Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / "Story of a Survivor" with Stuart Diver

Transcript

"Story of a Survivor" with Stuart Diver · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:00
  Are you happy? Are you grounded? Are you connected to the things that matter to your life?
• 0:08
  Or do you find yourself diverted into scratching the itch of boredom with the jingle jangle
• 0:12
  distraction of checking your phone or sliding down a YouTube rabbit hole or turning on the telly
• 0:17
  old school style? How present are you? Do you celebrate your wins before scurrying onto the next
• 0:26
  task like a hysterical little rabbit on a hedonic treadmill? When was the last time you climbed a tree?
• 0:34
  If that sounds like the sort of question a crystal dangling hippy-dippy dream catcher Iowaska flower
• 0:40
  child would ask maybe you just haven't been paying enough attention to how you pay attention.
• 0:46
  Sometimes to get a real micro focus and a macro perspective you need a life changing event to force
• 0:56
  you to think things and say things and ask things that are deep and grounding and often more than
• 1:01
  any other questions we face deeply uncomfortable. Wow what an amazing episode this week I've
• 1:18
  just recorded an interview with Stuart diver you have to listen to this all the way through
• 1:23
  don't do not allow yourself at any point to lose interest in whatever random rabbit hole we might
• 1:28
  be going down because Stuart's an incredible person one of those people who just leaves me at the
• 1:35
  end of the interview going man there's a I've got a lot to learn from this guy I kind of want him as
• 1:39
  my friend or priest or something for those of you who might not be in Australia or who weren't alive
• 1:46
  20 what is it four years ago and don't remember the thread bow landslide you might not know the name
• 1:52
  Stuart diver but he was the sole survivor of one of the great tragedies in Australia which was
• 1:59
  that in 1997 on the 30th of July middle of winter 25 minutes to midnight in the most popular
• 2:08
  ski resort village in in Australia thread bow one of there was a massive rock slide a mud slide
• 2:17
  there'd been water leaking underground and a road slipped away and took two ski lodges with it
• 2:27
  and it wiped out 18 people they thought it was 19 people but one of those 19 was Stuart he was in
• 2:34
  bed asleep with his wife lying next to him they were 27 he was 27 they were young and they're
• 2:44
  ensued a multi day excavation rescue effort up up above on the on the ground nobody knew whether
• 2:53
  anyone was alive they thought they were just digging bodies out of a mountainside that in realized
• 2:59
  that for 65 hours Stuart was lying in his bed in tuned in mud and rock with just a couple of
• 3:09
  inches in front of his face and not knowing whether he was going to live or die and after 54 or 55
• 3:18
  hours they realized that he was in there and it became you know just a news event that the
• 3:23
  transfixed Australia everyone was watching this attempt to get this bloke out of this mountain
• 3:29
  slide as he was in tuned there nobody knew what condition he was in and it was an 11 hour process
• 3:36
  to drill him out and he became a celebrity obviously you know went on 60 minutes and did all that
• 3:41
  stuff and and then a couple of years later he met another woman his wife had died next to him
• 3:49
  in his in his bed in the landslide she dream and and that woman three years later married him
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  and right after their honeymoon she was diagnosed with breast cancer and ultimately she died as well
• 4:06
  so this is a conversation that as well as being just amazing because he talks about what that experience
• 4:12
  was like is really philosophical and sort of spiritually stimulating and has given me a new
• 4:22
  perspective on how petty some of my worries and self recriminations and anxieties are about the
• 4:29
  pandemic and the lockdown and so on because life has thrown a lot at Stuart and he has come out of
• 4:34
  it with an amazing outlook on things for the first portion of this of this conversation
• 4:40
  he and I sort of share our mutual loathing of social media and digital devices and and parental
• 4:48
  overreach and why we're so afraid for our kids and self-sessed with materialism so if that
• 4:52
  doesn't float you boat do stick with it because it goes somewhere good Stuart speaking to us now
• 4:59
  because he has a new podcast called The Elements in which he dives into incredible human stories
• 5:04
  of people's resilience against against the elements against the natural elements of moments of
• 5:09
  natural disasters that's being released this week so you can find the first episode just about
• 5:14
  this you need a Hobart tragedy on your podcast app I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as
• 5:19
  I did with the one I'm only Stuart Dutton
• 5:31
  Did you guys go skiing a lot when you were a kid?
• 5:34
  Yeah absolutely like I started skiing since I was a baby and yeah so mum and dad would
• 5:39
  would go up would do the Victorian resorts on the weekend and then we'd come up to
• 5:44
  Threbo for the school August school holidays in those days and do two weeks up here so we used to
• 5:50
  didn't have a lodger in a apartment like happens these days we actually camped in a little tent at
• 5:55
  one of the picnic grounds just down the road from Threbo and we'd spend two weeks in the tent
• 6:00
  cooking in the combo and skiing every day so it wasn't yeah the most pleasant of surrounds but
• 6:06
  yeah certainly loved the loved the mountains and really got a love for this place by doing that
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  so that's a stayed with me forever and were they very sort of were they the cliché of the
• 6:18
  hardy Scottish people who you know who are who are extremely tough and resilient when it comes
• 6:25
  yeah I don't think it's a cliché I think they are I mean I think the Scots you know are famous
• 6:30
  for it and I think my mum and dad are two prime examples of it and I think that yeah they instilled
• 6:36
  a lot of that into me in my life and it's probably given me the grounding and the basis that I
• 6:42
  needed to get through the few things that I've been through in my life so you know we talk about it
• 6:47
  but I think yeah the Scottish are hardy people and they yeah they definitely made sure that
• 6:54
  we enjoyed life we traveled a lot but there were very few trimmings and were you good at school?
• 7:01
  yeah I enjoyed it yeah absolutely yeah I love school and yeah and got good grades all the way through
• 7:06
  and yeah and when you when you were in that age when you were in adolescence what did you
• 7:10
  want to do with your life? it's really funny because I remember actually at school you know we went
• 7:16
  around we were doing work experience in year 10 and we went around the class and everyone's
• 7:20
  going Dr. Lawyer blah blah blah and I said actually I just want to be a skiing instructor and
• 7:24
  everyone's laughing oh you know Stuart your grades are a lot better than what you'll need to be a
• 7:29
  skiing instructor and I went to do work experience and I did work experience at Falls Creek as a
• 7:35
  skiing instructor and as a lift operator and then I did the following week with the national parks
• 7:40
  in Victoria and Rotostoma Bill all around the high country inspecting huts and doing all this
• 7:45
  sort of stuff and I got back from those two weeks and they're going oh so you know you've had
• 7:50
  to do little play in the mountains you know it was a year ten the boys Stuart you know and so now
• 7:54
  it will be a doctor or a lawyer and I said no still a skiing instructor sadly so that was it
• 8:00
  that's great it's funny I'm just thinking about your parents coming to Australia and having had
• 8:04
  the option to go to Canada my grandparents left Europe after the Second World War they were
• 8:09
  refugees and they and my grandmother went to the I mean she she had basically no education she was a
• 8:15
  tailor and and so she went to the where all the big boats were leaving Europe packed jam packed with
• 8:21
  refugees and they were like you can go to the United States or Canada or Australia and she had no
• 8:26
  understanding of geography so she goes which ones further from here and they were like Australia she
• 8:30
  goes I'll take that one yeah it's funny my mum and dad never like they didn't go back to
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  Scotland for 19 years after being here so yeah they definitely just wanted to get away
• 8:43
  so you leave school and did you start out becoming a skiing instructor immediately
• 8:47
  what did you go and I went to uni so I did a degree in hotel management which was good four years
• 8:54
  and yeah got to travel a little bit doing that and whenever sees and did a few things and then
• 9:01
  got back from that and basically decided I didn't really want to spend my life working in hotels
• 9:07
  with drunks on the other side of the bar and made the choice that the outdoors was more for me so
• 9:13
  then I went from that and did a years train issue within outdoor education company in Victoria
• 9:19
  which was great and that you know really reinvigorated my passion for the great outdoors and the
• 9:24
  mountains and my mum had been sort of one of the leading instigators in you know education in
• 9:30
  Victoria with outer education and how important that was for kids especially from you know in a
• 9:34
  city Melbourne schools I was a North Fittsroy boy for my secondary school years we moved up to
• 9:40
  in a city Melbourne because mum and dad had my dad worked in Melbourne all the time and just
• 9:44
  committed from Jolong so yeah so I had that experience and yeah still loved the outdoors and wanted
• 9:50
  to share that with people so I did that and worked for yeah a company in Victoria for a year and
• 9:56
  then opportunity came up to come up to Threadbow and be a skiing instructor and yeah so I came up
• 10:03
  and took that up in 1994 and have been here pretty well ever since. It sounds great that
• 10:10
  that that straddling of the kind of hipster enclaves of Melbourne in Fitzroy up I don't know if it
• 10:17
  was back then but certainly is now and then also the outdoor aspect of being in Jolong I enjoyed
• 10:24
  a similar sort of thing in Sydney where I grew up in the you know west of Sydney but had a farm
• 10:29
  out that well we didn't but our friends did so it was as much it was as good as mine when you
• 10:33
  15 years old everything everything yeah basically yours and so had had endless adventures both on
• 10:39
  Sydney Harbour and then out at the farm and one foot in both camps it's interesting there's
• 10:45
  something something in the first episode of your new podcast a bloke he's talking about the
• 10:50
  the city in a Hobart and he says you know the the fact is that ultimately you're when you're out
• 10:55
  there you're totally on your own like that people can fly overhead and they can throw you some
• 10:59
  assistance but in reality it's just you and nothing else did that resonate with you?
• 11:06
  Yeah 100% I mean all the stories of you know everyone who's in the episodes of the podcasts
• 11:13
  you know resonate with me and there is that theme that comes through a lot and that is you know there's
• 11:19
  only really one person who is really in control of your destiny what's going on in your life and
• 11:25
  that's you and I think the outdoors and being out there and doing some solo bush walks or just
• 11:32
  even skiing on your own or even riding a bike on your own it's it's about you decisions you make
• 11:38
  you know in that moment in those split seconds you know it can affect and change the rest of your
• 11:43
  life and I think that you know we rely on people and I love relying on external people I've got a
• 11:50
  you know great psychologist of great family and friends around me there's that there's a lot
• 11:54
  you know that we rely on others for but at the end of the day if I look at my life and everything
• 12:00
  I've been through in my life it really does come back to you as an individual and I think you know
• 12:06
  the elements podcast shows that that it is those individuals regardless of rescue teams around
• 12:13
  and all of that it's it's it's what their makeup was how resilient they were what skill set they had
• 12:19
  that gets them through those traumatic circumstances I mean some people just temperamentally hate
• 12:25
  the idea of putting themselves in situations where that's the case right I mean some people
• 12:29
  just want to be surrounded by all the support structures of modern life and of modern civilization
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  and the idea of intentionally doing something where it's just you and the elements is horrifying
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  are you repulsed by that notion or drawn to it or do you have a conflict of relationship with it
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  yeah I mean I mean I I'm from the school of same as my parents probably you know the school of
• 12:53
  hard knocks where you where you go out and a little bit of pain is something that's always good
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  and I'm not talking about you know beating yourself up or doing anything but you know you go
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  out and you know an example of yesterday and thread by it was a total complete another blizzard
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  white out minus 17 degrees wind chill and I was out skiing on the mountain my 10 year old daughter
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  was out skiing on the mountain and you're getting absolutely blasted by the wind etc it's freezing
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  cold but it was probably the greatest day skiing you know I've ever had it in my life it was just
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  the conditions the snow was amazing so for me you know and if you know my daughter is complaining
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  about cold hands or cold feet I like that fact you know yeah well let's try and warm them up and
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  see what we can do but you know for for to get that benefit of something amazing in life sometimes
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  it has to come with a little bit of hardship and I think that what we're doing in society now
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  let's just jump straight to the straight to the chase yeah it's you know we are not putting our
• 13:51
  children through any of that you know there's so many kids that just spend their lives you know
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  either on screens or city indoors or being molly coddled they just never ever get out into the
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  outdoors they never get put through any of that real physical hardship and you can do it through
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  sport there's a lot of different ways you can do it you know I was just lucky that we did it in
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  the great outdoors but you know and and if you don't get to experience that when something comes
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  along that is a little bit hard and you don't have to go through any major trauma but just something
• 14:22
  that's a little bit difficult I think we we're just not programming our kids on on how to work
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  their way through those things and I think that's going to be detrimental as we go forward why do you
• 14:33
  think that's happening I think I mean there's a there's a myriad of myriad of factors you know
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  probably yeah and not going to jump on the smash social media bandwagon but you know please
• 14:48
  go ahead I mean I'm I'm a constant evangelist against social media I did a show at the Melbourne
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  Comedy Festival about why social media is ruining everything but I mean I think that's obviously
• 14:57
  just one jigsaw piece in a larger kaleidoscope of concerns that people seem to have which I
• 15:03
  agree seem out of proportion to the actual threat yeah absolutely I think what we're doing is we
• 15:09
  are just over protecting our children you know we and you go back you know in the cliched lines
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  but you know we used to walk you know five kilometers to school and no one even had any concerns
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  and we'd walk ourselves home and we'd make our own little after school snack whereas you know the
• 15:25
  majority of kids now and it's come through the effects of media telling us that it's unsafe out
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  there and there's all of these people out there who are going to come and get our kids all of all
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  of that sort of stuff that that high level of fear that's perpetrated by the media coupled with
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  then the backing that up with another form of media which is the social media and and just
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  getting all of these platforms that are constantly undermining our faith in each other as human beings
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  and that we are actually intrinsically really good people we actually all want to look after each
• 16:02
  other and sure we're going to have our ups and downs so these children are being bought up in this
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  environment of fear and so they're so protected that when something actually really does happen
• 16:14
  that actually affects their individual lives not not someone who's overseas or someone that you saw
• 16:20
  on Instagram or something else you know but actually someone real in your life you know yourself
• 16:26
  we don't we don't have the ability to deal with it and I you know so they you know as you said
• 16:31
  it's never as simple you can't just pinpoint one thing you can't say it's just the education
• 16:35
  system and schools are letting kids down and doing all that sort of stuff it's it's not that at
• 16:39
  all there's some amazing things happening out there in the world there's some amazing educators
• 16:43
  there's great parents you know but you look at even just parenting now you know the time constraints
• 16:49
  because of the crazy materialistic society we live in that both parents are having to work because
• 16:54
  otherwise they can't have the big house and the two new cars and the holidays and the everything
• 17:00
  whereas you know in when I was growing up a lot of it was one parent worked or one parent worked
• 17:07
  full time one part time you know especially when the kids were being bought up you know my mom and dad
• 17:11
  we never owned a TV we never had any of those trappings yet they spent a lot of money on travel
• 17:17
  and these great outdoor experiences but we never had any of that really materialistic stuff was
• 17:22
  always hand me down skis it was hand me down this it was all of that we're only allowed to ski
• 17:27
  every second day because they didn't want to you know they they basically couldn't afford to buy
• 17:32
  ski lift tickets to go skiing every day so you know we they spent their money on things which
• 17:39
  had a real benefit for for me in growing up and I think that we've lost our way in society and
• 17:47
  that the the new massive screen TV the all of the trappings that come with our this pseudo wealth
• 17:54
  that we all believe we have yeah it's it's being really detrimental to our children do you find it
• 18:00
  tricky as a dad I mean I'm a dad of two of twins of who are almost four and I've got to say I mean
• 18:07
  especially in the past 18 months with the pandemic I've used digital you know devices way too much
• 18:12
  I partner from the TV when I shouldn't I know I should be getting them up more and I do my very best
• 18:17
  but my goodness it's easier to give in and give them bluey or pepper pig then it is you know try
• 18:24
  to encourage them to use their imagination to create something out of the tree in the backyard
• 18:29
  yeah 100% and we do and we have you know and we and I fall into that trap as well I mean my
• 18:34
  daughter is 10 and a half and yeah there's definitely screen time there but it's very controlled
• 18:41
  and I am fortunate you know where I live you know it's easy to say get on your bike go for a ride
• 18:47
  do all that sort of stuff so I am fortunate but you still have to do it you know so the things like
• 18:50
  playing guitar reading books you know it's the you know read it read as many books as you can
• 18:57
  there it's amazing if you're imagination you don't have to put a kid in a white room you know
• 19:01
  with a cardboard box and you know that's how we're going to have imagination we can still have all
• 19:05
  the fun things around us it's it's how you control it in the time that you use and I think
• 19:09
  what you just said there is exactly what the problem is there it's it's just easier to park them
• 19:16
  and and our parents would have done the same you know they park you in front of a TV this is just
• 19:20
  the next level of that and it's easier to do for us because you just go yeah whatever you know
• 19:25
  everyone's got a device and yeah you can go to a restaurant and give your kid your phone and they
• 19:30
  sit there and watch the movie rather than sitting there having conversation you know and talking
• 19:35
  to other people their friends and their mates and well I think we've you know we have it's become
• 19:39
  so easy for us to take that easy option and let them do it rather than as you said even in lockdown
• 19:45
  and even in all of these times you know go outside and then and climb a tree but oh no you know
• 19:50
  let a climb a tree anymore because that's too dangerous and you might fall and you might hurt
• 19:53
  yourself like we've you know we've yeah I I tell people I broke five arms and two collarbones when
• 20:00
  I was in primary school um and that was probably because my parents weren't watching as closely as
• 20:05
  they should and I'm not saying that's the way to go it's a happy day yeah that's right there's
• 20:09
  got to be somewhere in between um but that was because I was just out adventuring the entire time
• 20:14
  like we didn't have TV we didn't have anything we didn't you know everyone used to say it's
• 20:18
  school oh you must you know you must love music and records so I'm going why and they're going
• 20:23
  well you don't have a TV what else do you do you miss me and I'm going no I don't do that I just
• 20:27
  actually go outside and ride my bike yeah yeah yeah I'm I'm aware of I'm aware of what old
• 20:33
  foggy's we sound like waxing on about about this you know in my day so it's out for my tree
• 20:40
  but it is funny Stuart yesterday I was I caught up for exercise with a mate of mine who has kids
• 20:45
  who are good friends with my kids and we went for a walk outside a pandemic for COVID safe walk
• 20:52
  and my son was wanted to throw something in the harbor a little stick to make a boat out of it
• 20:58
  and there was a ledge with sandstone going straight down into the harbor with probably about a
• 21:05
  two meter drop a like a six foot drop and I we just kept walking and he was playing sort of kneeling
• 21:13
  on the edge and throwing like sticks into the water and my friend stopped and like looked really
• 21:20
  alarmed and was like is there a is there a ledge or is there a ledge under there that I don't see
• 21:25
  and I was like no it's just a drop straight down and he's like are you okay and I was like well
• 21:31
  I'm pretty sure he's going to be okay he's almost four like I don't think he's that much of an
• 21:35
  idiot and there's it's not like anyone's going to push him off the edge I don't think like and if
• 21:39
  they do that's going to be a a big learning experience he wouldn't have died if he fallen off he just
• 21:44
  you know and it did make me realize how how sensitively we've set the dials on our concern
• 21:51
  about kids at the moment like I remember there's a woman in the state's called Lennore Skenazi who
• 21:56
  founded Free Range Kids she wrote a book called Free Range Kids and and she she's she's
• 22:02
  site some survey where if you poll Americans about what age do they think it would be appropriate
• 22:09
  for them to allow their kid for example instead of going into a shop with their child just
• 22:15
  parking across the road and letting their kid go into a big supermarket and ask the cashier where
• 22:22
  to find something and then buy it this was a poll question that was done like during the 80s and
• 22:27
  like in the 80s people were like oh you know six years old now something like 14 yeah that's
• 22:34
  and where's that come from it may now refer back to you know what I said before Josh it's
• 22:38
  it comes from fear now where is that fear how have we instilled that fear into our society
• 22:45
  and the the drivers are sure it can come through conversation between parents and between each other
• 22:51
  but the real drivers total misinformation and how things are represented from the larger
• 22:58
  wider media and that is now perpetrated by social media and so you end up with if you want to
• 23:05
  believe that the world's full of pedophiles and it's hugely unsafe then you can you can believe
• 23:10
  that because there's plenty of supporting garbage information out there that'll say that but we
• 23:15
  actually know that the statistics don't don't back that up at all you know no so yeah people
• 23:24
  seem to be under the misapprehension that the things like abductions and and so on are even remotely
• 23:30
  worth worrying about and I should always add the caveat that if you know someone to whom this has
• 23:34
  happened of course that's tragic everyone is a tragedy we're not dismissing that but the number
• 23:38
  of like children who while walking along the street in counter some villain who you know kidnaps
• 23:45
  them or something that is just not happening in any kind of proportion that is worth
• 23:51
  sparing a single thought forward there it's actually that it's happening less in society now
• 23:56
  it's not that it was and to the extent that to the extent that there are pedophiles and violent
• 24:01
  people against kids it's usually they usually commit it against kids they know yes it's much much
• 24:06
  much more likely to be your brother who is doing something bad to your kid then you've ever been
• 24:12
  encountering something as they walking along the street but yeah and that's and this is so how do we
• 24:16
  get so for me I look at it and go so if we're trying to make a difference and make a change how do
• 24:21
  we get rid of that fear that is you know that is absolutely throughout society at the moment in
• 24:30
  regards that that fear and that misinformation and in my mind the only way to do it is to get back
• 24:36
  to the the grassroots of you know who are we as individuals who are we then as a collective society
• 24:45
  and what is it that we actually want it to look like you know because if we if we don't get back
• 24:50
  to that core we're just on a slippery slope and and this is I mean there are large generalizations
• 24:56
  because yeah there's amazing things happening in society in a lot of you know incredible people
• 25:00
  out there doing incredible things with their kids you know all around the world all around Australia
• 25:04
  but yeah there's definitely there's definitely a trend I think going in a direction that we want
• 25:10
  don't want to be going as a society well it's a very western thing as well isn't it I mean if you're
• 25:15
  in Bangladesh or in Namibia you don't really have the luxury of coddling your child and all
• 25:20
  likelihood this is something that we've sort of become I guess cushy enough to do yeah absolutely
• 25:26
  the entitlement and all of that sort of stuff comes from yeah what we do in western societies and
• 25:32
  yeah you have to go back to the false gods you know of money materialism all of these things you
• 25:39
  know my status on on Instagram and social media etc all of these false gods that we've got we've
• 25:45
  actually lost the way of what is you know important in life and when you when you come back and you
• 25:52
  go through you know reflecting on my life you know I've had an amazing life an amazing upbringing
• 25:57
  everything that I've done in life is I've been provided with some great opportunities but I've also
• 26:02
  had some you know huge traumas in there and and there's nothing like a really good traumatic
• 26:09
  occurrence in your life to make your refocus on what's you know truly important and I think if
• 26:15
  you look at you know just doing the the podcast the elements and if you look at you know going through
• 26:20
  that and listening to those people who've been through traumas they all come back to that same thing
• 26:25
  you know it's all about the key beliefs and values that you have you know jee care for your fellow
• 26:32
  man you know jee yeah yeah it's all of those really in all women it's all of those really important
• 26:37
  key basic things and I think that's we're missing that you know we we put so much importance on
• 26:43
  other things and how you get back to that yeah I do it by being in the outdoors and trying to
• 26:49
  have some simplicity in my life regardless of all the complexities that come with work and
• 26:54
  family and kids and everything else but yeah that's how I try and do but I think we need to do more of
• 26:59
  it do you use the disasters and hardships that you've had as a way of resetting or reframing or
• 27:05
  refocusing your priorities today oh 100% I mean I think I don't think you can go through you know
• 27:12
  like myself I don't I lost the the two loves of my life you know two wives who taught me a huge
• 27:19
  amount about myself I don't think you can go through you know something that traumatic and come
• 27:25
  out of it and not learn anything and then not you know for me it's having the ability to be able to
• 27:32
  reflect on those traumatic events and say okay so what is important and and it does it takes me at
• 27:40
  times I go down those crazy rabbit holes so it takes me times sometimes I have to you know
• 27:46
  reverse it a bit reflect on it and say but so Stuart yeah a lot of the work I did with my
• 27:50
  psychologist was all about what are my core beliefs what are my values let's link that all back
• 27:57
  to how you're living your life now what you went through in your life you know previously
• 28:03
  and then work out so that's what you focus on then to go forward with your life in a positive way
• 28:11
  you know and I wouldn't be it's currently we're looking you know 24 years after the landslide in
• 28:16
  Fredbo where I'm sitting now and the only reason I can sit here talk to you about you know everything
• 28:23
  in my life you know not be sitting in a dark room in the corners you know boiling my eyes out is
• 28:28
  because I'm focused I've done a lot of work with my psychologist but I've done a huge amount of
• 28:34
  work and difficult work on myself to get to that point and that relies on knowing who I am and
• 28:42
  where I'm going and how I want to get there and it's and it's been I've been tripped up so many
• 28:48
  times but because I have these core beliefs and values in my life I know that is where I'm rooted
• 28:56
  and it's going to be okay because I will get through that and I'll come out the other side
• 29:00
  and I think that what we're missing if you went around and asked a lot of young people
• 29:04
  or some young people today let's not overgeneralize what their what their true values and beliefs are
• 29:10
  they would go what I don't know yeah and I think so we're missing that and it doesn't yeah I'm not
• 29:15
  talking religious beliefs I'm not talking any of that I'm talking about you know what is it that
• 29:20
  is actually at your core you know what's your spirit who are you and then then how do you how do
• 29:26
  you live through through just day-to-day living you know and that's I think it's a big question for
• 29:33
  us how do you find that because a lot of for a lot of people it's not obvious and maybe you need maybe
• 29:39
  you know I mean maybe you don't need but maybe it helps to have a life altering tragedy or trauma
• 29:45
  to give you clarity about it but in the absence of that how do you find it well I think what you
• 29:52
  have to we have to as a society start having discussions about it I think that you know there's
• 29:56
  less and less people involved in formal religions as I call them now and I think that that used to
• 30:01
  give people a little bit of a grounding if you didn't have that from your parents or from
• 30:05
  education or from whatever but I think that we need to look at ourselves and ask ourselves
• 30:13
  the questions of what you know these are big questions but what what is it I'm actually doing here
• 30:18
  is the first thing I need to do in the morning get up and take a selfie on insta to show what happened
• 30:23
  from last night or it do is is that is that what I'm here for is that the call or is the first thing I
• 30:30
  want to do when I get up in the morning you say well I've got a child how am I going to make
• 30:35
  her life better today or what am I going to do to try and contribute something into well there's a
• 30:39
  huge amount of people like in Australia doing that you know already but there's also a huge amount
• 30:45
  of people who are not one of the one that's true one of the things about a child is it doesn't
• 30:50
  it removes the option of you being self-absorbed to somebody else doesn't it I mean you just have to
• 30:56
  do like it although you don't want to you have to be focused on another you don't I mean there's
• 31:01
  plenty of kids who are bought up by totally absent parents you know if you're a person human being
• 31:07
  yeah that's right and there you go and so that's it so if you look at that the people who
• 31:12
  would work out what it is that they believe in or what their values are are basically the decent
• 31:18
  human beings and you know did that come from they're upbringing that come from wherever I think we
• 31:22
  need to force these conversations you know on people like I I hate sitting around and talking to
• 31:28
  people about the weather all the weather is important in a scary resort we need some snow etc but
• 31:32
  you know I like to have those in-depth conversations with people and and how you have them and
• 31:38
  where you do I mean there's some great social media platforms where you can have in-depth
• 31:41
  conversations but there's also a lot of noise out there where you can't have those conversations
• 31:48
  and I think for us we really need to say let's get rid of the noise let's get rid of that stuff that's
• 31:53
  just cluttering up our brains and let's get back to the fundamentals of who it is and who we are
• 32:00
  and and and and what it is that we are and do we actually want to contribute to the world if you
• 32:04
  make the decision that you don't then that's fine just go have live your selfish lifestyle do
• 32:08
  whatever but I think the majority of humans actually do want to live a really positive life they
• 32:16
  want to contribute to the their society their family the people around them and I think that
• 32:21
  that we we need to start having yeah those more difficult conversations with each other
• 32:27
  hmm take us back to to the thread bow then to to that night just give people a significant
• 32:34
  minority of my listeners are in the state so you you may be in the unusual situation of not being
• 32:39
  a mega celebrity to people who are missing what happened oh well basically I was in in a staff
• 32:49
  accommodation unit in thread bow I mean 1997 and there was a landslide which took out our
• 32:56
  four-story apartment and the apartment above I ended up being basically buried alive for 65 hours
• 33:07
  under about 8000 tons of rubble and you know within the first couple of minutes of the
• 33:14
  building collapsing my my wife Sally at the time died she drowned with the amount of water that
• 33:23
  was flying down the hill I somehow managed to be able to hold my head above the water and then
• 33:30
  yes yes spent the next 65 hours on my own lying under the building the two of you were still next
• 33:38
  to each other yeah absolutely yeah for that whole time so I didn't move for that whole time basically
• 33:42
  I was pinned about two inches gap above my above my face which was the the ceiling of the building
• 33:50
  and yeah I basically stayed in that spot next to Sally for those 65 hours and have you guys been
• 33:57
  had you guys been asleep Stuart yeah we were yeah it was 11 35 at night what do you work up to
• 34:05
  all right just the roaring noise and I actually thought it was a plate low flying plane coming down
• 34:10
  the valley in thread bow and then I realized there's a bit more serious in that and then there was
• 34:14
  a lot obviously a lot of crashing and and then basically there was a very dull lights and then it
• 34:20
  went completely pitch black like cave darkness and then yeah I realized and we're in a yeah in a
• 34:27
  situation that was wasn't that great there was no way out and then the water obviously let go all
• 34:34
  of the pipes etc above us let go and so then the cavity that we're in you know totally filled
• 34:40
  with water and we're still just to picture this are you still lying down on your back on the bed
• 34:46
  yeah with a completely encased sort of encased in in mud and rubble except for above your face
• 34:52
  yeah so all around so I couldn't move couldn't do anything and what had happened is when the
• 34:57
  building in the process of the building collapsing on top of me the back wall pushed in a pushed
• 35:04
  the bed we had a wrought iron bed head and that pushed Sally and that pushed the wrought iron
• 35:09
  bed head down on to the top of Sally and she ended up being pinned to the bed so she was when
• 35:14
  the water came down she was unable to lift her head up to get her head out of the water and because
• 35:19
  it was pitch black you couldn't see anything you we couldn't do anything and so you know I tried
• 35:25
  you know to stop the the water flying into her mouth and you know it was obviously didn't work
• 35:30
  out that well so yeah so her head was a bit was a bit lower than yours because she was bumping
• 35:35
  at the back of her head against the the wrought iron bed head and you could you could kick your head
• 35:39
  above the water yep that was that so she couldn't yeah she couldn't lift her head so yeah and that was
• 35:44
  you know when I look at you know Sally and you know the way that she died in those traumatic
• 35:50
  circumstances yeah I the 65 hours I spent there just trying to physically live was also
• 36:00
  a very long time for me to process a lot of things mentally and emotionally and obviously a huge
• 36:09
  roller coaster for me you know I tried to end my life a couple of times just because it was basically
• 36:15
  freezing zero degrees would have been a high of probably four degrees where I was and went to
• 36:20
  minus four and I was in my boxer shorts and it was wet and muddy and you know I lost 15 kilos
• 36:26
  of body weight mostly fat obviously just just trying to survive through that time but I you know
• 36:33
  all of that it was still a long time to process a lot of what was going on in my life and I think
• 36:38
  that you know that fundamentally made me realize probably not in great detail but what it was
• 36:45
  that I was living for and you know that was that I wanted to get out I wanted to be with people
• 36:52
  again I wanted obviously to live myself but you know the thing that I tried you know that I
• 36:58
  prided myself on and that's being able to care for others being able to look after people I
• 37:03
  hadn't been able to do that for Sally you know and that was hugely devastating but I wanted to sort
• 37:08
  of get out and tell people look look I did you know I tried to save her I just you know I was in a
• 37:12
  situation where it just I just couldn't do it you know there's eight thousand tons of rubble on
• 37:16
  top of us you couldn't do it so there's all of those sort of things so yeah I mean that's definitely
• 37:21
  and then yeah obviously the work that I did in the months afterwards with a good mental health
• 37:26
  professional definitely yeah I mean I want out but it was I want to get to that and when when did
• 37:33
  you say that you tried to end your life while you're in there how do you do that when you
• 37:36
  how do you do that logistically when you're in a turn that's right the freezing dark yeah very
• 37:41
  difficult but I knew that if you if you hyperventilate you can actually go unconscious so if you
• 37:47
  just breathe in and out really really fast and you do it long enough you can get an overload of
• 37:52
  oxygen in your body and it can actually go unconscious and I knew I was so cold that if I could just
• 37:58
  get unconscious for a little bit that hopefully the cold would take me and I'd die so that was one
• 38:04
  way I also knew that there was a lot of glass around me because the wall that it claps behind we
• 38:10
  had a glass glass cabinet in it and so and obviously I didn't I couldn't see anything but I knew that
• 38:16
  I was lying on a lot of broken glass which I found out when I got out by the amount of cuts I had
• 38:20
  on my back but I and up but I couldn't find a shot of glass that was big enough to try and you know
• 38:27
  to to cut my wrist or to do some damage to myself so yeah I was definitely driven you know regardless
• 38:33
  of how strong and resilient and all of those things you know I believe I was I'm just a human like
• 38:40
  anyone else and I was driven to to a place where I just there was there was no you know that I
• 38:46
  saw there was absolutely no way out and there were a lot of times on that site there were a lot
• 38:51
  of thousands of rescuers working over the that period on that site that you hear of them at the time
• 38:57
  yeah absolutely the whole time and I couldn't work out why they couldn't hear me and so they would
• 39:01
  come and they would go and when they went and there was so yeah absolutely and they could they
• 39:07
  could never hear me because I was just so deep down because we were on the basement apartment so
• 39:11
  I was a long way down and so yeah that that became increasingly frustrating and regardless of
• 39:16
  your will to live there there are some points where I got to where I just thought I you know I cannot
• 39:22
  go on and I say to people you know to try and explain what it was like there if you're sitting
• 39:29
  if you try and lie in your bed like as you are now in a nice warm room have the TV on do whatever
• 39:35
  you want stay there for 65 hours straight right it is a bloody long time so you know for me to be
• 39:44
  lying there you know next to the the body of my dead wife not knowing what had gone on outside
• 39:50
  the building you got to remember that so I didn't know whether the whole world had ended whether
• 39:55
  there'd been a massive you know nuclear holocaust and at all you know everything was gone I had no
• 40:00
  idea what was going on so you know to be in that situation for that long was terrifying and yeah
• 40:06
  and I got driven to those lows and I think that you know fortunately for me I couldn't I couldn't act
• 40:13
  on that but yeah maybe I would have maybe I would know if you just you never know but I yeah
• 40:19
  I'm glad I mean I guess it also it also depends whether or not you think that you're going to make it
• 40:22
  out like if you don't think if you think you're going to die there anyway then why not do it on
• 40:27
  your own terms I suppose rather than waiting to just waste away whereas do you remember whether or
• 40:32
  not when you were contemplating killing yourself you were thinking let's just have some mercy for me
• 40:38
  or whether you were thinking even if I do get out I wouldn't want to live no no no no what happened
• 40:44
  the complete the opposite it was basically let's just get this to end I need I I mean so much pain
• 40:50
  physically mentally everything that you get to that point of yeah I don't I just this this has
• 40:57
  got to end I don't know how many more and I don't have a clock I didn't I don't have a watch I've
• 41:02
  got no idea what time is I don't know how long how many days or how many hours I've been there for
• 41:07
  but yeah I yeah I look back and go sort of like I'm talking about someone else being in that
• 41:14
  situation because I look at that that person that Stuart diver who you know went through that and
• 41:19
  was in that building and I still look at that in my mind and go I can't believe that anyone could
• 41:25
  survive through that you know and human survive amazing things in the world you know every day
• 41:30
  but I look at that as an individual and go you know with the temperatures with Sally being there
• 41:34
  with everything that was going against me it was yeah it was pretty amazing that I mean I can't
• 41:40
  imagine I can't imagine Stuart what your brain was doing by our like 15 25 35 because are you
• 41:47
  are you able to touch Sally at this point yeah yeah she's right next to me yeah so you're
• 41:52
  actually you can feel her next yeah how long have you had you not had you guys been together
• 41:57
  so we'd been together for seven years so yeah yeah we knew each other well um and it was yeah
• 42:06
  and she was you know I was only 27 at the time but you know that was the woman I wanted to spend
• 42:11
  the rest of my life with um you know and she was an incredible young person yeah so yeah it was
• 42:16
  it was a devastating loss and to not be able to say yeah there was no goodbyes there was no
• 42:21
  anything it's like a car crash it just happened two minutes later yeah the love of your life's
• 42:25
  you know dead and lying next to you so yeah I can you know I look at that and think you know it is
• 42:31
  amazing the human mind not just my human mind it is an amazing thing and what it did
• 42:37
  during that time to keep me both physically alive and you know mentally able to get through it
• 42:44
  was pretty incredible I you know we're going to huge detail but it took me I never ever fell asleep
• 42:50
  because if I had I would have yeah I wouldn't have woken up the cold just taking me and that would have
• 42:54
  been it so you know I was awake for the whole 65 hours but my mind took me to these amazing places
• 43:00
  I'd be in the desert in the Sahara buying rugs off of somewhere else yeah did you did you
• 43:06
  do you hallucinate because I mean yeah absolutely the sensory overload must have been
• 43:10
  beyond what you have your physical brain can take you know that's right so eat and that's the
• 43:14
  you know the human mind is yeah incredible thing and that's what it did it took me away and then
• 43:19
  it would bring me back to reality when we heard a noise or you heard something going and you know
• 43:25
  if you talk to the rescuers and the paramedics and the doctors who finally got me to the end like I
• 43:30
  was nearly dead when they got to me like I was you know they the cold I'd run completely out of any
• 43:36
  energy yeah I was I was done so I didn't have very much longer to live but my mind still
• 43:43
  you know the moment that I heard the rescuers above and they were basically getting closer and
• 43:50
  closer with their little camera that they drilled down through the multiple slabs to get down to
• 43:55
  where they thought I might be was yeah it just clicked me straight back into as if I'm talking to you
• 44:02
  now mode like which when you're talking you know that's 55 hours in before they they got to me
• 44:09
  before they made contact with me yeah that's the human mind it sounds almost like a like a
• 44:15
  psychedelic trip when you're talking about being in the Sahara buying rugs and so on well I guess
• 44:20
  why you're in there they're freezing is it have you ever done a psychedelic was it comparable to that
• 44:24
  no man I never have but I've you know I've read quite a bit in in that area and I know yeah that's
• 44:31
  what it and that's what the human you know mine does and mine just did it naturally because it
• 44:36
  knew it was the only way that I was going to survive was to take me away from you know the hell
• 44:40
  that I was in yeah and it did that then it would bring me back and then take me out and bring me
• 44:45
  back and that's also a massive rollercoaster because when I came back I was always gravely
• 44:50
  disappointed that I wasn't in the Sahara of course but it's true you know the thing is the
• 45:00
  but even then your mind starts playing tricks on you what is the reality you know where are you
• 45:05
  here and I knew that there were others in the building and the bit that kept on kept me going
• 45:09
  because obviously you know 18 people died and I was the only survivor I just thought be patient
• 45:16
  to it they're just rescuing everyone else you'll be fine they're you're on the bottom of the
• 45:19
  building they've got everyone else and they're going to get to you did you ever think that you
• 45:24
  might be in hell or something or some like other place no I knew I was alive right I knew I knew
• 45:32
  that it hadn't ended I knew I was well and truly alive so yeah it was just can you hold on and
• 45:36
  get to the end how do you know that you don't but you yeah you just I mean you're the reality
• 45:47
  in between these hallucinating dreams every time I came back to that harsh reality I knew I was alive
• 45:53
  and I knew that I had to you know physically do everything that I could to try and stay there
• 45:59
  because I just wanted to get out so in the in the movie of inception of your life the base level
• 46:05
  of reality was was clear it was different from the others yeah absolutely yeah 100%
• 46:12
  and of course while all this is going on the whole rest of the country and probably the world
• 46:17
  is fixated on this rescue mission certainly Australia was and at the time it was it was
• 46:24
  increasingly not a rescue mission because as you know minutes turned into hours turned into days
• 46:29
  it became a body salvaging mission essentially and everyone thought that nobody was in there
• 46:35
  and then all of a sudden you hear voices what what gives you the set you say that you've been
• 46:40
  hearing the rescue going on all along what made you aware that all of a sudden it was worth
• 46:46
  screaming extra loud because it was trying to actually get their attention because it was so close
• 46:51
  so as they dug down and dug down and got through the slabs and come down towards me they'd
• 46:55
  were drilling in putting the camera with a little microphone and speaker on the end of it down
• 47:00
  the hole so that where they got that it actually came into the cavity where I was so yeah so I could
• 47:07
  and can you see things or is this is it dark even during the day what do you what are you saying
• 47:11
  total cave darkness the entire time so I can't I could stick my finger in my eyeballs couldn't
• 47:16
  say anything so I can't see so you don't know that there's a camera down there no I've got nothing
• 47:20
  I can just hear I can hear a hear a voice it was actually where that where it came through was
• 47:24
  closer to my feet so I could he yeah I could hear the voice and you know they said you know
• 47:30
  rescue workers above you know can anyone hear us and you know they would have said that a thousand
• 47:35
  times over the story is that is that voice from the rescuer coming out of a microphone or you
• 47:39
  hear person actually no no that's coming over there he's little microphone on the end of the
• 47:43
  camera so fairly primitive you know 24 years ago it's the technology that they had but you know
• 47:48
  still that was it and so yeah then I just said yeah yeah like I can't I can't remember exactly what
• 47:52
  I said but yes yeah I'm I'm here you know and then he came back because you can imagine you know
• 47:58
  not I'm not understanding after that many days that someone actually alive and so then he checked
• 48:03
  again and I said yeah now I'm here you know you come and get me and so then and then sadly
• 48:09
  I did you think all right it's over I'll be out in a second and then it takes what I did
• 48:12
  what I felt and I felt and this is the amazing thing with the human bodies you know I the adrenaline
• 48:19
  rush and everything going through me I was and even through that day as it took another 11 hours
• 48:24
  for them to get me out I thought that I was yeah I thought I was just going to wander down the pub
• 48:30
  and and catch up with everyone thinking that everyone else was alive you know in the building and
• 48:35
  we'll get together and have a chat about wow that was a pretty crazy thing to go through you know
• 48:40
  I had no idea of what had actually gone on and no and obviously was telling me and then I had no
• 48:46
  idea that was going to take another 11 hours to get me out which was probably on top of the trauma
• 48:51
  I'd been through yeah fairly traumatic as well just because of the I had human contact then
• 48:58
  which was great in able to talk me through things but then it also makes you realise that if you
• 49:04
  don't get out you know what you're going to miss yeah and of course on the surface I'm sure that all
• 49:10
  of the all of the emergency services up there once they realise that you're there and that you're
• 49:15
  alive suddenly become a lot more concerned about making sure that they don't do anything that could
• 49:19
  kill you knowing that what a vulnerable situation you must be and they can't just go tunnelling
• 49:24
  in Willie Nilly in case a gigantic piece of concrete smashes you in the head so that'd be grave
• 49:30
  gravely disappointed about the fact that everyone realised was because I'd been lying flat for so long
• 49:35
  that it's like it's called like when you have a crush injury and sometimes in the old days when
• 49:42
  the trains came together and someone got crushed in between the two train carriages and then they
• 49:47
  they were alive and talking and as soon as they released it all the toxins came up and they had a
• 49:51
  heart attack and died and they thought that the similar thing was going to happen to me so
• 49:55
  that right up until the very end they still thought that I was I wouldn't survive getting out
• 50:02
  because I'd been so flat and they had to put me vertical to get me out they dug down they were
• 50:08
  the slab above me they thought that's where I was so then they had to dig through that next slab
• 50:12
  to get through me and yeah it was it was it was it would have been just hell for them to do that
• 50:19
  and get me and are you thinking at the time gee this would suck if I get so close and then
• 50:24
  then that's all I could think of the whole day that's all that went through my mind so I had
• 50:29
  these huge emotional lows as well and highs but so they would dig for 20 minutes on 10 minutes off
• 50:37
  to give me a break 20 minutes on 10 minutes off to give me a break the paramedic poor person
• 50:42
  and the rest of the team that he would come down the hole the team so they had no contact they drilled
• 50:47
  a little hole where they could get to my head was about all they had and you know finally I got
• 50:53
  it some some fluids but they didn't want to give me too much because they didn't know what physical
• 50:57
  condition I was and then they exposed my feet and then they were able to cut into my ankle and then
• 51:04
  put in a drip and yeah so I mean it was a hugely technical day for them and for me it was just
• 51:11
  yeah the same roller coaster I'd been through before making human contact for those 55 hours it
• 51:18
  just went on and on and on and on for the next 11 and I always talk to people who were outside
• 51:22
  and watching it and yeah and all that sort of stuff and I and I think yeah I mean it was definitely
• 51:28
  massive for everyone who was watching it on TV and doing all that sort of stuff but it was
• 51:33
  pretty ordinary being there as well I can imagine when you say they would go 20 minutes on and then
• 51:38
  10 minutes off to give you a break what were they giving you a break from from because they were
• 51:42
  cutting the jackhammers the concrete saws the you know everything so it was just and they were
• 51:49
  really worried obviously about what mental state I was in so they knew because there was no
• 51:55
  human contact while they were doing all of that because everyone gets off the side except the guys
• 51:59
  digging down and trying to get to me so they're not talking you through what they're doing they're not
• 52:04
  saying okay we're gonna have to just go over here no no no so I'm just lying there you imagine lying
• 52:09
  there with a concrete saw just going above your head jackhammers the entire and the whole cavity that
• 52:15
  I was in just filling with dust so I'm choking on dust again then they'd come back then Paul
• 52:20
  Ferguson would talk to me again bring me back around you know then I'd go again so yeah it was
• 52:25
  yeah I mean it was hugely traumatic for everyone for those rescuers it was you know what they went
• 52:29
  through to try and get others and then you know to finally get me you know must was it was a living
• 52:35
  hell I mean I've spoken to them afterwards and I know the the toll that it took on a number of
• 52:39
  those guys so yeah it's and you can't you can't lift your head your hand to your face can you
• 52:48
  buy that by then I could I'd actually moved about two feet towards where the camera was
• 52:56
  originally so that the camera was shine it was pointing straight at my face so I have shuffled down
• 53:03
  so I've shuffled down where I was so there was a little bit of space at the end of the bed because
• 53:08
  obviously I'm still lying on the bed basically but it's covered in mud and rocks and broken glass
• 53:12
  and everything else so you can't feel the mattress or any more I'm just you know lying in a pull
• 53:17
  the mud so yeah I slipped down a little bit and then yeah I could see them so all right good
• 53:22
  and so when they see my face right I see and then they we face down some water in a
• 53:28
  you know a little what is it a pipe then you can grab that and you can put it in your mouth they
• 53:31
  can send that that that came through they managed to come in sideways and yeah then they they
• 53:38
  handed that so the first fire rescue guy that came down he yeah his hand came through as a glove
• 53:47
  that's all I could see right next to my head so they'd managed to pinpoint where my head was and
• 53:52
  then from that then the paramedic was able to come down after they'd made a bit of an assessment
• 53:57
  and then but I was only allowed to have a tiny little sip like one teaspoon and they'd take
• 54:01
  it away again because they didn't want to give me too much because they didn't know if I had
• 54:04
  internal organ damage and all of that sort of stuff so yeah it wasn't um yeah it wasn't that
• 54:08
  pleasant unbelievable and I assume when they first made contact they asked about Sally they asked
• 54:14
  if anyone was there with you yeah absolutely so yeah I told them that she died you know in the first
• 54:18
  couple of minutes so then that was yeah that was a lot of our conversation you know with Paul
• 54:23
  Featherston that day the paramedic was around yeah it was around that and what was going on and
• 54:29
  yeah and he was an amazing guy he took me he did the same as the hallucinations he tried to take me
• 54:34
  to a very different place from where I obviously was physically and yeah yeah and that's that's
• 54:39
  basically what got me through at what point do you remember and did you ask about what had happened
• 54:44
  about whether or not this was a nuclear apocalypse or just something that was localized um I didn't
• 54:51
  know until three days later in hospital in Canberra right did they know when you got out or
• 54:58
  no no no no I was all good I took out air lifted went to the Throbat Medical Center got packed up and
• 55:03
  then I got air lifted to Canberra Hospital and so I was fine Lucid talking I didn't have any broken
• 55:10
  bones had some cuts had frostbitten feet and other than that I was unscathed so yeah I just was in
• 55:17
  hospital and they were looking at my feet and trying to work out what they were going to do there
• 55:20
  but yeah other than that I was fine and it was a couple of days later whereas they were saying
• 55:25
  we want you to go for a bit of a walk down the hallway and see if you can you know use your
• 55:29
  legs and feet again and I said yeah that's that's good I said can I go and visit everyone else
• 55:34
  because they must be in the same hospital too and my dad had to say there's no one else here the
• 55:39
  only one wow I guess they didn't have the TV on in the in the hospital ward no they were smart enough
• 55:46
  not to do that well your Scott's Australian parents religious at all because this is the sort of
• 55:52
  thing where if you were a person of faith you'd be like wow that's a sign you basically mum and
• 56:01
  dad were Catholic we you know I was raised a Catholic you know they were you'd probably say non
• 56:09
  practicing at that point so yeah there wasn't there wasn't a lot of you know of any of that sort
• 56:16
  of discussion there was a guy Don Woodland who from the Salvation Army came in and you know he'd
• 56:21
  say a prayer at the end of the night and you know give a little blessing and head off on his way
• 56:26
  and you know he was an amazing support in everything that he did but yeah there was there was very
• 56:31
  little discussion or questioning at that time of you know beliefs or what had happened or
• 56:37
  or how would we got here there's been plenty since how did you think about it then when you told
• 56:44
  that there were 18 other people who died and you were the only person who survived and you came
• 56:48
  away essentially unscathed yeah I mean obviously I've the first thought was you know obviously one
• 56:55
  of great loneliness you know of oh that's going to be tricky you know who am I going to talk to
• 57:01
  about this because if you share a like experience it's a lot easier to talk to people about stuff
• 57:06
  so yeah it was quite it was it was devastating not just the loss because I knew a lot of those
• 57:11
  people because they were fellow staff members but yeah the the idea that oops you're on your
• 57:18
  own now I knew I'd lost Sally but I thought if I had all those other people I'd be able to
• 57:22
  you know at least share the experience with them so you know that went and I know I can see
• 57:28
  where you're heading with your next question about guilt and did I have the survivors guilt and
• 57:33
  I can honestly so I've never ever felt guilty about being the only one that survived and that
• 57:39
  purely comes from the fact that you know it was just a hugely unfortunate situation and I was
• 57:44
  just lucky that all the heavy bits missed me and you know I was I was able to to get out at the
• 57:50
  other end I mean I wasn't even really thinking so much about guilt but about the sense of the
• 57:55
  sense that religious people sometimes have of having been chosen or something or you know God
• 58:00
  having shine a light on them or whatever that's good yeah that's good yeah that's good we run
• 58:05
  to the guilt one I mean there the the bit with that which is quite funny I got so many proposals
• 58:10
  I got thousands of letters as well as a hospital from religious cults let's call them religious
• 58:16
  organizations saying that I was the chosen one and could I please come and lead their organizations
• 58:22
  like this is serious fool like written like hundred page proposals as to why I was the one so
• 58:28
  others had that belief sadly for me I never had I used to joke I did a bit of corporate
• 58:34
  spending is to joke you know I got up in that I got them to fill a bath in the in the hospital
• 58:39
  and I tried to walk across it and sadly I could walk on water so I started maybe I was just like
• 58:44
  everyone else I mean it's yeah it's one of those things I don't I've never and whenever I talk
• 58:48
  about this I'd never look at myself as being anyone special as just an unfortunate guy who got
• 58:55
  put in a really unfortunate situation and happened to come out at the other end and we can read
• 59:01
  whatever we want into that and we can you know we can put our own story on top of that but the
• 59:05
  end of the day look at myself is just being the same as you the same as anyone else who has been in
• 59:12
  an unfortunate situation in their life and I think that if there's one thing I want people to look
• 59:18
  at me and you know look at others who go through traumatic situations in is just I I'm a reflection
• 59:25
  of the human spirit and the amazing ability for humans to get through things and I'm just a tiny
• 59:31
  little speck in humans throughout you know generations who've gone through stuff and survived things
• 59:38
  and I think you know the great thing is that at least I've been able to come out of it and talk
• 59:43
  about it and show that 24 years on you can get through things in your life and still live and
• 59:49
  have an amazing positive life I mean it's nice to hear that kind of cosmic humility because I do
• 59:55
  I mean I was during the bushfires I was broadcasting every day on ABC radio Sydney and
• 1:00:03
  and on weekend breakfast on on the ABC and was you know quite I mean nothing like experiencing it
• 1:00:10
  firsthand but sort of worn down and traumatized by the daily by the relentless daily drum beat of
• 1:00:15
  people losing their lives and losing everything they had and I was always a bit perplexed when
• 1:00:21
  like there'd be one person whose house didn't get destroyed on a whole street where everyone
• 1:00:26
  else's house got destroyed and they'd be like you know it's it's a miracle I can't believe that
• 1:00:30
  God has has done has done this and shown a light on us and it's I'm just overjoyed and I'm always
• 1:00:36
  like I always thought well what about all the other people's houses like if you're saying that God
• 1:00:40
  selected your house to not get burned down are you saying that they're like the creator of the
• 1:00:44
  universe wanted everybody else's house to get destroyed that's it is such a bizarre you know it's
• 1:00:48
  it's a bizarre thing I mean if you look at my life if anyone ever says to me that God made me
• 1:00:54
  survive the Threbo landslide exactly the same thing then what was God doing with the 18 other
• 1:00:59
  people that died is that just just teaching us a lesson in that sometimes things don't go that
• 1:01:05
  well for you and I've never been able I've spoken to a lot of very good theologians and and people
• 1:01:10
  I've never been able to get an answer that even comes close to any description of why that
• 1:01:16
  would ever be the case and that God controls anything because it's just completing that it's
• 1:01:22
  completing that a garbage and you know and I've gone through that again I mean you know let's
• 1:01:26
  continue on in my life but you know the the next experience is in my life you know with you know
• 1:01:31
  losing my wife Rosanna to breast cancer I mean seriously if there is truly a God then others
• 1:01:37
  I've obviously been a very very naughty boy yeah in some past life perhaps yeah it's the thing
• 1:01:42
  that you say that there were people who were writing you letters you know from religious factions
• 1:01:47
  saying that you were the chosen one because that has it not occurred to them that if it wasn't you
• 1:01:52
  then it would have been someone else in there like if someone was going to survive then someone
• 1:01:56
  was going to survive it's like it's a bit like it's a bit like rolling at rolling at rolling the
• 1:02:02
  dice and you know seeing it come up as 13 and going oh my god 13 is the magic number well if
• 1:02:08
  it wasn't going to be 13 it might have been nine if it wasn't going to be nine it was going to be
• 1:02:11
  four let's be very let's be very honest with ourselves and that is that most formalized religions
• 1:02:19
  are very simplistic in their nature regardless of how much they try and complicate it and so
• 1:02:24
  therefore when you've only got that to work with you can have very simple you can place those very
• 1:02:32
  simple views on any situation you want and it'll send correct to you and I don't want to be
• 1:02:38
  disparaging to people in their beliefs and their religions I'm happy for people to believe in
• 1:02:43
  whatever you want as long as you use it for good and as long as you know the basic tenets of
• 1:02:49
  what you believe in you know whether they're religious beliefs or not or something that's making
• 1:02:55
  the world a better place and so you know all those people yeah thousands of letters from people
• 1:02:59
  who prayed for me and that in their mind is the reason why I got out you know I thank them for
• 1:03:04
  their prayers you know what else can you say but it's um but yeah that doesn't mean that it uh
• 1:03:08
  that it makes it any truer no and I mean it is interesting to hear your thoughts and for you to
• 1:03:15
  cite Rosanna as well because and we should tell people about what what happened there because of I
• 1:03:19
  mean once you would think that the universe would have thrown you enough curveballs we're being
• 1:03:26
  buried alive for 65 hours next to your wifey you've lost but you found love again a couple of years
• 1:03:33
  later and you got married to Rosanna who was this the love of your life and you had a daughter
• 1:03:39
  with Rosanna and is it right that it was like a week after your honeymoon that she was diagnosed
• 1:03:44
  with breast cancer yeah correct so I mean and that was yeah so you just went I wasn't that happy
• 1:03:49
  that day I can tell you that much Rosanna wasn't that happy either but um you know and then that was
• 1:03:53
  a 12-year battle um you know to try and uh you know make Rosanna survive um longer so I learned
• 1:04:01
  also a huge about yeah huge amount about myself um during that experience um with Rosanna and
• 1:04:08
  you know it was hugely traumatic for her but it was you know there was a lot that went on there as well
• 1:04:14
  and you know luckily you know through that which was also you know she you know Alessia should not
• 1:04:21
  have um you know probably should not be around um given how difficult it was to have yeah
• 1:04:26
  my daughter and so you know that that experience and to and to go through that and to you know
• 1:04:31
  then to you know for Rosanna to die of breast cancer you know 12 years after was yeah it was another
• 1:04:39
  another you know trauma that you know you can definitely do without but um you know
• 1:04:46
  I've also learned an enormous amount about myself in going through that experience and and it's
• 1:04:52
  only reinforced um that fact of how important it is um to know who you are and and and you know
• 1:05:00
  where you're going and what you're believing and and why you're going there and yeah it was a
• 1:05:04
  totally different experience I had you know we had all of that time you know pre um you know
• 1:05:10
  Rosanna's death to pre-grieve her to you know to go through all of that you know same psychologist
• 1:05:17
  I've used you know for the last 24 years did an enormous amount of work with both Rosanna and
• 1:05:23
  Alessia who was only before at that time um to to make sure that we were positioned as well as we
• 1:05:28
  could you know to for not only to go through you know Rosanna dying but also you know for Alessia
• 1:05:35
  not to come out the other side and yeah I've now lived that experience for five years
• 1:05:40
  Alessia is in a great place I'm in a great place and so you know it's it's unfortunate to have to
• 1:05:46
  go through that but it yeah truly reinforces you know why I'm here and you know why I'm in the world
• 1:05:53
  because it's um you know I want to make sure that that that those you know Rosanna's life
• 1:06:00
  was lived for a reason and so if I can reflect any of those traits that she had and any of those
• 1:06:08
  traits that great traits that Sally had in my life how I lived my life and what I do then yeah
• 1:06:14
  then it's worth it's worth living. That's beautiful mate as a to think of your I guess what the
• 1:06:20
  gifts that you can give to Alessia as being a legacy of Sally and also of Rosanna um I mean when
• 1:06:28
  Rosanna was first diagnosed was there a period after that where I mean if you were a person
• 1:06:34
  of faith then that would be the moment at which your faith gets challenged that's like the book of
• 1:06:39
  Job type stuff like are you serious like you would just look at people for whom everything goes
• 1:06:44
  right and you'd go what the fuck is going on in this universe that I've had to endure that
• 1:06:51
  and now I might lose a second loved one like how do you put that in your context?
• 1:07:00
  Yeah I mean what what happens is there's a lot of similarities between you know the landslide
• 1:07:09
  and between between Rosanna getting breast cancer in the fact is what you just end up going
• 1:07:15
  to survival mode and you know anyone who's been through an experience of themselves
• 1:07:19
  of having cancer or you know a loved one having cancer is you going to survival mode so it's all
• 1:07:23
  about it's about surgery and it's about chemo and it's about radiation and it's about do do do I
• 1:07:27
  just want this person to live then it's about 12 months later once all of that has sort of settled
• 1:07:33
  down where then you go into the whoa that's this is pretty heavy but by then you're thinking oh we're
• 1:07:39
  going to beat this it's going to be in remission so we're going to live life happily ever after and
• 1:07:43
  then you try and process all of that again I never you know definitely my psychologist says one of
• 1:07:50
  the greatest things you can ever do is feel sorry for yourself give yourself the ability to say you
• 1:07:56
  know what that is really really really crap what has gone on is not where you thought you were going
• 1:08:03
  to be the outcome has not been that great but the key is you can't do that forever so at some point
• 1:08:12
  you've got to make the choice okay that was crap I feel really sorry for myself but now I'm
• 1:08:18
  going to go back to living again and there are times even now where I go back into that I've
• 1:08:25
  actually I feel really sorry for myself like I'll just wake up and I'll just go this that is crap
• 1:08:30
  but luckily I've been given the tools and the ability to be able to turn that around and say but
• 1:08:36
  you know what it's actually yeah bad experiences but have a look at x, y and z going on in your life
• 1:08:42
  today or what's going to go on today or you know what is there in your future and and and focus on
• 1:08:48
  that and it is you know it always sounds you know corny in some ways but it is about drawing that line
• 1:08:54
  in the sand taking all the good things out of those bad traumas which sounds you know weird in one
• 1:09:00
  way but all of the things that I've learnt from those experiences and used them to drive me forward
• 1:09:07
  in a positive way and and that's really the key because we all go through traumas big large small
• 1:09:13
  in our lives and they're all different you know they're no ones you know loss of a partner is the
• 1:09:20
  same as someone else's they're all different in unique experiences but it's that ability to say okay
• 1:09:26
  that was really crap but how am I now going to go forward and how's that going to look and I
• 1:09:32
  think that you know that's that's what I've learnt to do you know and Lee sales wrote a book
• 1:09:37
  and I think up last year might have been released and she went through this she got the ABS to go
• 1:09:42
  through the statistics of the likelihood of the third Mrs Diaper dying which sounds a bit
• 1:09:48
  macabre and I didn't do it she obviously did that but it's because it's statistics there is no
• 1:09:54
  more likelihood of the third Mrs Diaper surviving longer having a shorter life than anyone else
• 1:10:00
  and that's the thing in the world you know so which is you know I know I hope that is the case
• 1:10:06
  because otherwise I'll be unmarriedable in the future if you look at that but you know that's life
• 1:10:13
  you know and I look at that now I'm I'm in a relationship you know I mean a relationship now
• 1:10:17
  and I've found another wonderful woman in my life and you could look at that and go like what
• 1:10:24
  are you doing yeah you've you've lost two wives so far but what I learnt from those two beautiful
• 1:10:30
  women in my life is what an amazing thing an intimate loving relationship can be and tragically
• 1:10:36
  they were both cut short but that's no reason why I shouldn't say that was amazing for me wouldn't
• 1:10:43
  that be something that I should aim for in the future not saying that oh that person's gone
• 1:10:49
  I've got to get another one to fill the void it's nothing like that at all it's just saying I've
• 1:10:53
  seen what a loving intimate relationship can do for me and it can do for others you know because
• 1:11:00
  we get to share each others life so why wouldn't why wouldn't I want that again do you ever feel sorry
• 1:11:06
  for people for whom everything goes their way only if they're if they end up being entitled to
• 1:11:14
  assholes it's hard not to be let's be brutal not to be when everything goes your way I mean that's
• 1:11:20
  what privilege does isn't it I mean it's really hard to stay grounded it is look at you know
• 1:11:25
  look at the the the psychological diseases of modern western civilizations they are mostly aligned
• 1:11:33
  with prosperity essentially yeah it's not not having anxiety yeah there's not a lot of anxiety when
• 1:11:39
  you're down a coal mine every single day working you know back breaking labor 18 hours a day there's
• 1:11:44
  anxiety when you're on Instagram all the time yeah you don't have anything else to worry about yeah
• 1:11:49
  it's a tricky pickle yeah I mean let's go back right to the start of our conversation today when
• 1:11:53
  we when we spoke about you know what is it and and that's that's what the problem is in society in
• 1:11:59
  that you know not only with kids but with adults we've got a lot of people out there in western
• 1:12:04
  society who have never had any real hardship in their life so we've got a choice either try and
• 1:12:10
  create physical hardship you know emotional hardship through activities like being in the outdoors
• 1:12:17
  and you know outdoor education and things like that or even sport and you know all of those
• 1:12:23
  things where there's some physical pain there's some emotional pain there's some pressure there's
• 1:12:27
  all of those sort of things there's a myriad of ways we can do it we've got to do that as a society
• 1:12:32
  because otherwise what we will end up with is a society of very very and I and I'll use this word
• 1:12:40
  it's not nice but that of weak emotionally weak people who are unable to actually deal with anything
• 1:12:47
  and I am you know I talk about my psychologists I talk about you know the importance of you know
• 1:12:52
  your mental health but I also you know caveat that with saying there's times where periods of
• 1:13:00
  three plus years where I've never even spoken to my psychologist you know I'm done thanks very
• 1:13:05
  much you've given me the tools I'm out I'm done on my own now and anyone that thinks going and
• 1:13:09
  seeing a psychologist is easy and it's just like yeah tick that box have a nice day is tricking
• 1:13:15
  themselves you know it's brutally hard work and the hard work comes from you doing it yourself so
• 1:13:20
  yeah I don't I'm not an opponent of the you know the American model of you have a therapist
• 1:13:25
  for everything you know you cats got a therapist you've got a therapist you see them four times
• 1:13:29
  a week that is going to the other extreme at some point you have to make a choice as an individual
• 1:13:35
  as to what it is that is going to be the best for you to go forward and and how does that
• 1:13:43
  what work do you need to do that and I think the the issue that we've got in larger parts of us
• 1:13:49
  Western society now is we're either not being forced to make those choices or we're not willing
• 1:13:54
  to have those conversations ourselves and that's going to be detrimental to us going forward because
• 1:14:00
  you know there's two two businesses I'd be getting into if I was coming out of school now and one
• 1:14:05
  is laser tattoo removal and the other is psychology because number one in 10 years time there's
• 1:14:12
  going to be a lot of people wanting their tattoos removed and the other thing is everyone is going to
• 1:14:17
  need a psychologist because as you said the prevalence of these you know and everyone these
• 1:14:25
  mental health issues are real to all of these people you know you talked about it before anxiety
• 1:14:31
  depression these are really in our society and they need to be treated but unless we step back
• 1:14:37
  and actually look at the fundamentals of how we're getting to those points as individuals
• 1:14:44
  then we're never going to have a solution and it's just a slippery slope down into you know
• 1:14:50
  major major mental health problems for our society I mean and there's reflectors in that the
• 1:14:55
  statistics show it you know with with youth suicides with you know all of that sort of stuff we're
• 1:15:00
  definitely not giving our kids and the general society enough of those tools to make sure that
• 1:15:08
  that we're we're going to have a future where we're really strong and robust and resilient.
• 1:15:16
  Stuart it's wonderful to talk to you you're doing if I was religious I'd say you're doing the
• 1:15:20
  Lord's work but you're doing you're doing human kinds of work I suppose the podcast is called
• 1:15:25
  the elements it stated kicks off with an incredible episode about so they hit the city in the Hobart
• 1:15:30
  yacht race do you want to say anything else about it before we wrap? No just it was a great project
• 1:15:35
  to be on and it's like all those things in life you know always take take new opportunities and
• 1:15:40
  yeah when Sladen team came along and said that they'd like me to be a part of it it's it's been
• 1:15:46
  amazing I'm looking forward to all the future episodes that we get to make so yeah looking forward
• 1:15:50
  to the launch I'm looking forward to getting our lockdown and bringing my kids to Threadboe and
• 1:15:55
  embracing the world and the planet and the snow and with all of the enthusiasm that you've got
• 1:15:59
  cheers Josh