The tsunami slammed into Phuket, destroying Khao Lak beach. Source: News Limited

Another would be in hospital, and the remaining three would be separated in a desperate search to find each other.

None of their lives would ever be the same again.

Stu Breisch was on a dive boat off the coast of Thailand with fiance Sally and eldest daughter Shonti when the deadly Boxing Day tsunami struck in 2004.

The doctor had no idea of the utter devastation the killer wave caused until he saw all the bodies and miles of debris as the boat returned to shore.

This photo was one of the last taken of the Breisch family before the killer tsunami struck. Source: SBS

Corpses were floating around him, badly injured people were grasping for help and the shoreline looked as if a “nuclear bomb had gone off” with nothing left standing.

“The only thing I could see left on the beach was the concrete pads of the resort,” he said.

“There was nothing left, it looked like a nuclear holocaust. My first thought was my kids were dead.”

He thought teenage son Jai, 16 and younger daughter Kali, 15, had no hope of surviving after the building where they had been sleeping destroyed.

As an emergency doctor, the Utah resident was used to seeing trauma, but nothing had prepared him for this.

Ten years after the tsunami struck, killing more than 228,000 victims across 13 countries in a matter of minutes, it still feels very real for him.

Jai, then 16, was missing for three days before he was found. His younger sister Kali was killed in the tsunami. Source: SBS

Speaking to news.com.au from his home in Salt Lake City, Dr Breisch described the utter devastation and chaos, the search for his children, the endless visits to morgues and desperately trying to save survivors in the aftermath of the tsunami.

He recalls looking at body after body and the unforgettable smell of decaying flesh that still lingers in his memory.

“I can see and smell it all clear as day even though it’s been 10 years,” he said.

But among, the sadness and tragedy, is a story of hope and while he lost Kali, he discovered his son Jai had miraculously survived and was in hospital after being flown to Bangkok.

Dr Breisch looking for his family and survivors in the days after the wave struck. Source: SBS

His remarkable story and that of his family feature in a new documentary After The Wave — the untold story of the Boxing Day tsunami on Sunday on SBS ONE.

Dr Breisch recalled the desperate race to save people in the immediate chaos after his boat had returned to Khao Lak Beach early following an aborted dive.

“There were TVs, doors, rooves, and trees floating,” he said.

“I saw a black dog in a tree and we went to help, but then we saw people and left the dog and began pulling up people and dead bodies.”

One of the first victims he helped was a Japanese couple who had been walking along the beach when the disaster struck.

The woman, who had her clothes ripped from her from the force of one of the waves, was badly injured and suffering a massive cut from her breast to abdomen.

Her insides were hanging out.

Dr Breisch said he lost count of the number of times he visited hospitals and morgues searching for his children. Source: SBS

“I tucked her insides back in and patched her up as best I could.” he said.

But as they began carrying her to shore the captain yelled another wave was coming and they should run, but the doctor knew he would never outrun a wave.

Luckily it never came.

When they reached the shore with the badly injured woman, the damage he saw before him was even worse than he imagined.

“We were stepping over dismembered bodies, it was absolute destruction,” he said.

Once back on shore, daughter Shonti terrified another wave would hit ran in search of higher ground — it was two days before she was found again.

But Dr Breisch said he had to search on finding his younger two kids, knowing Shonti was missing, but alive.

The family began searching hospitals, and morgues for any sign of the teenagers.

Three days later they found Jai had been evacuated to a hospital in Bangkok, but there was no still no sign of Kali.

Despite suffering enormous tragedy Dr Breisch said his was a story of hope. Source: SBS

Sally Breisch was on a dive boat when the tsunami hit. Source: SBS

Dr Breisch hoped one miracle had happened and prayed for another but in his heart he knew his youngest daughter was dead.

Sally had gone to be by Jai’s side in hospital, while he searched morgue after morgue, looking at body after body. Some were so badly damaged he could barely make out features.

And the smell was something that he will never forget.

“That was very hard,” he said.

“Some of the bodies had maggots coming out of the eyes, their exposed bellies full of bacteria, the bowels swollen and full of gas.”

Once the bodies were numbered and pictures taken, those visits to look at remains became less and less.

Finally they were told a photo and number matched Kali. Dr Breisch went to the morgue to identify her, but it wasn’t her — the body had the wrong number. That painful moment was captured on cameras, and relayed back to the US.

The family were forced to fly home with an injured Jai, without finding Kali.

Thai rescuers carry a body recovered from the destroyed Khao Lak Laguna Resort Hotel. Source: AFP

Once back home they discovered a bank account with $25,000 in it but with no body to bury, the family decided to donate the money and started the For Kali Foundation to help those affected by the tsunami including dozens of Thai orphans.

The funds were later directed to Czech supermodel Petra Nemcova who spent eight hours clinging to a palm tree that day and who lost fiance, British photographer Simon Atlee in the disaster.

In 2005, Nemcová created the Happy Hearts Fund (HHF), a charitable organisation and campaign formed after the Tsunami of 2004.

Kali had a poster of the supermodel at home on her bedroom wall.

The family went back to Thailand quite a few times in the weeks and months after the tsunami, working with the foundation.

The tsunami not only destroyed Khao Lak but caused unprecedented damage across Thailand. Source: News Limited

But when Kali was finally found, it was a sad relief for the family.

An “Aussie pathologist with a moustache” identified the photo and number that belonged to Kali.

He told the doctor and his family that dental records showed there was no way this wasn’t her.

“He told me I could look if I wanted to (at her body) but it wasn’t a good idea, so I decided not to,” Dr Breisch said.

She was cremated and her ashes spread around the spot where she was killed.

But for all his tragedy, he isn’t bitter at all, and said while he doesn’t know why it happened to his family there were also many other stories like his.

“I can talk about it because it’s part of who I am,” he said.

“I can’t pretend it didn’t happen, I’ve leant to own it.”

After The Wave features harrowing first-person accounts of families ripped apart when the tsunami hit interwoven with a bigger story that we haven’t heard before of what happened in the days, weeks and months after the tsunami.

It also tells the story of the Australian Federal Police which led what became the world’s biggest forensic identification operation, returning a staggering 4000 bodies to families in 40 different countries.

Karl Kent, head of Forensics for the Disaster Victim Identification with Victoria Police, helped lead the recovery operation. Source: SBS

Karl Kent, head of Forensics for the Disaster Victim Identification with Victoria Police was the lead AFP commander on the ground in Thailand and coordinated the forensic effort with 30 international teams and Australians leading the charge.

Despite his years of training, nothing prepared him or his colleagues for the enormous task which lay ahead of them.

He told news.com.au that he and his colleagues initially expected to be dealing with a few hundred deceased but quickly learned the disaster was so much worse than any of them expected.

Kent, who led the Disaster Victim Identification team on the ground in Thailand, said while almost 10 years had passed, the memories of that event still remain strong.

Body bags line the sand as disaster teams line the shore. Source: SBS

“Once we were on the ground it was total chaos,” he said.

“Critical infrastructure had been destroyed, there were no roads, there were no phones and the deceased were deteriorating quickly due to the humidity and exposure.

“It was surreal, we had never witnessed any disaster like it.”

He added it was a little difficult adjusting to life following everything he witnessed there but retelling his experience and that of his colleagues had been cathartic and ultimately was a story about human strength in the face of tragic adversaries.

After The Wave — the untold story of the Boxing Day tsunami premieres on Sunday, December 14, at 8.30pm on SBS ONE.

DVI teams work around the clock at Wat Yan Yao to identify the victims. Source: SBS