RELUCTANT SAVIOUR
HOLLYWOOD HAS COME CALLING BUT CAVEDIVING RESCUER JOHN VOLANTHEN DOESN’T WANT TO BE A STAR, WRITES LISA MAYOH
HE may be one of the cave divers who helped discover and rescue the young Thai soccer team submerged in dark and cold narrow tunnels spanning 8km underground – but don’t call John Volanthen a hero.
Risking his life to save the lives of 13 strangers was simply a way to use his ‘odd’ set of skills to problem solve a situation that by all accounts, was desperate. Anyone who could have helped would have, he assured News Corp, speaking from his UK home on the eve of the release of Thirteen Lives, the new Ron Howard film depicting the rescue where none other than Colin Farrell plays Volanthen.
“I do feel very uncomfortable with that word,” he said of his ‘hero’ label.
“From my perspective in Thailand, the personal risk that I took was managed very, very carefully. The risk to the boy was extreme, and there was no choice but to take that risk. I was able to help, and I’m sure that any normal human being who had a set of skills in a particular circumstance, would want to help – so I don’t think there’s anything particularly special in that.”
So humble is the IT expert who cave dives for pleasure at any opportunity – that when given an hour to get the airport with fellow British cavediver Richard Stanton after being told they was needed in Thailand, he questioned his involvement. Not because it was too dangerous or too risky – because he felt it seemed ‘arrogant’ that out of everyone in the world, he was one of the few that were needed.
“I felt quite strongly that the team was the right team and I felt incredibly strongly that we needed to be there – but equally, I also felt that that was quite arrogant thing to say, because we were essentially flying halfway around the world, hoping we could add our expertise and attempt to solve that problem,” he said.
“I had a conversation with a work colleague saying, is this too arrogant to say that we needed to be there – and he said to me, if you feel that’s the right thing to do, then that’s what you should do. So that’s what we did because I felt very strongly that our skills were needed there, and more importantly, we could make a difference for the boys.”
Make a difference they did. So intricate was the sunken cave network in Tham Luang that the nailbiting rescue took 17 days. Volanthen wasn’t optimistic that they would find the boys alive – but after nine days of being trapped, his was one of the first voices they heard.
He says the Thirteen Lives is accurate to their ordeal, the film, which was released on Amazon Prime Video yesterday, was produced with an incredible level of detail. Friends of Volanthen even say Farrell plays him better than he does himself, even though Farrell admits to suffering panic attacks filming the ‘terrifying’ underwater scenes.
“I originally asked, mostly in jest, to be played by Rowan Atkinson – he wears glasses and is a bit of a laugh but I was admittedly told it wasn’t right for the direction of the movie,” Volanthen said. “But I spent a lot of time speaking to Colin over Zoom to help him understand what I went through during the rescue and so he could learn my mannerisms and the way I speak.
“His attention to detail is incredible and I think that comes across in the film. The detail that the film has gone into, in terms of Thai culture, Thai rituals, even the dialect of language that the boys are speaking is
correct – it’s incredibly authentic. And it was quite interesting trying to teach Colin Farrell to be me – and having seen the film now, most of the mannerisms that he’s picked up weren’t the ones that I was trying to teach him – he seems to have picked up a bunch of mannerisms that I perhaps didn’t know I had, but other people certainly recognise.
“I’ve been told that he does me better than I do, so perhaps it’s a bit of a caricature there. And I would say, as well, the cinematography, especially the underwater scenes are absolutely fantastic.”
The film is set in Australia, and while the pandemic stopped him from coming out for the filming, exploring caves down under would be a dream, Volanthen says.
“I’ve been to Australia in my teens and I’m very keen to come back again, hopefully to the Nullabor, and hopefully looking forward to going there at some point. That’s one of my dreams, really.”
And while to most, cave diving comprises all the visceral elements that people find quite frightening – the dark, small spaces and being underwater – but Volanthen is confident they are things that you can get used to, as he did when he was first exposed to the pastime as a young Scout. “I’m quite comfortable in the dark, I’m quite comfortable in the water, and in small spaces – so most of the environment that that sets the scene is something that I’m very used to,” he said.
“I think perhaps the responsibility of the boys was a whole different thing and a whole other level – but certainly, those are elements that are typically frightening. It’s possible to get used to it in the same way different people like or fear different things – some people don’t like needles, some people don’t like dogs or open spaces, even. It’s just a question, for me, having had a very specific set of skills that have been honed over a number of years, and a number of other rescues that were very appropriate at that time.”
Still a Scout leader, he loves teaching caving to aspiring adventurers, and says passing ‘that spark’ on to other youngsters is a special full circle moment. “I was very lucky to have that start when I was 14, and that spark that captured my imagination, and I still enjoy being able to pass that on to other boys and girls, and for them to realise that they can do things that they absolutely thought they couldn’t,” he said.
“Caving in the UK is a sport – there’s no paid cave rescue, so it’s all voluntary. But when you start with Scouts or children, you really see they’re in an environment in which they’re not very familiar, so they’re slightly out of their comfort zone.
“But they also start to learn many skills and start to work together.
“They learn to build a team, they learn to trust each other – it’s perhaps small steps, but they certainly start to learn things about themselves and their teammates and they start to understand what they’re capable of, and hopefully apply those skills to other areas of their life as well.”
Like Farrell, not everyone is comfortable under water and in tight spaces. But he says you might surprise yourself under pressure – and ways to cope in stressful
in the I’m quite comfortable comfortable dark, I’m quite in small spaces. John Volanthen
situations are what he’s teaching with his new EdApp course, Leading Under Pressure. In it, he debunks the myth that only the loudest are the most effective leaders, and emphasises mindset is everything.
“I’ve spent a lifetime planning and executing some of the most complex underwater cave rescues, so I’m sharing my knowledge because I really believe that the qualities required for cave diving and many of the lessons I’ve learned from rescues can be directly applied to the workplace and everyday life,” he said.
“I think this (mindset) is relevant to any extraordinary situation filled with uncertainty and unknowns.
“When we were in Thailand the important thing for me was to focus on the job at hand. Many of the qualities required to be a cave diver can also be directly applied to the workplace. The ability to listen and empathise with different groups of people is key for any type of leadership – and this was especially the case in Thailand.
“Empathy allowed me to understand those different groups,
navigate at times competing agendas, and more importantly, ensure we all worked towards a single shared goal.”
His passion for cave exploration is centred around going to new places and finding a cave no one’s ever been to before –- something he calls an ‘absolute honour and a privilege’.
“When Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, he had a photograph of where we’re aiming for – when Sir Edmund Hillary reached the top of Everest, he knew exactly how high it was,” he said. “Cave exploration isn’t like that. You have no idea what’s around the corner, then you have to go and build the tools and design the systems to safely go and have a look.
“And it’s that experience, and that those systems that have been built over the years, that have allowed us to do the rescues that we’ve done, and
Thailand was no exception. It was presented as something that was completely unknown. There was certainly no solution that we could use – we had to go and try and find out what the problem was, and once we found the boys, try and come up with a solution.
“Initially we had no idea that they were alive – it seemed incredibly unlikely that they would be, let alone be able to come out safely, so to start with, although we were hoping for proof of life, I wasn’t very optimistic.”
In terms of mental resilience, cave diving is intense – but most last just a few hours, allowing him to develop the right techniques to recognise the stress and deal with the difficulties.
“It’s not about danger – it’s about removing the danger as much as possible,” he said.