortable with some
Speaker 2: of the things that were happening, and so we just
Speaker 2: I think my presence just turned the volume down a bit. So,
Speaker 2: for example, there was a vertical drilling operation, which was
Speaker 2: one of the ways we're trying to do it, and
Speaker 2: the vertical drill had come down really well. We were
Speaker 2: going to put people in a little capsule and rescue
Speaker 2: them vertically, but we started to get more water coming
Speaker 2: in the tunnel, and so we were risking drowning the men.
Speaker 2: So my approach of hey, look we're going to rescue
Speaker 2: all the men and we're not going to get hurt.
Speaker 2: They stopped. So the team agreed to stop. Now that's
Speaker 2: just a miracle when you've got a group of men
Speaker 2: who were trying to rescue people and they were in
Speaker 2: ten this is the vertical teamin ten meters and they
Speaker 2: agreed to stop. And then with the horizontal drill, they
Speaker 2: didn't agree to stop with that horizontal lger, but in
Speaker 2: the end it blew up anyway, and so then we
Speaker 2: had to go to people in the pipe with their
Speaker 2: bare hands.
Speaker 1: And so that's I've read that. So you've got it.
Speaker 1: You've got to your progressing. They're in this pipe which
Speaker 1: is like a tunnel, and they're digging hand by hand.
Speaker 1: What what sort of tool are they using it as
Speaker 1: a spree?
Speaker 2: Is it just hands? Really? And I mean hands? I
Speaker 2: think they might have had gloves on. Well. The reason
Speaker 2: is that the material that it collapsed, because we're in
Speaker 2: a sheer zone, is just little tiny bits of rock
Speaker 2: like it's all collapsed, and because it's so fragile, and
Speaker 2: because we understand that the whole thing can collapse. The
Speaker 2: softer and more gently we go, the more likely it
Speaker 2: is that we won't trigger a major collapse. Because the
Speaker 2: data was showing us. We've got drones that are flying
Speaker 2: in and out and building like virtual models of the tunnel,
Speaker 2: and we've got survey data also showing us what's going
Speaker 2: on in the tunnel, and what we could see was
Speaker 2: that it was we call it converging or squashing, So
Speaker 2: the tunnel was squashing, and it was also squashing asymmetrically,
Speaker 2: which means that it it's like the worst of the
Speaker 2: worst because it's yeah, it's uneven, so the whole thing
Speaker 2: could blow. So the trick was to do as gently
Speaker 2: as possible our progress so as to not upset the patient.
Speaker 2: Like if the analogy that the mountain is alive and
Speaker 2: I'm touching the mountain to feel its heartbeat, we don't
Speaker 2: want this patient to feel us just getting in there
Speaker 2: to get these men out. So, yeah, it's two men
Speaker 2: in a little pipe. It's about eight hundred mil pipe
Speaker 2: ten mil plate which we built on site. We do
Speaker 2: we weld these and yeah, we're on a little trolley.
Speaker 2: We built a little trolley and we've got a trolley
Speaker 2: on a rope and we're just hand digging now and
Speaker 2: pulling out the mark.
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of all those escape attempts from Stelle a seventeen,
Speaker 1: and you know where they where. They dug tunnels and
Speaker 1: they're doing it by hand and they're trying to get
Speaker 1: the dirt out and disperse it there. But what was
Speaker 1: your action reaction like when they finally broke through in
Speaker 1: this like an eight hundred mili tunnel, which is you
Speaker 1: can sort of crawl in, I suppose is it about
Speaker 1: all you can do? Did you have any sense of
Speaker 1: what the reaction was like at the other end when
Speaker 1: they finally saw a rescuer appear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, on all accounts, they were just well, I
Speaker 2: mean it's like for them, they have to believe they're
Speaker 2: going to be rescued, otherwise they can't stay alive. So
Speaker 2: that's the first thing. So the sort of mindset you
Speaker 2: have to be as an underground person have to stay positive.
Speaker 2: They were their mindset is, of course, we're going to
Speaker 2: be rescued. But in addition to water and food, we
Speaker 2: did send them medication. Just between you, me and your listeners,
Speaker 2: the medication we were sending were antidepressants. So they were
Speaker 2: in a you know, like all things considered, they were
Speaker 2: pretty positive now that the plan was that each one
Speaker 2: of the forty one would be triaged and then we'd
Speaker 2: bring them out who was the most sick first and
Speaker 2: whatever you and it will take hours. But actually, and
Speaker 2: I remember being in a meeting saying, I don't think
Speaker 2: that's going to work. I think actually they're just going
Speaker 2: to come bouncing out. And so sure enough, as soon
Speaker 2: as the pipe busted through, it was just like forty
Speaker 2: one little rabbits came scurrying out the pipe and the
Speaker 2: scene was amazing, like it was. There were obviously all
Speaker 2: the rescue people were cheering, and of course all the
Speaker 2: politicians were there right front, of course, but it was
Speaker 2: interesting for me. I'm not in You won't find me
Speaker 2: in any of the vision for that when they come
Speaker 2: through the pipe, because I decided that I shouldn't be
Speaker 2: in that part of the rescue because actually this is
Speaker 2: a very personal thing for the country, like I'd done
Speaker 2: my bit. So I sat behind the families. There was
Speaker 2: a spot just a little bit back, not far like
Speaker 2: maybe fifty meters maximum in the tunnel, just a little
Speaker 2: bit back from where they were coming out and where
Speaker 2: the ambulances were, and I just sat there and watched
Speaker 2: the reaction of the families and the rescue people were
Speaker 2: all cheering and clapping and all the rest of it,
Speaker 2: but the families, and I could never have guessed this.
Speaker 2: The families were like they were seeing the dead, Like
Speaker 2: it was like they were seeing ghosts. They weren't clapping
Speaker 2: and cheering though, were just like blank faced looking.
Speaker 1: When they cry. Sure they'd be crying.
Speaker 2: It was crying, well, there was, there was, and maybe
Speaker 2: there was a bit of crying from me too. There's
Speaker 2: this wave of distrust of government around the world at
Speaker 2: the moment, and so even amongst these people, they believed
Speaker 2: perhaps that they're being lied to, that they're now their
Speaker 2: loved ones maybe weren't going to be able to be
Speaker 2: brought out. Maybe this rescue was just a big sort
Speaker 2: of public relations thing.
Speaker 1: But it succeeded, acceeded, exceeded what I need to ask,
Speaker 1: what's the state of the tunnel now?
Speaker 2: How funny you should ask. I was there literally two
Speaker 2: weeks ago and was taken in to have a look.
Speaker 2: In over a year, they've managed to only go forty
Speaker 2: five meters in like stabilizing the area that collapsed. They've
Speaker 2: the pipe still there, but they've gone forty five meters.
Speaker 2: It did fill up with water and it did collapse
Speaker 2: after we did the rescue, so all the things we're
Speaker 2: worried about happened. But they're now slowly rebuilding it.
Speaker 1: And will it be completed do you think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the rate they're going, it'll take another couple of years,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it'll get completed. And I think with all
Speaker 2: the publicity, they'll do it right.
Speaker 1: We need to take a break. Arnold, Professor Arnold Dix
Speaker 1: is my guest. He recalled this great adventure in a
Speaker 1: book called The Promise, How an everyday hero made the
Speaker 1: impossible possible. There's so much more to Arnold that I
Speaker 1: want to get to. I'm not We're going around a
Speaker 1: time that I'll do it as much as I can
Speaker 1: when we come back after the break back shortly, folks.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, folks. If you've just tuned into conversations, we're
Speaker 1: talking with Arnold Dix now Professor Arnold dis But he's
Speaker 1: got so many different qualifications. He's a geologist, an engineer,
Speaker 1: he's a lawyer, he's a farmer, I'm not even sure
Speaker 1: we'll get a chance to talk about it. He drove
Speaker 1: trucks for a while there, so, but he achieved great
Speaker 1: acclaim as one of the rescuers of the forty one
Speaker 1: Indian workers are trapped in a collapse in a tunnel
Speaker 1: in the Himalayas. If you just tuned in, they've finally
Speaker 1: got them out. The forty one are out and they
Speaker 1: all we've seen in reasonable spirits and good health. So
Speaker 1: what happens after that? Arnold, you become a renowned almost
Speaker 1: a national hero in India. I mean yeah, and our
Speaker 1: Prime minister mentions you in Parliament and you're in handside.
Speaker 1: I mean, how did you handle this newfound fame?
Speaker 2: Well, firstly I wondered whether I'd had a mental breakdown
Speaker 2: or was having one of those mental health issues, because
Speaker 2: it wasn't just the Prime Minister, even our friend mister
Speaker 2: Dutton got up and said no, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: surely not. And at the time this is happening, I'm
Speaker 2: still up in the Himalayas, and so I'm getting reports
Speaker 2: and there are only broken reports because I don't have
Speaker 2: internet coverage. Well I'm not much internet coverage because I'm
Speaker 2: in the Himalayas. I'm not even in a city, and
Speaker 2: I'm getting reports that our prime Minister's saying nice things
Speaker 2: about me in parliament and the leader of the opposition. Everything.
Speaker 2: I wondered whether I might have died or maybe it
Speaker 2: was maybe I was delusional, because the whole story is
Speaker 2: so ridiculous and so not like how it's always been
Speaker 2: for me over my years and years of dealing with
Speaker 2: bad things, that I thought maybe I was just I'd
Speaker 2: lost the plot and so a bit of slapping to
Speaker 2: my own face about it all. And I'm actually serious
Speaker 2: because when I'm dealing with really difficult situations, I have
Speaker 2: to make sure I'm performing well because my judgment has
Speaker 2: to be good, and so I and then people in
Speaker 2: the streets, like everyone's a lot of people lying down
Speaker 2: on the ground and touching my feet.
Speaker 1: Which is very Indian people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because because there was this huge spiritual dimension to
Speaker 2: the tunnel itself, and also the rescue, the messaging, and
Speaker 2: the way I engage with the mountain. Listening to the mountain,
Speaker 2: I prayed at their temple, I gave flowers to their
Speaker 2: local god every day, Like before I'd go in the
Speaker 2: tum I'd always give some flowers to the local mountain God.
Speaker 2: There was also this spiritual dimension to it, and so
Speaker 2: for many people they believed that God had somehow used
Speaker 2: me as a sort of a I don't know, a
Speaker 2: vehicle to help the rescue. And that's really difficult for
Speaker 2: me to understand because that's not sort of the place
Speaker 2: I come from. And so I was faced with everyone
Speaker 2: recognizes me, I get mobbed, I had to have special escorts.
Speaker 2: I couldn't stay at a hotel like it was. I
Speaker 2: think it was widely reported that I was the only
Speaker 2: Australian that every Indian loved because we've just beaten them
Speaker 2: at the cricket and so this was and there were memes,
Speaker 2: lots of memes. There was I think some videos of
Speaker 2: the rescue guys singing a song with me on a
Speaker 2: log and that got like nearly one hundred million hits,
Speaker 2: Like I was like a bit of a celebrity over there,
Speaker 2: not how it normally is normally. I'm completely unknown.
Speaker 1: Back to reality though, the more practical things you've got
Speaker 1: to you've got to live, you've got to survive. Did
Speaker 1: you get paid for your time and for your effort?
Speaker 1: There's a financial reward I mean, can we discuss that practicality?
Speaker 2: We can, we can discuss that practicality and it's very quick. No, no, yeah,
Speaker 2: but you don't do it for.
Speaker 1: That, Like I know you don't do it for that,
Speaker 1: but you've got to someone has to pay for the affairs,
Speaker 1: and you've got a family you have to feed.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I've got to say, if this was part
Speaker 2: of an incredible business plan, like a get rich program,
Speaker 2: that didn't work, And if anything, it's probably ruined a
Speaker 2: lot of my traditional business because I'm famous for not
Speaker 2: being famous. So you know, you get me in when
Speaker 2: you've got a problem, I help sort it out. I
Speaker 2: sort it out, and then I go and I don't
Speaker 2: tell anyone, and so I'm in the shadows. It's almost
Speaker 2: I'm the complete anti hero of the twenty twenty, twenty
Speaker 2: first century. I don't play in that conventional space. I'm
Speaker 2: actually purposefully not in the public domain. But this one,
Speaker 2: I had no choice because I felt that in order
Speaker 2: to have the team come together, in order for us
Speaker 2: to achieve what would normally be impossible, somehow we had
Speaker 2: to be together and we had to believe that we
Speaker 2: could do this, and that meant me being a public figure.
Speaker 1: What is the International Tunneling Underground Space Association. How big
Speaker 1: is it and who funds that?
Speaker 2: Oh? So that's the peak United Nations advisory body on
Speaker 2: the underground. It's got about eighty member nations, several hundred
Speaker 2: thousand members. Most of them wear brown cardigans, of course,
Speaker 2: and we just love the underground and we're responsible for
Speaker 2: trying to promote the underground as as a way of
Speaker 2: delivering clean water, sewage, transport and energy to the world's people.
Speaker 2: So whether it's underground metros in cities, or water supply
Speaker 2: clean water, or environmental protection with better drainage or whatever,
Speaker 2: we're into the underground and we're quite influential in terms
Speaker 2: of policy because we all love we're very nerdy bunch.
Speaker 2: We really love the underground.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And it's a mixture of the industry, so there is
Speaker 2: an underground industry. So they they're involved with us, the consultants,
Speaker 2: the universities, the we're like the nerdy nerds.
Speaker 1: Like we're building an underground corridor here in Adelaide. You
Speaker 1: have you been have you been consulted on it? Yep?
Speaker 2: I have. In the early stages, I was consulted on
Speaker 2: it and in not a very detailed way. It was
Speaker 2: just just what do you think you think? Do you
Speaker 2: think we can do this in Adelaide? Do you know what?
Speaker 2: Do you just general stuff? But I I know well,
Speaker 2: I mean, I know, well a whole lot of the
Speaker 2: team there, and I've worked with them over decades, so
Speaker 2: I know you've actually you've extracted somehow or other some
Speaker 2: of the top you know, the top people from around
Speaker 2: the country are they're in Adelaide at the moment trying
Speaker 2: to deliver it.
Speaker 1: It's good to hear. Can I quote you? I've got
Speaker 1: two quotes, one from the book, but I like this one.
Speaker 1: I'm really proud of the inner nerd. I have nerdy books,
Speaker 1: I wear nerdy clothes, I drove a nerdy car. I
Speaker 1: proudly go where nerds go. I'm seriously nerdy, and it's
Speaker 1: a really nice place to be because we do good stuff.
Speaker 1: You're not You're not. You can't be a nerd anymore.
Speaker 2: Though, with this new no, I think maybe I'm I'm
Speaker 2: like the new I don't know, I'm the nerd that
Speaker 2: the nerd came out into the sun or something. No.
Speaker 2: I think that there's a lot to be said for
Speaker 2: people of substance, and that's what I think the nerds
Speaker 2: are where people who do stuff like tangible things. There's
Speaker 2: we're actually really nice. Like if the world was run
Speaker 2: by nerds, we just sort stuff out because we're a
Speaker 2: practical bunch, and you know we wouldn't. We're not into
Speaker 2: wars and we're not into hating on everybody. We're just like,
Speaker 2: you know, like we're just And so I don't mind
Speaker 2: being called a nerd, and I do. I drive a
Speaker 2: nerdy car. I was car well, I actually purchased and
Speaker 2: still have the very first Toyota Prius matter like actually
Speaker 2: sold in Australia and if you go back through the records,
Speaker 2: I did get a bit of press about that because
Speaker 2: people like, why on earth would you be buying the
Speaker 2: first Prius. I'm like, because it's the right thing to do,
Speaker 2: and that's what nerds do.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't thought it was an Eddie car. It's still going.
Speaker 1: How old is it now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's twenty three years old.
Speaker 1: Had to change the battery on it only recently.
Speaker 2: I did the biggest issue that's actually the steering rack,
Speaker 2: but it was on when Toyota ran an ad recently
Speaker 2: for the multiple generations of Preus. Mine's the little green one,
Speaker 2: because mine, I think, is the only one left, and
Speaker 2: so I got the first. It's the alpha and Amega
Speaker 2: of Prius is in Australia, and I've still got it.
Speaker 1: Oh, well done, so much to talk about, so little
Speaker 1: time left that we'll try and cover it quickly when
Speaker 1: we come back. Arnold Dix is my guess, folks. The
Speaker 1: book about the rescue is called The Promise, How an
Speaker 1: everyday hero made the impossible possible. But it goes through
Speaker 1: his life, and i'll quote after the break a paragraph
Speaker 1: that really interested me. Back shortly, Arnold Dix is my guest, folks.
Speaker 1: He's the president of the International Tunneling Undergrounds Based Association.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize it was so influential. A geologist, an engineer,
Speaker 1: he's a lawyer. He's a farmer growth gross flowers, and
Speaker 1: was even a truck driver when he couldn't get work
Speaker 1: during COVID. Apparently, so I want to quote from the book. Okay,
Speaker 1: in another life, in a parallel universe where an Arnold
Speaker 1: who is fairly similar to me exists, I would probably
Speaker 1: have been relaxing in a gaudy mounsion in some posh
Speaker 1: Melbourne suburb with an Italian sports car parked snugly in
Speaker 1: a four car garage. I almost certainly would have been wealthy.
Speaker 1: I'm certain I would have been hugely successful as a barrister,
Speaker 1: perhaps even working as a judge. But I'm absolutely sure
Speaker 1: that I would have been miserable. Now, he did work
Speaker 1: as a lawyer for a certain amount of time, And
Speaker 1: were you miserable?
Speaker 2: Ah? Well, actually I still do. I'm still current, I'm
Speaker 2: still one of them, and I weave my law into
Speaker 2: what I do and I'm content, Like I really, I
Speaker 2: really like how I've been able to blend these various
Speaker 2: I don't know skills, I don't know whatever you call them,
Speaker 2: to blend them into something useful. And I have what
Speaker 2: I think money can't buy. And i'd become and I
Speaker 2: think I've mentioned it in the book, like I was
Speaker 2: really high performing partner in megafirm, kind of level lawyer,
Speaker 2: Like I'm not did law by the way, like I mean,
Speaker 2: seriously do law, but I wanted something more and I've
Speaker 2: got it. And I think that the blending a good
Speaker 2: dose of humanity into the practice of law. Where law
Speaker 2: is about enabling, it's about helping other people get on
Speaker 2: with what they're good at, as opposed to making people
Speaker 2: fear what they do is going to get them into
Speaker 2: try that enabling an aspect of law is just wonderful
Speaker 2: when it's mixed in right measure with humanity, technical competence,
Speaker 2: a vision omission and things like that. And that's what
Speaker 2: I was really trying to say, Like I could have been,
Speaker 2: not could have been, I imagine I could have been.
Speaker 2: I was earning the absolute megabucks, and I walked away
Speaker 2: from it because for me personally, I wanted something more
Speaker 2: than that. I felt there was more and I've got it.
Speaker 1: And I ask you, is that? I mean the found
Speaker 1: of a group called the ALARP Group, a la RP
Speaker 1: group from the beginning, a LARP which stands for as
Speaker 1: low as reasonably practicable focused on protection of life and
Speaker 1: property according to the four pillars of excellence, independence, professionalism,
Speaker 1: and ethical conduct. Now that sounds very philosophically positive, I mean,
Speaker 1: is it? Is it a bit airy fairy?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a bit airy fairy, but but that's what
Speaker 2: I do. And so it's not for everybody. Like a
Speaker 2: lot of people want consultants or advisors just to reinforce
Speaker 2: whatever decision they've made, and to hide whatever mischief or
Speaker 2: whatever's gone wrong. Right, that's what they want, that's what
Speaker 2: that's why you get you. And I won't mention the
Speaker 2: acronyms of the various organizations in they don't really want
Speaker 2: to reform. But there are some people who actually genuinely
Speaker 2: want help, and they're the ones I'm interested in, and
Speaker 2: they're the ones who ask me for help. And that's
Speaker 2: that's where I earn my living. And I don't earn
Speaker 2: my living saving people's lives. I think that's that's not right.
Speaker 2: I don't think you should earn money if it can
Speaker 2: possibly avoid it. It's not a money making spot. But yeah,
Speaker 2: where people want genuine.
Speaker 1: Without naming that can you give that's an example of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure. I recently got called to have a look
Speaker 2: at an underground something somewhere and I discovered that just
Speaker 2: literally quite quickly, that they'd forgotten the fundamental fire and
Speaker 2: life safety engineering components to make this whatever it might
Speaker 2: be safe. And the people I was dealing with at
Speaker 2: the lower level of the organization were a bit edgy
Speaker 2: about it. So I just marched into the CEO's office
Speaker 2: and I said, here's the deal, this is the situation,
Speaker 2: this is what I've seen. I've got no idea why
Speaker 2: it hasn't been reported up to you. But what I
Speaker 2: know is if I was a judge and people were
Speaker 2: to die here tomorrow, I would send you to jail,
Speaker 2: as the CEO, and he was like and then so
Speaker 2: they held an immediate emergency meeting as to who and
Speaker 2: the hell it employed me and what was I talking about.
Speaker 2: They discovered that what I was saying was true. They
Speaker 2: immediately employed a new person to take control of the change,
Speaker 2: to bring the organization back into compliance, and they're sorting
Speaker 2: it out and they thank me. That's what I do.
Speaker 2: That's the space I'm in. You know, it'll never appear
Speaker 2: in a book. I'll never disclose who it is. I
Speaker 2: will never but I helped make the world a better
Speaker 2: place for in that case. About I think it's two
Speaker 2: million people a year and they'll never know it was me,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't matter, and it's perfect. That's how. That's
Speaker 2: how I like to earn my money. So when I
Speaker 2: open up my wallet, the money that's in there, albeit
Speaker 2: that it's not a lot, it's it's like it's nice money,
Speaker 2: right based.
Speaker 1: On excellence, independence, professionalism, and ethical conduct. Your body of
Speaker 1: work is when you start to explore what you've done,
Speaker 1: the papers you've written. The paper it's enormous, it's an
Speaker 1: enormous volume of work over the years. I don't know
Speaker 1: how you found that. There was one that intrigued me,
Speaker 1: and I don't know whether I read it correctly or not.
Speaker 1: Did you have a role in the changing of the
Speaker 1: words of the national anthem?
Speaker 2: Huh hm, yes, so he's on the late Peter Vickery
Speaker 2: championed the inclusive change to the national anthem. And I was,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm sort of like, yes, I was supportive of
Speaker 2: Peter and you know, just that word and just changing
Speaker 2: to be more inclusive in the national anthem was Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know how you even found that like that.
Speaker 2: I am impressed, like this, that's that's an example of
Speaker 2: just being decent, you know, decent.
Speaker 1: How did that gow? How easy? Was it the constitutional
Speaker 1: issue here to change the words of a national anthem?
Speaker 2: Yeah? That was and Peter, Peter really championed that and
Speaker 2: he was passionate about it. He had a very soft
Speaker 2: spot for in particularly for indigenous and other marginalized groups
Speaker 2: within Australia, and that meant that he instead of young
Speaker 2: and free, he wanted one and free and so and
Speaker 2: the idea being that as our country matures, and as
Speaker 2: we are so many people together, that we should celebrate
Speaker 2: what is collectively ours, the oneness, and not be so
Speaker 2: focused on what makes us different. And I just thought,
Speaker 2: isn't that the future? You know? So I was happy
Speaker 2: to support to support with that. I'm just impressed you
Speaker 2: even found it out, like that's in my secret squirrel barrel.
Speaker 2: You know, no one normally knows it like and it
Speaker 2: highlights I don't I don't talk about what I do.
Speaker 2: I just quietly try and do the right thing.
Speaker 1: Maybe he can get the national anthem change we love that,
Speaker 1: we love that you are we're all Australian, rather than
Speaker 1: when we have I think I think that would be
Speaker 1: better suited. Yeah, that's another that's another issue. Let's finish
Speaker 1: with the book. I got the promise how on every
Speaker 1: Day Hero made the impossible possible. There's an audio you
Speaker 1: actually narrate the audiobook the audiobook yourself for him.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: That would have been a challenge.
Speaker 2: It was I should have. Yeah, anyone who's going to
Speaker 2: do a book stand up, I started sitting down. It
Speaker 2: takes a long time to read a book sitting down,
Speaker 2: and it's kind of weird reading your own book because
Speaker 2: then you go, I want to change that, and then
Speaker 2: you've got a director saying you can't change it. You've
Speaker 2: got to read it exactly as it is. And I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: but I'm the author. I want to change it. They're like, no,
Speaker 2: you're not allowed.
Speaker 1: And at the back of the book you got QR
Speaker 1: codes which take you to some of the audio visual
Speaker 1: stuff that you've done. And there's been plenty of that too,
Speaker 1: so that is an interesting inclusion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, QR code is really important to me. I think
Speaker 2: the book talks a lot about stuff that seems completely unbelievable,
Speaker 2: and the QR code takes you to the real resources
Speaker 2: from the news channels, from wherever we're a reader can go,
Speaker 2: oh my goodness. Actually, if anything, the book is turned
Speaker 2: the volume down on this so much there, and that's
Speaker 2: just to help a reader if they're interested, just find
Speaker 2: out more.
Speaker 1: And what a delight having a chat to you. So
Speaker 1: you do such great work. You do it almost anonymously,
Speaker 1: except when a hundred million people click on a link
Speaker 1: and good luck with the book. Maybe we're met one day.
Speaker 2: Thank you Bye.
Speaker 1: Unlottle Dix was my guest folks. The book is called
Speaker 1: The Promise. How on everyday hero made the impossible possible.
Speaker 1: It's a great story. Thank you for your times.