TUNNEL HERO ARNOLD DIX I PROMISED TO RESCUE THEM & I DID'

Against all odds this brave Aussie saved 41 people trapped in a Himalayan mountain

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With dramatic rescues, assassination attempts and dangerous covert operations to free trafficked human slaves in the Middle East, Aussie hero Arnold Dix’s life reads like a Hollywood action movie.

Yet he laughs out loud at the comparison, insisting he’s just an ordinary bloke, who buys his clothes at Kmart, grows sunflowers for a living, loves driving trucks and flirted with a hairdressing career.

“I’m not a big he-man. I don’t have the big tattoos, and I don’t drink beer and do all of that stuff. Yet, I can do a rescue,” he tells Woman’s Day ahead of the release of his memoir, The Promise.

It was an incredible rescue that saw this knockabout father-of-four hailed a hero on the world stage after he saved 41 labourers trapped in a collapsed tunnel in the Himalayas in November 2023.

HOPE FADING

The workers were trapped 61 metres below ground for 17 days, after multiple rescue attempts failed. When Arnold stepped in and came up with a clever way to reach them without using drilling machinery that threatened another collapse.