Alive
On Friday 13th October 1972 an Uruguayan airplane that took 45 passengers towards Chile, of which many were students and players of a rugby team, crashed in the Cordillera de los Andes.Twelve died because of the crash and fall, and the survivors had to support among other things to the frightful Cordillera, thirty degrees Celsius below zero during the nights, and hunger.
They tried to resist with the little nutritional reserves they had, hoping to be rescued, but their hope felt when they found out, at the tenth day of the accident, by one radio transistor, that the search had finished. Surviving between the desperation and impossible physical conditions, at 4,500 meters of height, with temperatures of 30º C below zero, arises a society and perfect forms of leadership.
Desperate with the absence of food and their endurance exhausted, they were forced to feed themselves off their dead companions, so they could be able to continue living. Finally fed up with the lowest temperatures, the threatening avalanches, distressed by the continuous death of their companions, and the slow delay of the rescue, Nando Parrado decides to cross the huge mountains to arrive to Chile.
After eleven days, very weak and determined... after crossing the Andes on foot and loosing 40 kgs of weight... finds a shepherd in the mountains, who looks for help in a near town. One patrol arrives and then, the helicopters….Nando rises the helicopter and guide the initial rescue of his companions, before being committed in the Hospital of San Fernando.
The 22nd December 1972, after being isolated of everything during 72 days, the world finds out that sixteen are the survivors who beat death, in the Cordillera de los Andes.