I am on a plane headed from Uruguay to Chile,
flying through the Andes mountains. It is October 13th - a Friday. Fog and mist. The plane hits an air pocket and drops down
- and suddenly, we were surrounded by the mountains. My best friend Panchito Abal has the window
seat - we switched just moments before. Panchito looks out the window - he thinks
we’re too close... We clip the side of a mountain! A wing goes flying, slicing off the back of
the plane - people are sucked out into the mist! The plane leans, clips another mountain. I stand to brace myself as the wingless craft
crashes onto the mountain. I am thrown forward, hit a wall, and black
out. I am Nando Parrado, and I am stranded in the
Andes Mountains. It is hard to believe that just a few days
ago, we were at the airport in Uruguay. We are an amateur rugby team, on our way to
Chile to compete against a British team. We invited friends and family to join us,
to save on the price. I brought along my mother, Eugenia, and my
younger sister, Susana. In all, there are 40 passengers aboard, plus
the two pilots and three crew. Not long after takeoff, we landed in Mendoza,
Argentina. Bad weather. With the Andes, you can never be too careful. They are immense, unstoppable - just three
months ago, a plane disappeared in these mountains. We took the day to meet girls, go to movies,
shop - my mother bought liquor for friends and baby shoes for her grandchild. We went back to the plane the next day...and
soon after that...the crash. When I open my eyes, it is silent and cramped. I am lying among my friends. Blood covers my face. Someone notices I am stirring and wipes the
blood away - it is just a cut from my head. My first thought - my mother. My sister, Susana. Where are they? Roberto Canessa, one of my teammates and a
medical student, tells me that my mother died in the crash. My sister is still alive, but barely. I have been unconscious for two days. Only 29 of us survive - my best friend Panchito
Abal survived the crash, but died in the freezing night. Both pilots are dead. Our food is mainly snacks - chocolates, crackers
and dried fruits. There are no flares to alert the planes that
fly overhead. I go to take care of my sister. She is laid up, her face a mass of cuts and
bruises. Her feet are frostbitten and black. I try to rub them warm, but her skin peels
off in my hand. I give her a -mixture of snow and creme de
menthe to drink. I break up pieces of chocolate and feed them
to her. The night comes early in the mountains. The icy wind blows through our meager barricade
of piled-up wreckage. I embrace Susana completely to keep her warm,
but neither of us gets much sleep. She wakes frequently, calling out for our
mother. On day four, I tell my friend Carlitos Paez
that we need to escape, find our own way down the mountain. Before the co-pilot died, he assured Roberto
that we had crossed the border into Chile, right? We just need to continue going west. Some of the others have made an attempt already,
using the seats from the plane as snow-shoes. But underfed, and at such an altitude, they
were exhausted quickly and returned. Day eight. I wake up in the middle of the night, my sister
Susana in my arms. She is motionless, breathless, cold to the
touch. I try to revive her, do all I can. But it does not matter. My mother died in the crash; now, my sister
has died in my arms. It is a small comfort, but at least I was
able to be with her. As the days pass, some try to distract themselves
to make the time pass, playing games and telling stories. It doesn’t work. Finally, the conversation comes up again:
what do we do about food? Most of us agree that we’ll die if we don’t
take extreme measures: we have to start eating the meat of our dead family and friends. The icy valley has preserved the bodies well
enough, and if it were us instead of them, we would hope that our friends would do whatever
it took to survive. It is not cannibalism; it is a means to live. Canessa is the first to take action - using
broken glass as a knife, he cuts strips of meat from a body. Only a few can bring themselves to join him
in eating the flesh. Day eleven. A few days ago, our team captain, Marcelo
Perez, and Roy Harley found a transistor radio among the wreckage. They’ve managed to get it working and hear
broadcasts from outside. Today, Gustavo Zerbino joined them in their
searching, and it is he that returns to the fuselage to tell us the news: a rescue attempt
was made, a search was conducted...but now… now it has been called off. We are truly alone. With no hope, and knowing that no rescue is
on its way, the rest of us finally eat the meat of our former friends. Day 17. It’s night and all I know is that I was
asleep until just a moment ago. I realize I am covered in snow. Somehow snow has gotten into the plane and
buried us - an avalanche! But I heard nothing, saw nothing until this
moment. I can feel the weight of it on my chest. I take small breaths, trying to survive. It’s not helping. My lungs can’t handle it, I feel myself
getting dizzy. I know what’s happening. I’m dying. This is it... And suddenly, I see the light. The snow is scraped off my face, my friends
uncover me, pull me out. Others do the same around me. When all is over, we take stock: eight have
died in the avalanche, nineteen of us are left - we have no more blankets or cushions
- and much of the fuselage is so full of snow, we can no longer stand. After an hour, we hear a dull roar, a rumble
over our heads - a second avalanche buries us further. We pile the dead where we can and take refuge
in a tiny area near the cockpit. Nineteen men in an area that could barely
accommodate four. It’s cold and damp. Impossible to sleep. Impossible to breathe. I can feel the air getting stale. We are losing oxygen. I look around - and see an aluminum cargo
pole in the snow. No time to think. I grab for it, get on my knees, and stab upwards,
over and over again, until - miraculously, I break through the ceiling. I keep pushing it up, fighting the packed
snow. The pole breaks through! It’s just a few feet of snow on top of us. I pull the pipe back in. Now there is fresh air circulating. We next try to make an exit. We tunnel through the snow that keeps us from
the cockpit. Hours later, Roy Harley gets in and pushes
a window free, climbs through the opening - the first of us in hours to see what’s
outside! He comes back down. There’s a blizzard. We have no choice but to wait it out. Luckily, it is known that summer in the Andes
comes like clockwork - always in mid-November. We just have to wait a little over two weeks. But when that day comes, I am going to get
out of here. I’ll walk right through the mountains to
Chile. We will die here if we don’t try. After weeks of preparation and waiting for
the weather to change, Roberto Canessa, Tintin Vizintin, and myself make our way down the
slopes. It’s not long before Roberto, walking ahead,
makes a discovery - the tail of the plane that was ripped off during our crash! We find food supplies: meat pastries, a moldy
sandwich, chocolates, and rum. We find a camera, luggage full of new, warm
clothes. We take the supplies back with us, but the
return trip is all uphill. By the time we return to the others with our
new bounty, we have been gone six days - and though we are greeted as returning heroes
with fresh supplies, we are no closer to getting help. Summer finally shows its face. The snow is melting and the tail section is
becoming easier to get to. Four of us make a return trip to salvage what
we can. More debris is starting to appear - like my
mother’s luggage, with the liquor and food she bought...and the red baby shoes. But the melting snow also means the dead bodies
are rotting in the sun - condors fly overhead. Now we have to bury them, not for a funeral,
but to preserve our food source. In the meantime, we continue to prepare for
an expedition - Tintin, Roberto, and myself will attempt to climb the mountains and get
help. Three more have died since the avalanche. We cannot wait any longer. The morning of December 12th, we begin our
journey. We bring a sleeping bag made of insulation
and copper wire, layers upon layers of clothes we found in the luggage,supplies of meat,
a compass from the plane. I leave behind one of the red shoes my mother
bought for my nephew - I tell those that remain that I will return for the other shoe. And although I don’t like the idea, I tell
them that if it is a matter of survival...it is OK with me if they start to eat my mother
and sister, whose bodies have so far gone untouched. It is after 5am when we begin. The snow is hard-packed, perfect for traveling. But of course, it cannot stay that way - the
sun rises, the snow becomes mush. We sink up to our knees. And at this altitude, it’s one foot forward
for every five breaths taken. And we have to do it bow-legged, thanks to
our makeshift snowshoes. We climb at a steep angle. We dislodge rocks that almost kill the ones
walking behind. As the sun starts to go down, we begin to
panic - there’s no level place to make camp. If we try to sleep here we may tumble down
the mountain. We continue climbing until we come upon a
trench, a solid wall of snow keeping it from the wing. We rest there for the night, and the strangest
thing happens - looking out over the valley, seeing the stars, the snow, the peaks, the
wreck a tiny speck in the distance...it is beautiful. The majesty of nature is not lost on us, even
as it’s trying to kill us. It takes us three days we have done it! We’ve reached the summit! But… no, it’s a false summit. There is nothing to see beyond it except more
mountains as far as the eye can see. An impenetrable wall. There is no surviving this. But I’ll die trying. Roberto agrees - we must continue. Tintin decides to return to the plane, leaving
us clothes and food. Roberto and I continue. We have only the sleeping bag for warmth at
night, no other protection against the wind and the cold.. Day seven. It is afternoon now - and I hear a sound. A white noise. A river! We round a cliff and come upon the source
- a jet of water flowing from an ice wall. The water cascades down the valley, and we
can see where it widens, widens, widens, until it becomes a stream in this distance. Roberto and I follow the path of the water. We finally cross the line from snow to dry
land. A partial relief. Now we must climb through the boulder fields. It takes hours to climb over, around, and
through, until we finally reach flatter terrain. Day eight. Roberto says he sees animals in the distance. If he says so, sure. But I’m not going to get my hopes up over
what an exhausted, delirious man thinks he sees. We keep walking. He picks up a rusted soup can. A sign that civilization is near. We begin to see piles of cow manure. Horse droppings. And finally - a herd of cattle. Roberto is ecstatic - “it must mean there
is a farmer!” I tell him I’ll get excited when I actually
see a farmer, not a moment before. Day nine. We follow a partial trail, made no doubt by
the cows. The roar of the river gets louder, deafening. Finally, we round a bend - another river flows
into ours, the two connecting at a point that cuts off our trail. This is the end of the road. We settle in for the night, but our spirits
are low. The food we brought has rotted in the warmth;
we are too weak to hunt. Suddenly, Roberto cries out. Across the river - a man on a horse. The man shouts to us, but he is drowned out
by the river. All I can hear him say is “manana” - and
he rides away. Day ten. We wake before dawn to see three men across
the river. We try shouting at each other, but we are
still unable to hear one another over the river. Finally, one of them takes paper and pencil,
ties them to a rock, and tosses them across the river. Finally, I can tell someone who we are, I
can tell them we are alive, that there are more of us. I tie my message to the rock and throw it
back. One of the men gestures for me to wait. By 9am, another man on a horse arrives - on
our side of the river. He feeds us cheese. I’ve never tasted something so good. After tending to his sheep, he returns for
us and takes us to Los Maitenes, Chile. It is December 21st, 72 days since the crash. It is a whirlwind after that. Roberto and I are given real food. Journalists start appearing, asking us questions. Someone gives me a map and asks me to point
out where the crash site is, so they can launch a rescue. I draw a circle - they cannot believe it. They tell me we never made it out of Argentina. Roberto and I walked almost 40 miles. Then I am asked to guide helicopters to the
crash site. They doubt me the entire time, and it is not
until we get to site that I realize why. The fuselage is white - in the snow, it’s
completely camouflaged. I barely see it until we are just 300 yards
away. I tell them to get closer, I know this is
the place - and finally, we see the others. They wave to us, calling and crying out. As the helicopters land to take the survivors,
all I can think is that we are all alive. They are alive. I am alive. I am Nando Parrado, and I survived. Not just a plane crash, but 72 days in the
Andes.
