Miracle in the Andes

by Nando Parrado

  At a rugby match in Uruguay, 1971. Guido Magri, standing, far right, is about to toss the ball into the scrum. (Unknown)

  Antonio “Tintin” Vizintin backs me up as we keep our eyes on the ball during a 1971 match in Uruguay. (Unknown)

  Rugby action, Uruguay, 1971. I am leaping to fight for the ball in a line out. Marcelo Perez is at the far right. (Unknown)

  I glare at the camera after a tough game in Uruguay, 1971. (Unknown)

  With my sisters at a party in 1970. Graciela is on the left, Susy is on the right. (Unknown)

  My sister Susy, 1970. (Unknown)

  My parents, Xenia and Seler Parrado, 1970. (Unknown)

  In mid-November, at the wrecked tail section with Roy Harley (top), Roberto Canessa (left), and Antonio Vizintin (front), during our failed efforts to fix the Fairchild’s radio. Hanging from the ragged roof of the tail, just to Harley’s left are the little red shoes my mother purchased in Mendoza. (Group of Survivors/Corbis)

  On clear days we sat outside to warm ourselves in the sun and escape the dark, damp interior of the fuselage. On a bright day in early December, from left to right: Alvaro Mangino, Carlitos Paez, Daniel Fernandez (in white cap), Coche Inciarte (with his hand on Daniel’s shoulder), and Pancho Delgado. (Gamma)

  A picture of me drinking a cup of melted snow inside the tail section of the plane. (Group of Survivors/Corbis)

  In December, the nights were still frigid, but the days were mild and the unfiltered sun was strong enough to burn us. Here, from left to right, are Eduardo Strauch, Pancho Delgado, and Gustavo Zerbino posing against the backdrop of the cordillera. (Group of Survivors/Corbis)

  In the days before our final attempt to climb the peaks to the west, Pancho Delgado (sitting on fuselage roof) and Roberto Canessa (standing to Pancho’s right) are stitching together squares of insulation to make the sleeping bag we will carry with us on the journey. Resting in the foreground are Fito Strauch (left) and Carlitos Paez (right). In the row behind them, from left to right, are Gustavo Zerbino, Eduardo Strauch, me, and Javier Methol. (Group of Survivors/Corbis)

  The frantic note I scribbled for the peasant. Before wrapping it around a rock and throwing it across the river to him, I turned it over and scrawled on the back, with a lipstick I’d found in my mother’s luggage, “CUANDO VIENE?” (“When will you come?”) For complete translation of the note, see this page. (© Bettmann/Corbis)

  Sergio Catalan (center), the peasant who found us in the mountains and led rescuers to us at Los Maitenes, sits with Roberto and me as we wait for rescue helicopters to arrive. (EL PAIS de Uruguay, Colección Caruso)

  The first medics to arrive at Los Maitenes huddle around Roberto, who is wearing the belt he had taken from the body of Panchito Abal. (EFE)

  As Roberto receives treatment, I am reluctantly preparing myself to lead the helicopter rescue team on a risky flight to the Fairchild’s crash site. (Associated Press)

  As Chilean helicopters thunder in the overcast skies above our heads, the mounted police take Roberto and me across the shallow river to the spot where the helicopters will land. In the background are reporters and photographers, who had found us before the Chilean Air Force did. (Courtesy of Copesa)

  I am on horseback behind an officer of the mounted police as we watch the helicopters break through the cloud cover. (Empresa Periodística La Nación)

  After a terrifying flight through the cordillera, we found ourselves hovering above the crash site, and I watched from the helicopter as my friends rejoiced at our arrival. (EL PAIS de Uruguay, Colección Caruso)

  When the rescue helicopters landed at a military base near San Fernando, I refused to be carried to the waiting ambulances on a stretcher. “I have walked across the Andes,” I told myself. “I can walk a few more steps.” Others, like Alvaro Mangino, right, had spent all their strength in the mountains and needed assistance. ((c) Bettmann/CORBIS)

  On the day of the rescue, darkness fell before all the survivors could be taken from the mountain, so six of them had to spend another night at the crash site. From left to right: Fito Strauch, Gustavo Zerbino, Coche Inciarte, Roy Harley, Pancho Delgado, and Moncho Sabella. Two members of the Chilean rescue team are seated at the far left and far right. (Group of Survivors/CORBIS)

  On December 23, while the rest of us were already being cared for at the hospital in San Fernando, rescue teams returned to the crash site to retrieve the last of the survivors. This aerial shot shows them leaving the fuselage behind them as they walk toward the waiting helicopters. (Associated Press)

  Some of the survivors arriving at Los Maitenes on the second day of the rescue. In the center, smiling and with his arms out, is Pancho Delgado. At right, Bobby Francois is embraced by a member of the rescue team. (Associated Press)

  Just moments after the helicopters landed at the military base in San Fernando, I walk toward the ambulances with my arm around Carlos Paez-Villaro, the father of Carlitos Paez, who is in the white sweater to my left. Roberto Canessa is in the white cap, to my right. (Unknown)

  News of our rescue touched off a media frenzy. Shortly after their arrival at the hospital in Santiago, Pancho Delgado (left, smiling, with his face raised) and Antonio Vizintin (center front, in a hospital gown with his back to camera) find themselves mobbed by reporters and photographers. (Empresa Periodística La Nación)

  Some of the survivors relaxing at the hospital in Santiago. From left to right: Moncho Sabella, Fito Strauch, Antonio Vizintin, Bobby Francois, Pancho Delgado, and Gustavo Zerbino. (Associated Press)

  Carlitos Paez is embraced by his father, Carlos Paez-Villaro, who had stalked the Andes for weeks in his own desperate search for his son (EFE)

  Roy Harley in the arms of his mother as he arrives at the military base near San Fernando. (Clarin Contenidos)

  Christmas 1972 with the survivors and their families at the Sheraton San Cristobol Hotel in Santiago. I raise my glass high in celebration, but with my mother and sister gone, it is a bittersweet moment for me. (Associated Press)

  December 30, 1972, my first day back in Carrasco after the Andes ordeal. My beloved motorcycle, which my father had sold to a friend, was returned to me, and I wasted no time getting it on the road. (Unknown)

  With my friend and Autodelta teammate Chippy Breard (center), I am speaking with racing legend Jackie Stewart (right) at the 1974 Argentinian F1 Gran Prix in Buenos Aires. (Armando Rivas)

  During a 1975 race at El Pinar race track, near Montevideo, I watch the action with fellow Uruguayan driver Josè P. Passadore. (Unknown)

  A driver change during the Silverstone Tourist Trophy competition at Silverstone, England, in 1977. I am standing, wearing a helmet and waiting to take the wheel as my teammate Mario Marquez exits the car. We took second place in this long-distance event. (Jorge Mayol)

  Summer 2003, somewhere in the Great Plains. I am posing with my 1400cc Titan 2000, on my way to a motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the Harley-Davidson company. (Gonzalo Mateu)

  With Veronique and my father, Christmastime, 2003. (Courtesy of the Parrado family)

  With my wife, Veronique, in Punta del Este, 2004. (Jean Pierre Banowicz)

  The ladies of my life. My wife, Veronique (center), with my daughters, Cecilia (left) and and Veronica (right). (Jean Pierre Banowicz)

  The Parrados, 2004. From left: Cecilia, Veronique, Veronica, and me. (Jean Pierre Banowicz)

  March 2003. On one of many trips to the grave near the crash site in the Andes, I hang some flowers on the simple steel cross. (Carlos Cardoso)

  A survivor reunion, December 22, 2004. Fifteen survivors gathered, plus Rafael Ponce de Leon, who during the disaster used the ham radio in his Montevideo basement to keep our parents informed of rescue efforts and to spread news of our rescue. Top row, left to right: Antonio “Tintin” Vizintin, Gustavo Zerbino, Roy Harley, Javier Methol, Roberto “Bobby” Francois, Alfredo “Pancho” Delgado, Eduardo Strauch, Adolfo “Fito”Strauch, me, and R
oberto Canessa. Bottom row: Josè Luis “Coche” Inciarte, Alvaro Mangino, Carlos Pàez, Ramòn “Moncho” Sabella, Ponce de Leòn, and Daniel Fernandez. Pedro Algorta is missing from the picture. (Veronique van Wassenhove)

  In the Andes, March 2005. On our way to surprise Sergio Catalan at his fiftieth wedding anniversary, Roberto Canessa and I run into him on a deserted mountain trail near his village. “Good man,” I tell him, “we are lost again!” (Veronique van Wassenhove)

  The wreckage of the Fairchild after all the survivors have been rescued. The row of chairs to the left was our “lounge” area, where we sunned ourselves on clear days. To the right, near the base of the fuselage, you can see the body of one of the victims of the disaster. (Keystone/Gamma)

  Chapter Seven

  East

  THE BLIZZARD FINALLY ended on the morning of November 1. The skies were clear and the sun was strong, so a few of the guys climbed out onto the roof of the fuselage to melt snow for drinking water. The rest of us began the slow process of removing the tons of snow that packed the Fairchild’s interior. It took eight days to clear the fuselage, chipping at the rock-hard snow with our flimsy plastic shovels and passing each scoopful back through the cabin, man to man, until we could toss it outside. As an expeditionary, I was officially excused from such grueling labor, but I insisted on working anyway. Now that the date of our escape had been chosen, I could not rest. I had to keep busy, fearing that idle moments might weaken my resolve, or drive me insane.

  While we worked to make the fuselage livable again, my fellow expeditionaries Numa, Fito, and Roberto prepared for the trek. They made a sled by tying a nylon strap to one half of a hard-shell plastic suitcase, and loaded it with whatever gear they thought we could use: the nylon seat covers we would use as blankets, Fitos’s seat-cushion snowshoes, a bottle in which we would melt water, and other supplies. Roberto had fashioned knapsacks for us by tying off the legs of trousers and threading nylon straps through the pantlegs in such a way that we could sling them over our backs. We packed the knapsacks with more gear, but left room for the meat that Fito and his cousins were cutting for us and cooling in the snow. We all watched the weather closely, waiting for signs that spring was on its way, and by the second week in November it seemed that winter was easing its grip. When there was sun, temperatures were mild, as high as the mid-forties. But overcast days were cold, and even the slightest wind gave the air an icy edge. Nights were still frigid and storms still swept the mountains, often with little warning, and the thought of being trapped on the open slopes in a blizzard was one of my greatest concerns.

  In the first week of November we decided to add Antonio Vizintin to the ranks of the expeditionaries. Antonio, or “Tintin” as we called him, was one of the strongest of all the survivors. Broad-shouldered and with legs like tree trunks, he was a prop for the Old Christians, a position he played with the strength of a bull. He also had a bull’s temperament. Tintin could be just as hot-tempered and overbearing as Roberto, and I worried that facing the mountains with these two great hardheads at my side might be a recipe for disaster. But Tintin was not as complicated as Roberto; he lacked Roberto’s raging ego and the need to tell others what to do. In terms of physical strength, Tintin had endured our weeks on the mountain as well as any of us, and despite my concerns, I was happy he would join us, thinking that with five expeditionaries rather than four, we would improve the odds of at least one of us getting through alive. But as soon as we added this new member to our team, we lost another, as Fito was stricken by a case of hemorrhoids so severe that they bled down his legs and made walking even short distances an agony. There was no way he could cross the mountains in such pain, so it was agreed that we would travel with four, and Fito would stay behind.

  As the day of our departure grew nearer, I felt the spirits of the group rise as their confidence in the prospects of our mission increased. I didn’t share their confidence. I still knew in my heart that the only way to escape these mountains was to follow the path that led up the slopes of the terrifying peaks to the west, but I didn’t resist the decision of the others to try the eastern route. I told myself that, if nothing else, the easier trek to the east would be a good training mission for this more difficult journey to come. In truth, I think it was simpler than that. I had suppressed my anxieties and my maddening urge to escape too long. I couldn’t stay at the crash site one moment longer. The idea of leaving this place, no matter what direction we headed, was too attractive to resist. If the others insisted on going east, I would go with them. I would do anything to be anyplace but here. But, deep down, I knew this trek was nothing more than a prelude, and I worried it would cost us precious time. All of us were growing weaker by the hour, and a few seemed to be sinking at an alarming rate. Coche Inciarte was one of the weakest. Coche, a longtime fan of the Old Christians, was one of the ones who dwelt in the background. He was famous for bumming cigarettes and wheedling his way into the warmest sleeping positions, but always with great charm, and it was impossible not to like him. Coche had an open and amiable spirit, a sharp wit, and an irresistible smile. His jovial spirit brightened our mood even in the darkest moments, and his gentle humor was a good buffer for the more aggressive personalities in the group. By diffusing tensions and making us smile, Coche was helping, in his way, to keep us all alive.

  Like Numa, Coche was one of those who had refused to eat when we first cut meat from the bodies of the dead. He had changed his mind a few days later, but he was still so repulsed by the idea of eating human flesh that he had never been able to force down enough food to keep himself strong. He had grown shockingly thin, and his immune system had been so severely compromised that his body could no longer fight off infection. As a result, minor wounds on his legs had gone septic, and now large, fierce boils bulged from his reed-thin legs.

  “What do you think?” he asked me, as he drew his pantleg to his knee and swiveled a calf flirtatiously from side to side. “Pretty skinny, huh? Would you go for a girl with legs as skinny as these?” He had to be in great pain from those angry sores on his legs, and I knew he was as frightened and weak as any of us, but still, he was Coche, and he still found a way to make me laugh.

  As bad as Coche might have been, Roy Harley seemed worse. Roy also found it hard to eat human flesh, and so his tall, broad-shouldered frame had been rapidly stripped of fat and muscle. Now he walked with a hunched and uncertain stride, as if his bones were a flimsy collection of sticks held together by pale, sagging skin. Roy’s mental state was also deteriorating. He had always been a rugged and courageous player for the Old Christians, but the mountain had depleted all his emotional reserves, and now he seemed to live constantly at the brink of hysterics, jumping at noises, weeping at the slightest provocation, and always with his face drawn tight in a grimace of apprehension and extreme despair.

  Many of the younger boys were weakening, especially Moncho Sabella, but Arturo and Rafael were the worst off, by far. Although he had suffered terribly from the first minute of the crash, Rafael had lost none of his fighting spirit. He remained courageous and defiant, and he still began every day with a loud proclamation of his intention to survive, a brave gesture from which we all drew strength. Arturo, on the other hand, had grown even quieter and more introspective than usual, and when I sat with him now, I sensed he was nearing the end of his fight.

  “How are you feeling, Arturo?”

  “I’m so cold, Nando,” he said. “There’s not much pain. I can’t feel my legs anymore. It’s hard to breathe.”

  His voice was growing soft and thin, but his eyes brightened as he motioned me closer and spoke with gentle urgency. “I know I am getting closer to God,” he said. “Sometimes I feel His presence so close to me. I can feel His love, Nando. There’s so much love, I want to cry.”

  “Try to hold on, Arturo.”

  “I don’t think it will be long for me,” he said. “I feel myself being pulled to Him. Soon I will know God, and then I will have the answers to all you
r questions.”

  “Can I get you some water, Arturo?”

  “Nando, I want you to remember, even in this place, our lives have meaning. Our suffering is not for nothing. Even if we are trapped here forever, we can love our families, and God, and each other as long as we live. Even in this place, our lives are worth living.”

  Arturo’s face was lit with a serene intensity when he said this. I kept my silence, for fear that my voice would crack if I tried to speak.

  “You will tell my family that I love them, won’t you? That’s all that matters to me now.”

  “You will tell them yourself,” I said.

  Arturo smiled at the lie. “I am ready, Nando,” he continued. “I made my confession to God. My soul is clean. I will die with no sins.”

  “What’s this?” I laughed. “I thought you didn’t believe in the kind of God who forgives your sins.”