Sometimes, fate prepares us trials that can handle not everyone. I would like to share with you the story (and filmed the movie on it), which occurred October 13, 1972 g, in the Andes, when 16 passengers injured in the crash within 2 months of trying to survive by helping each other, caring and eating dead …
When hunger is stronger than reason
October 13, 1972 from Montevideo rugby team went to the competition in the Chilean capital Santiago. On board the Uruguayan airline «Tamu» except them were still passengers and 5 crew members — a total of 45 people. The path was not a short, so they had to make a stopover in Buenos Aires.
Everything was as usual. The pilots were experienced and the flight — «well-worn», did not cause any disturbance. But then something unexpected happened: the plane suddenly went into a strong turbulent zone and in heavy fog pilot, loss, made a navigational error — the plane, which went to the altitude of 500 m, sent directly to one of the peaks of Argentine Andes. And a few moments later the liner ran aground, proportional steel themselves «belly.» The fuselage is destroyed, by a terrible blow a few seats from the floor and took off with the passengers thrown out …
About how events developed further, told the authors of the book «100 great catastrophes» Ionina N. and M. Kubeev: «17 people were killed instantly when the plane crashed into the snow. The picture looked like a fall scene from a horror movie; circle of blood, groans of the wounded, dead bodies … and a terrible cold! «
After the crash remained alive 28 people. They hoped that they will soon find rescuers. But no one came to help. After the avalanche, and a long grueling weeks of hunger had survived only 16 people survived the terrible accident.
How could they know that their quest did not stop for a minute? Among the passengers was the ill-fated liner Carlito Paez, the son of the fashion at the time of the Uruguayan artist. Carlos Paez Vilar, having spent almost all their savings and raising the rescue services to their feet, organized a search for victims of the crash. Rescue teams on foot and in helicopters set out to find, but, unfortunately, they may have failed.
Days, weeks … People with no warm clothing, continued to live in the mountains. They drank the melted water and looking for food in a scattered luggage. Only products that were kept on board the crashed plane, did not last long. Scarce shared bit by bit, to stretch a little longer. Towards the end there were only naperstochnaya norm of wine and chocolate, which they learned to eat very sparingly, eating chocolate at first, and then on the half nuts out of it a day. But that’s run out and these crumbs. On the 10th day of his hunger took — injured in a plane crash passengers began to eat the corpses of …
The first who dared to eat the dead, was a devout Catholic by conviction and medical student education Roberto Ganessa. He cut pieces of meat from the dead body in the snow with a razor. Who came to the horror of his companions in misfortune, he explained that their main task — to survive, and the norms of morality should not act now. Normal civilized people, at first to do it was not so simple: mind resisted. But hunger was stronger than reason. And besides, they calmed Roberto Ganessa: «This dead flesh is the same as the beef we eat every day.» And then the surviving people have learned one truth for themselves — sometimes in order to remain human, we have to turn into a beast …
Up there, the relationship is deeply moral
Among the survivors while on a high plateau was also an athlete Nando Parrado. That he had to take over the leadership of the expedition to rescue the victims of the crash, which got out of the mountains and brought help to the victims. But he was also still one of the first people that ill-fated winter told the world the shocking truth about the crash, explaining why the place is littered with human bones and dismembered bodies.
Eye opener of cannibalism in the Andes then traveled around the world … Many wondered: Is modern man is capable of that?
The case in the Andes was out of the ordinary. About him the newspapers of all countries, and American filmmakers shot the feature film «In the living» (in another translation — «Survive»), in which the documentary accurately recreated with all the twists and turns of the terrible disaster that befell passenger airliner. But in life, things went differently …
Nando Parrado with Roberto Ganessoy, went to the crash site to call someone for help. They have done the hard way by impassable mountains without a map and compass heading to the Chilean border through the cold and darkness. They were 70 miles in just 10 days, «If we were going to die, I would die trying to get out. We drove instinct. Hope «- Nando wrote later in his book.
The shepherds who saw the strange people in rags, ran away from them then.
Rescue helicopters arrived much later, and even then were able to take on board the only part of the people. But, as the saying goes, better late than never. However, in his previous world surviving in the mountains back completely different people. Yes, and outlook on life they have changed a lot: the joy of salvation soon clouded with shame. Almost all the passengers have been numerous therapy sessions, which were to relieve them of guilt. Although some of them during medical treatments calmly talked about sports, a lot of joking and asked psychoanalysts such as those would have behaved in their place. Today Ganessa cardiologist, who first began to eat dead flesh, ironically remembers those days, and interleaves the stories of their favorite episodes of the movie «The Silence of the Lambs,» with Anthony Hopkins as a cannibal. The artist’s son Carlito Paes later recalled: «Down here, everyone is trying to devour his neighbor. And up there, our relationship was clean, deeply moral. Yes, strange as it may sound. And I would give anything in the world to experience it again. «
Remember with gratitude the care of friends there, in the Andes, and the farmer Koch Inchiarte. Then he was so weak that he could not stand up — and the friend brought him a bottle of melted snow invaluable in those conditions. Without their help and support it would not survive. In spite of that, they kept the friendship and not hate each other, which in itself is amazing.
«The first crew ate …»
And recently, and Nando Parrado wrote a history of the events. Honestly and frankly he told readers how crossed the Andes on foot, holding a sock filled with human flesh, the forces supporting him. And told that the eating of the dead was the only way for them to survive in the snow-covered slope, and yet, as to the desperate situation of the surviving passengers, huddled for warmth in the wrecked fuselage slowly dismembered corpses, the benefit that they are frozen in the snow not decompose. And as they were eating the internal organs and split the skull to vyest brain. By the way, as the cutting tools they used pieces of glass, and the first bodies were eaten by the crew — because they have never been familiar. It is only then the survivors were forced to move to the corpses of their friends.
Nando Parrado book «Miracle in the Andes» — a harrowing picture of the events. Reading the author’s sincere recognition of how the group decides to eat the first body involuntarily shudder: «Some people think that I wanted to get even with the pilot for the disaster — says Nando. — He was at fault, it’s true. But it was just easier to start with a pilot, because we knew he was not as good as others. » Incidentally, among the few women on the plane were his mother Xenia, military refugee from Ukraine, and sister Susie, who died from his injuries a week later at the hands of his brother.
Although the group has decided not to touch their bodies, Nando was afraid that someone then they did eat, and decided not to let that happen. Because he had volunteered to go for help. And returning to the site of the disaster, along with the rescuers, Nando was very happy that the bodies of the mother and sisters remained intact (they were buried in the same place all the rules, over their graves is a simple steel cross).
Today Nando still does not feel guilty, do not feel like it was then. He does not have nightmares. Now he is 56, he has achieved prosperity over the years and every day reminds himself of how lucky he was that he was alive. And he had never believed that he had committed a crime by eating their own kind. After all, it was a question of life and death.
«I guarantee that 100% of people would do in this mountain the same. But down here, it’s hard to imagine. They do not understand what it is — to remain without the usual amenities and facilities. We had no facilities and there were only two options: to die of hunger or eating human flesh, «- says Nando Parrado.
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Add a movie created on the basis of this incident
Stay alive. Miracle in the Andes
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