For the first time, an insider tells the harrowing story of surviving 72 days in the Andes.
By Nando Parrado, with Vince Rause, from "Miracle In the Andes"
On October 13, 1972, a plane carrying young Nando Parrado and his Uruguayan rugby teammates crashed in the Andes mountain range. It's amazing that anyone survived at all, with temperatures well below zero and given their precarious location. But many of them did, with some badly injured. In this excerpt from his book -- featured in the June 2006 issue of Reader's Digest -- Parrado, for the first time, explains how grave his condition was and what he and his fellow teammates had to endure in order to survive.
I lay unconscious, my face covered in blood and black bruises, my head swollen to the size of a basketball. Though my surviving teammates took my pulse and were surprised my heart was still beating, my condition seemed so grave that they gave up on me.
The Fairchild's battered fuselage had come to rest at about 12,000 feet on a snow-packed glacier flowing down the eastern slope of a massive, ice-crusted mountain. Thirteen passengers died. That left 32 of us still alive, some badly wounded. Teammate Arturo had two broken legs; Enrique's stomach was impaled by a six-inch steel tube. Others had head injuries. Uninjured survivors became workers, helping to free trapped passengers.
The cold snow burned my throat as I swallowed, but my body was so parched I gobbled it in lumps and begged for more. I heard soft moans and cries of pain around me. Full of questions as my head cleared, I motioned Gustavo closer. "Where is my mother?" I asked. "Where is Susy?"
His face betrayed no emotion. "Get some rest. You're very weak." I lay shivering on the plane's floor, listening for my sister's voice and glancing about for my mother, even as my head throbbed. When I reached up to touch the crown of my head, I felt rough ridges of broken bone beneath congealed blood and a spongy sense of give. My stomach heaved: It was shattered pieces of my skull against the surface of my brain.
When Gustavo came by again with more snow, I grabbed his sleeve. "Where are they, Gustavo? Please." He looked into my eyes and must have seen I was ready. "Nando, you must be strong. Your mother is dead." Then he added gently, pointing to the rear of the airplane, "Your sister is over there. She's hurt very badly."
Panic and grief exploded in my heart, but a lucid, detached voice said, Do not cry. Tears waste
salt. You'll need salt to survive. I was astounded. Not cry for my mother, for the greatest loss of my life? I'm stranded, I'm freezing, my sister may be dying, my skull is in pieces. I should not cry? I heard the voice again: Do not cry.
"There is more," Gustavo said. "Panchito is dead. Guido too." Sobs gathered in my throat, but before I could surrender, the voice spoke once more: They are gone. Look forward. Think clearly. You will survive.
Now had an urgent desire to reach my sister. I rolled onto my stomach and started dragging myself on my elbows. When my strength gave out and my head slumped to the floor, someone lifted me. And there, lying on her back, was Susy. Traces of blood were on her brow; her face had been washed. My friends helped me lie down beside her, and as I wrapped my arms around her, I whispered, "I'm here, Susy. It's Nando."
She turned and looked at me with her caramel-colored eyes, but her gaze was so unfocused I couldn't be sure she knew it was me. I wrapped myself around her to protect her from the cold and lay with her for hours. In the chaos of that broken plane, stranded in the Andes, there was nothing else I could do. I thought of my father's old advice to me: "Be strong, Nando. Be smart. Make your own luck. Take care of the people you love."
I told Susy, "Don't worry. They will find us. They will bring us home."
In those early days, all of us believed that rescue was our only chance of survival. We had to believe it. As the afternoon wore on, the frigid air took on an even sharper edge. The others found sleeping places in the fuselage and braced for misery. Soon the darkness was absolute, and the cold closed in on us like the jaws of a vise. I suffered through the night, breath by frozen breath. When I felt I couldn't stand it any longer, I drew Susy closer. The thought that I was comforting her kept me sane.
Five days later, on our eighth day in the mountain, I was lying with my arm around my sister when I saw the worried look fade from her face. Her breathing grew shallow; then it stopped.
"Oh God, Susy. Please, no!" I cried.
My chest heaved with sobs. But I did not cry. Tears waste salt. I made a silent vow to my father, who I knew was waiting for me. I will struggle. I will come home. I promise you, I will not die here!
Twenty-seven survivors now remained of the original 45 aboard. For drinking water, we melted snow; to keep ourselves as warm as possible, we slept side by side at night, breathing each other's breath.
One morning around this time, after Marcelo, the captain of our rugby team, decisively led us to pool the little food we had -- a few chocolate bars, some nuts and crackers, dried fruit, small jars of jam and a few bottles of liquor -- I found myself standing outside the fuselage. I was looking down at the single chocolate-covered peanut in my palm.
The shattered fragments of my skull had been knitting themselves together; somehow, I was healing. Yet nothing was ordinary. The mountains were forcing me to change; my mind was growing colder and simpler. Our supplies had been exhausted. This peanut was the last bit of food I would be given, and I was determined to make it last. That day, I slowly sucked the chocolate off the peanut and then saved it in the pocket of my slacks.
The next day I separated the peanut halves, slipping one half back into my pocket and placing the other half in my mouth. I sucked gently on the peanut for hours, allowing myself only a nibble now and then. I did the same the day after that. When I'd finally nibbled the peanut down to nothing, there was no food left to eat at all.
At 12,000 feet or higher, the body's caloric needs are astronomical. A climber scaling any of the mountains around the crash site would have required as many as 10,000 calories a day to maintain his current body weight. We weren't climbing, but still, our caloric requirements were much higher than usual. Even before our rations had run out, we'd never consumed more than a few hundred calories a day. Now, our intake was down to zero. Where once we'd been sturdy and vigorous young men, many of us in peak physical shape, I saw my friends growing thin and drawn.
In desperation, we tried eating strips of leather torn from our luggage. We ripped open seat cushions hoping for straw, but found only upholstery foam. I kept coming to the same conclusion: Until we were rescued, there was nothing here but aluminum, plastic, ice and rock. Sometimes I would rise and shout in frustration, "There's nothing in this f - - - - - - plane to eat!"
But of course there was food on the mountain. It was as near as the bodies of the dead lying outside the fuselage under a thin layer of frost. It puzzles me that despite my compulsive drive to find anything edible, I ignored for so long the obvious presence of the only edible objects within a hundred miles. Some lines, I suppose, the mind is slow to cross.
It was late afternoon when my gaze fell on the leg wound of a boy near me. I could not stop looking at it. Then I met the gaze of some others who had also been staring. In shame, we read each other's thoughts and glanced away. But something had happened. I'd recognized human flesh as food.
I knew those bodies represented our only hope of survival, but I was so horrified that I kept my feelings quiet. Finally I couldn't stay silent any longer. One night in the darkness, I confided in Carlitos, who was lying beside me in the dark. "Are you awake?" I whispered to him.
"Yes," he muttered. "Who can sleep in this freezer?"
"Are you hungry?"
Carlitos cursed. "What do you think? I haven't eaten in days."
"We're going to starve here," I said.
"I don't think the rescuers will find us in time. But I will not die here. I will make it home."
"Nando, you are too weak."
"I'm weak because I haven't eaten."
"But what can you do? There's no food here."
"There is food," I answered. "You know what I mean."
Carlitos shifted in the darkness, but said nothing.
"I will cut meat from the pilot," I whispered. "He's the one who put us here; maybe he will help us get out."
Carlitos cursed again.
"Our friends don't need their bodies anymore," I said.
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Me and the HeadPrefect 2009
