About the Book
In 2018 Derek served as senior enlisted team leader and co-planner of the Thailand Cave Rescue. Twenty nine countries coordinated. More than 5,000 people were involved. The plan required a sedated underwater extraction that had never been attempted. All 13 came home alive.
What Does the Impossible Look Like? turns the lessons of that operation, and two decades of rescue work before it, into a field guide for leaders. It is written for people who have to decide before they feel ready, and it shows what preparation, trust, and calm actually look like when everything is on the line.
The rescue at the heart of the book was later featured in National Geographic's documentary The Rescue and the film Thirteen Lives. This memoir tells the story from inside the operation, and it starts long before Thailand, with a missionary kid growing up in the Andes of Ecuador.