WEBVTT

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>> [Nando] My name s Nando Parrado.

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I was one of the 16 survivors of flight 571,

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which crashed in the Andes mountains on Friday the 13th of October of 1972.

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We knew a plane cannot fly that close to the mountains,

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and I looked towards my mother and that was the moment of impact.

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I was in a very deep coma.

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So, you wake up very slowly, and I woke up in hell.

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We waited for a rescue, but it didn't come.

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Our plane that crashes in the middle of the mountains in the snow season there is no way people can survive.

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And after a week, after ten days, after three weeks, after a month, after two months --

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who would believe there was people alive.

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The decision of eating the dead bodies of our friends started to creap into our minds at the same time.

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We all had the same fear -- the same lack of hope -- the same confirmation that we were dead.

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I decided that I was going to die, but I was gong to die trying.

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Initially, the trip was planned for four days.

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We would leave on Thursday, and we would come back on Monday morning.

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You are young.

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You don't have that much money,

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and the easiest way and the cheapest one was the charter an air force plane.

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The night before the plane left for Santiago,

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the captian of the team told us that there was ten seats available on the airplane,

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and if anybody wanted to bring family or friends, they could go for free.

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So, I jumped from my seat and I phoned my mother.

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I said, "Mom, prepare a bag, you are going to Chile tomorrow."

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And tell Susie -- Susie was my sister -- that she was going too.

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Susie was 17-years-old, I remember, and she always was running around my rugby teammates,

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because, you know, rugby players -- that's how simply they happened.

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I wanted to give them a present of love to invite them to go to Chile with us.

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They would shop and have a nice time.

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We would come back on Monday,

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but it never happened like that.

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We left on Thursday,

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but when the plane came close to the Andes the weather was not good,

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so it had to land in Mendoza.

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The last seat in Argentina before the Andes,

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and we had to wait for the weather to be better so that the plane could cross.

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So, we had to sleep in Mendoza that night.

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And the next morning we went to the airport,

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and we boarded the plane,

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and we left finally on Friday morning for Santiago.

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Nothing made us think or believe that something terrible was going to happen.

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Friday the 13th.

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I'm not a superstitious person,

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and I don't care about that, but I didn't know Friday the 13th, and I would crash on that day.

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You know, some guys think about it and some guys don't.

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Obviously, the pilot didn't think about it too much.

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How could a pilot make such a big mistake -- a pilot with experience.

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>> [Male Speaker] The captain on this flight was a Uruguayan Air Force colonel,

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and that implies that he was an experienced pilot.

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I know that he had 29 crossings of the Andes,

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which is a lot.

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However, his total time -- his total flight experience was in the range of 5,200 hours.

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In today's standards, 5,200 hours is not a lot of time.

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>> [Col Enrique Crosa] The training by the crew was done acording to international standards.

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It was in a good condition to fly that plane without any problems.

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>> [Male Speaker] The Fairchild had a max gross takeoff weight of 45,000 pounds,

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and carried anywhere between 45 and 50 passengers.

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The engines that it had were two Rolls Royce Dart 7 engines,

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which are approximately 1,725 shaft horse power each

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The aircraft struggled because it was under powered.

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We pretty much referred to it as a lead sled.

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Of the 78 Fairchild 227's built 23 crashed,

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and there were a total of 393 fatalities.

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A third of them have been involved in accidents,

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which equtes to not a very good safety record.

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>> [Nando] At the time, we didn't know that the safety record of that model was absolutely horrible.

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Had we known that, we would have never got into that airplane.

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After takeoff from Mendoza, the captain elected to fly south and make a turn towards the Planchon Pass,

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and the reason he elected to do this is

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because he could fly the aircraft through a pass and at a lower altitude.

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If he had led to stricly go over the Andes,

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he would have had to go a lot higher,

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which would have been a lot more stressful on this aircraft.

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It has a hard enough time getting up to 1,500 to 1,600 feet,

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let alone what it needed to get over the Andes without going through a pass.

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>> [Male Speaker] The Andes Mountains rise so abruptly that they create very serious storms.

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If the jet stream is coming from the Pacific, all this moist air gets funneled by the mountains.

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That speeds up winds and creates precipitation --

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creates clouds, so the storms that can be formed by the Andes can be very fierce.

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This was a team of friends -- a team of young people flying to have a fantastic fun weekend.

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So, the mood in the airplane was absolutely happy.

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I remember people laughing -- people talking.

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You know sitting, kneeling down on the seats, and looking back and talking with the guys.

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>> [Gustavo] We were all singing.

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We were all super happy, throwing the ball from one side to the other.

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It was quite a fun atmosphere.

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>> [Nado] Initially, I sat on the window,

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but Ponchito was my best friend.

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He was like my brother,

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and he said, "You have been for a long time on the window let me look down.

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It is easier for me if I'm on the window to look out,"

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So, we changed seats.

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He sat on the window,

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and I sat on the isle.

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That's one of those moments in life that without thinking that

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would decide who would live and who would die.

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>> [Male Speaker] There was a cloud cover on the mountains,

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so they had to cross the Andes,

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and they radio Santiago and they want permission to turn north,

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and they fly it north to Santiago.

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>> [Male Speaker] The Fairchild was expectd to arrive at Curico at 3:33 p.m.,

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but reported that it was over Curico at 3:24.

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That distance is usually covered in 11 minutes,

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and they reported that they covered it in 3 minutes.

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Surely, the plane was still in the middle of the mountains.

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>> [Male Speaker] So, the pilot's obviously made a mistake at some point in calculation.

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It's actually they are right in the middle of the range,

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and they are thinking they are already past it.

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He makes the unexplained and catastrophic decision of turning north into the Andes.

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This changes the fate of all the passengers on the plane.

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>> [Roberto Canessa] So, he decided to descend,

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and as it was all covered by clouds,

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he didn't see that the mountains were under the clouds.

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>> [Male Speaker] When a pilot gets into a position where he is not where expects to be,

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or not where he thinks he is,

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in order to get out of that situation,

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he has to convince himself that he's made a mistake,

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and it's a different mindset.

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You have to now think, "I've made a mistake. How am I going to get out of this.

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>> [Col Enrique] The cause of the accident was clearly human error.

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The fault of the crew.

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>> [Nado] We started to get into some light --

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not very heavy turbulance.

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The plane started to shake a little.

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>> [Carlitos] The flight attendant came out into the cabin and said,

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"Put your seat belts on because the plane is going to dance a little bit."

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>> [Nado] And then we got into a little bit heavier turbulence,

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and the move changed a little bit.

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Nobody was throwing balls.

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You know, everybody was sitting on the seat with the seat belt fastened.

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>> [Male Speaker] They head down through the clouds,

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and they think they are descending into Chile.

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And, of course, as you get closer to the mountains,

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there is the turbulence of all the wind currents that the mountains create.

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So, they start shaking.

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They come from off the cloud cover,

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and realize that they are completely surrounded by rocks and mountains.

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>> [Male Speaker] It was a feeling of fear,

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and the fear transformed into panic.

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We felt the acceleration of the engine.

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>> [Nado] I only had abut five or six or seven seconds to understand that there was something wrong.

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That we were going to crash.

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The last image that I had is the top of the airplane --

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the roof over my head opened and I died.

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>> [Male Speaker] The plane begins sliding down at a tremendous speed,

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and I was waiting for it to slam against the mountain,

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but it stopped.

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And when it stopped, I thought "I'm alive."

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>> [Male Speaker] I stood in the impact site and realized that there is a saddle there.

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The pilots must have seen that saddle and gone for it to try to overcome the mountains.

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A little to the left or a little to the right they would have hit cliffs and the plane would have disintegrated.

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>> [Male Speaker] It was an extraordinary piece of luck,

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I would say, that the plane didn't disintegrate all together when it hit the mountain.

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Really it clipped off the back of it,

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and then the front tobogganed down the mountain.

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That was astonishing.

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>> The fuselage ended up landing on this very steep gully.

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It was all covered in snow, luckily for them,

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which allowed the fuselage to slide down,

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make a couple turns that are just the natural fall line,

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and lead them all the way to the bottom of the glacier.

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It is and extremely lucky situation.

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>> [Male Speaker] I think one must be careful when one uses the word miraculous.

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I mean, you've got to think of the people who didn't make it,

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and who died, and who were eaten.

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I mean it obviously wasn't miraculous to the parents of those boys.

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>> [Male Speaker] This is one of the seat arm rests,

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and I found it high on the mountain.

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This belonged, obviously to one of the seats that flew out the back of the fuselage.

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It was, obviously, very chilling to think of somebody was riding on that seat.

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It is a testament to a very tragic moment.

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>> [Male Speaker] None of us were familiar with snow.

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We were like little boys.

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In Uruguay, the maximum amount of is 500 meters,

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so we knew nothing.

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It was a disaster:

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Dead people, injured people, people with broken legs.

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>> Immediately after the plane crashed,

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we went about attending to the wounded.

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I went over to Nando's mother,

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and I touched her, and she was dead.

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>> She was like wrapped around a seat in a position that I was sure that she was not alive.

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>> Nando's condition for us was a dead body.

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>> He had flown from the back seat to the front seat,

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and his face was very swollen,

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and I could barely know who he was.

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>> [Male Speaker] The co-pilot was in a lot of pain.

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He asked us to bring him the revolver in order to kill himself because he was suffering so much.

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>> Someone said that he was alive,

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and I realized that he was the key man that could tell us where we were --

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what was our location.

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He was completely trapped.

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It was impossible to get him out.

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>> Before the pilot dies,

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they hear him saying, "We passed Curico."

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"We passed Curico."

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The pilot was in shock.

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He probably realized that he had made a mistake,

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but he's telling -- "But how can this be?"

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>> I remember very vividly that he said,

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"We passed Curico."

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"We passed Curico."

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And there was a map there,

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and we begin looking at the map,

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and Curico was on the Chilean side very clearly.

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>> The survivors are thinking,

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this is the only reliable information we have from somebody who is supposed to know about this.

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So, if we passed Curico,

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that means we are on the western edge of the Andes.

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>> You find yourself in a glaciated valley at 12,000 feet in the middle of the Andes.

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It's still today a very remote place.

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>> It's like stepping into a giant freezer --

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this valley surrounded by peaks on three sides and kind of open to the east.

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The mountains around you are peaks that are 14, 15, 16 thousand feet high.

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To the east you have a volcano that's 18,000 feet --

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very sheer, steep.

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This party immediately had to protect themselves from the elements,

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or all of them may not have survived the first night or two,

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and they were put instantly into a very high altitude environment

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where now they have to start, very quickly adjusting to the elevation.

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>> The first night was horrible

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because the sun set at 4 in the afternoon,

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and we had to wait about 15 hours for the sun to come up again.

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>> They quickly had to decide how they were going to survive the first night.

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Sharing warmth amongst themselves was probably the most important thing that they could have done.

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>> You're in this expectation that you're going to be rescued,

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and hopes are high.

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And you are going to do everything you can to survive those first few days

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until the helicopters come over the mountain and pick you up.

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And then they don't

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And then the friends around you die.

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>> After the plane crashed and we didn't have any food,

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we shared a few little cups of liquor, some little chocolates, and that was all we had.

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>> We had some little chocolates,

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and that was all we had.

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>> [Male Speaker] Nando? Nando?

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>> When a person who had an accident like what Nando had,

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the treatment we would do nowadays in the 21st Century is actually what nature did to Nando,

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with total serendipity in 1972.

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It was recently proven that low temperature that is hypothermia

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is one of the only effective neuro protectants that is something to protect an injured brain.

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The fact that Nando was considered dead and was put with the seriously ill and dead bodies

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close to the entrance and coldest part of the fuselage

00:19:48.498 --> 00:19:54.336
probably exerted a significantly protective effect of his injured brain.

00:19:54.336 --> 00:20:00.667
Based on a great paradox, the accident itself is what probably kept Nando alive.

00:20:00.667 --> 00:20:04.960
>> [Nando] The first things that I started seeing were the eyes and the faces of my friends

00:20:04.960 --> 00:20:08.865
who were very close to me looking to me and speaking,

00:20:08.865 --> 00:20:10.276
"Nando, we crashed."

00:20:10.276 --> 00:20:11.304
"Can you hear me?"

00:20:11.304 --> 00:20:12.750
"Can you listen?"

00:20:12.750 --> 00:20:14.130
"Can you hear?"

00:20:14.130 --> 00:20:16.145
"We crashed."

00:20:16.145 --> 00:20:23.759
>> I remember Nando saying the first words and asking about his mother and his sister.

00:20:23.759 --> 00:20:26.995
>> [Nando] They said your mother is dead and Susie is wounded.

00:20:26.995 --> 00:20:28.858
She's hurt.

00:20:28.858 --> 00:20:32.411
My mind discarded, in that moment, my mother.

00:20:32.411 --> 00:20:33.314
I mean she's dead.

00:20:33.314 --> 00:20:34.715
I can't do anything for her.

00:20:34.715 --> 00:20:37.142
So, I focused on my sister,

00:20:37.142 --> 00:20:39.708
and I crawled to where she was.

00:20:39.708 --> 00:20:42.738
>> He was very devoted to her and was trying to do his best,

00:20:42.738 --> 00:20:46.120
but it was very difficult.

00:20:46.120 --> 00:20:53.234


00:20:53.234 --> 00:20:55.385
>> [Nando] The first time I got of there,

00:20:55.385 --> 00:21:03.657
I was shocked at the sheer majesty and sight of the place where we were.

00:21:03.657 --> 00:21:06.843
Everything was white, white, white, white.

00:21:06.843 --> 00:21:09.507
And it was cold, and it was huge in sight.

00:21:09.507 --> 00:21:13.752


00:21:13.752 --> 00:21:18.024
At an altitude of 11, 12, 14 thousand feet,

00:21:18.024 --> 00:21:20.182
there is absolutely nothing.

00:21:20.182 --> 00:21:23.293
There is ice, snow, and black rocks.

00:21:23.293 --> 00:21:24.371
That's all.

00:21:24.371 --> 00:21:30.340
There's nothing that can provide any sort of food or nutrition --

00:21:30.340 --> 00:21:33.599
nothing -- absolutely nothing.

00:21:33.599 --> 00:21:38.076
Obviously, we waited for a rescue from the first, second, third, fourth day,

00:21:38.076 --> 00:21:40.442
but it didn't come.

00:21:40.442 --> 00:21:43.948
>> We arrived in Chile,

00:21:43.948 --> 00:21:49.221
and they divided the search area between the Chilean Air Force, the Argentine Air Force, and us

00:21:49.221 --> 00:21:54.385
And we performed a series of flights over the Andes from north to south.

00:21:54.385 --> 00:21:57.485
That was something we had never done before,

00:21:57.485 --> 00:22:01.192
and we saw absolutely nothing.

00:22:01.192 --> 00:22:13.937


00:22:13.937 --> 00:22:18.415
>> It would be a little crazy to assume that your son had survived.

00:22:18.415 --> 00:22:22.927
An important thing for me was the search.

00:22:22.927 --> 00:22:26.024
>> It was very sad.

00:22:29.039 --> 00:22:30.043
The stage we lived through.

00:22:30.043 --> 00:22:32.373
We didn't know anything.

00:22:32.373 --> 00:22:41.308
I was one of those that finally believed that none had survived the Andes.

00:22:41.308 --> 00:22:44.683
>> My heart told me that they were dead.

00:22:44.683 --> 00:22:49.351


00:22:49.351 --> 00:22:53.653
>> [Nando] The last hours that I spent with my sister, Susie,

00:22:53.653 --> 00:22:56.981
the only thing I could do was to hold her.

00:22:56.981 --> 00:22:57.796
We didn't have any medicines.

00:22:57.796 --> 00:23:00.231
We didn't have anything.

00:23:00.231 --> 00:23:04.197
She was very badly hurt, injured internally.

00:23:04.197 --> 00:23:07.728
I stayed with her the whole night,

00:23:07.728 --> 00:23:11.462
and I think that she was aware that I was there.

00:23:11.462 --> 00:23:13.868
She couldn't speak.

00:23:13.868 --> 00:23:17.772
She only looked at me with her beautiful eyes,

00:23:17.772 --> 00:23:20.635
and she died in my arms that night.

00:23:20.635 --> 00:23:26.755


00:23:26.755 --> 00:23:31.337
At least I'm happy that she passed away with me,

00:23:31.337 --> 00:23:34.514
you know, not alone.

00:23:34.514 --> 00:23:50.732


00:23:50.732 --> 00:23:54.666
The real hope died on the 10th day

00:23:54.666 --> 00:23:58.068
when we listened on the small transistor radio that we had

00:23:58.068 --> 00:24:01.679
that the rescue had been abandoned.

00:24:01.679 --> 00:24:07.451
And before the 10th day we had these games of hope,

00:24:07.451 --> 00:24:11.491
and after that hope was not existent --

00:24:11.491 --> 00:24:15.893
hope only prolonged our suffering.

00:24:15.893 --> 00:24:19.004
The hope absolutely went away.

00:24:19.004 --> 00:24:23.245


00:24:23.245 --> 00:24:27.789
>> I said Nando, "There isn't anything left in the storage compartments,"

00:24:27.789 --> 00:24:31.010
where we kept the chocolates and the can of sardines we had.

00:24:31.010 --> 00:24:33.915
And Nando looked me in the eyes and said,

00:24:33.915 --> 00:24:38.029
"Carliots, I want to eat the pilot."

00:24:38.029 --> 00:24:54.274


00:24:54.274 --> 00:24:56.800
>> The struggle to survive was so strong,

00:24:56.800 --> 00:25:01.190
and the fear and the waiting for the helicopters,

00:25:01.190 --> 00:25:03.860
and fighting the fear and the stress,

00:25:03.860 --> 00:25:07.312
and helping other guys.

00:25:07.312 --> 00:25:09.252
Days went by,

00:25:09.252 --> 00:25:13.183
and I never felt pain in my stomach or anything like that.

00:25:13.183 --> 00:25:16.619
I was hungry, but I don't remember having any pain.

00:25:16.619 --> 00:25:19.145
>> When people are in a starvation mode,

00:25:19.145 --> 00:25:24.395
what happens is we start taking all our food supplies from our liver.

00:25:24.395 --> 00:25:27.066
The next thing to go is typically muscle.

00:25:27.066 --> 00:25:29.801
And then our adipose tissue -- or fatty tissue,

00:25:29.801 --> 00:25:33.008
and then we start digesting our internal organs.

00:25:33.008 --> 00:25:35.932
That's really what happens as people starve.

00:25:35.932 --> 00:25:38.558
They had to have a food source.

00:25:38.558 --> 00:25:40.555
They could only survive a few days without water.

00:25:40.555 --> 00:25:43.264
They had kind of solved that problem.

00:25:43.264 --> 00:25:49.711


00:25:49.711 --> 00:25:57.675
But you can only survive in that kind of environment from days to weeks without some kind of food.

00:25:57.675 --> 00:25:59.173
>> When you're abandoned,

00:25:59.173 --> 00:26:00.591
there is nothing at that altitude.

00:26:00.591 --> 00:26:05.581
You are looking to any item that could be available.

00:26:05.581 --> 00:26:09.366
And we had read so many times about history,

00:26:09.366 --> 00:26:11.318
and explorers who were without food,

00:26:11.318 --> 00:26:16.057
and they tried to eat thier shoes and thier suitcases and leather straps,

00:26:16.057 --> 00:26:17.758
and we tried.

00:26:17.758 --> 00:26:19.711
We tasted.

00:26:19.711 --> 00:26:24.345
We tasted pieces of leather from suitcases.

00:26:24.345 --> 00:26:26.916
They would do much more harm,

00:26:26.916 --> 00:26:29.640
so there was absolutely nothing.

00:26:29.640 --> 00:26:32.590
You cannot eat that foam from the cushions.

00:26:32.590 --> 00:26:35.971
You cannot eat plastic.

00:26:35.971 --> 00:26:39.030
When rescue was abandoned,

00:26:39.030 --> 00:26:41.255
you know that you have to eat.

00:26:41.255 --> 00:26:43.519
The chocolates are gone.

00:26:43.519 --> 00:26:45.730
If you want to survive --

00:26:45.730 --> 00:26:48.452
the survival instinct is probably the strongest instinct in any human being.

00:26:48.452 --> 00:26:53.890
It brings you to a different state of mind.

00:26:53.890 --> 00:26:54.823


00:26:54.823 --> 00:26:58.390
>> The decision of eating the dead bodies of our friends,

00:26:58.390 --> 00:27:00.718
started to creep into our minds at the same time.

00:27:00.718 --> 00:27:03.988
Because we all had the same fear --

00:27:03.988 --> 00:27:06.852
the same lack of hope -- the same confirmation

00:27:06.852 --> 00:27:08.667
that we were dead.

00:27:08.667 --> 00:27:10.785
We were condemned.

00:27:10.785 --> 00:27:12.588
No rescue.

00:27:12.588 --> 00:27:14.948
We were abandoned to our own luck.

00:27:14.948 --> 00:27:17.334
On the same day, three or four or five guys started to speak about the same thing.

00:27:17.334 --> 00:27:19.288
I spoke it was Carlito.

00:27:19.288 --> 00:27:22.086
I don't remember if I was the first one or not,

00:27:22.086 --> 00:27:25.227
but you know five, six hours later everybody was speaking about the same subject.

00:27:25.227 --> 00:27:31.805
>> I said, "Adolpho, Nando is crazy. He wants to eat the pilot."

00:27:31.805 --> 00:27:31.805
And Adolfo told me, "He's not that crazy."

00:27:32.298 --> 00:27:37.919
"My cousins and I have already been thinking about that."

00:27:37.919 --> 00:27:41.567
>> It was very difficult to accept this idea.

00:27:41.567 --> 00:27:44.671
It was in the mind of many of us.

00:27:44.671 --> 00:27:46.436
We want to live,

00:27:46.436 --> 00:27:50.449
and the only way was to eat the bodies of our friends.

00:27:50.449 --> 00:27:57.494
>> One of the things that was used to persuade some of those reluctant to eat the dead bodies

00:27:57.494 --> 00:27:59.441
was the comparison of the Eucharist.

00:27:59.441 --> 00:28:03.223
The Catholic Eucharist where Christ's body was turned into bread,

00:28:03.223 --> 00:28:06.661
and you eat the bread.

00:28:06.661 --> 00:28:12.529
It was sort of an analogy that helped some of the doubters, if you like, to eat human flesh.

00:28:12.529 --> 00:28:19.078
>> The survivors only had a screwdriver and an ax that was on the plane.

00:28:19.093 --> 00:28:22.044
So, they had to make more tools.

00:28:22.044 --> 00:28:29.689
Some of the tools that they made were knives that were made out of plastic of the windows.

00:28:29.689 --> 00:28:35.825
In February 2005, we had the luck to find one of these -- one of the knives they made.

00:28:35.825 --> 00:28:38.839
The reason why they need a knife was to cut meat.

00:28:38.839 --> 00:28:42.305
This was obviously used for that.

00:28:42.305 --> 00:28:44.258


00:28:44.258 --> 00:28:48.427
>> It was sharpened or cut with the ax.

00:28:48.427 --> 00:28:51.245
>> It's terrible to invade someone else,

00:28:51.245 --> 00:28:54.747
and to take advantage of someone that is dead.

00:28:54.747 --> 00:28:56.902
The only reason that I did it is

00:28:56.902 --> 00:29:02.643
because I thought that if I had died I would be very proud to be a part of the project of life.

00:29:02.643 --> 00:29:09.607


00:29:09.607 --> 00:29:12.810
>> [Nando] It's hard to put yourself in that situation,

00:29:12.810 --> 00:29:16.371
but being there you had been one of us.

00:29:16.371 --> 00:29:18.700
There is only one option.

00:29:18.700 --> 00:29:25.700
The decision comes quite easy.

00:29:25.700 --> 00:29:26.542
>> Think about it.

00:29:26.542 --> 00:29:30.017
Every individual in that group had to look down

00:29:30.017 --> 00:29:32.376
see little pieces of protein --

00:29:32.376 --> 00:29:35.936
little pieces of fat, and when they bring it up to their mouth,

00:29:35.936 --> 00:29:38.334
what's their mind telling them?

00:29:38.334 --> 00:29:42.332
For some it's going to be, "Oh my god. This was my friend."

00:29:42.332 --> 00:29:45.115
"This was someone in seat 3B."

00:29:45.115 --> 00:29:47.890
And others when they consumed it,

00:29:47.890 --> 00:29:51.023
and all of a sudden the body responded in a favorable way,

00:29:51.023 --> 00:29:53.426
where they felt some strength --

00:29:53.426 --> 00:29:55.852
maybe some flow of energy back in the body.

00:29:55.852 --> 00:30:00.026
This was a glimmer of hope to where they can survive and be rescued.

00:30:00.026 --> 00:30:10.122


00:30:10.122 --> 00:30:13.018
>> From a religious point of view for me,

00:30:13.018 --> 00:30:15.211
it wasn't a sin.

00:30:15.211 --> 00:30:19.161
I understood that a body that was there before the worms ate it

00:30:19.161 --> 00:30:21.253
could be utilized by us.

00:30:21.253 --> 00:30:25.154
For me that didn't affect me then,

00:30:25.154 --> 00:30:26.547
and it doesn't affect me now.

00:30:26.547 --> 00:30:29.017
>> From the medical point of view,

00:30:29.017 --> 00:30:31.286
it's fat.

00:30:31.286 --> 00:30:33.126
It's lipids.

00:30:33.126 --> 00:30:34.925
It's carbohydrates, and a source of energy.

00:30:34.925 --> 00:30:38.027
There is no doubt about it.

00:30:38.027 --> 00:30:40.713
>> For them, trying different parts of the body --

00:30:40.713 --> 00:30:45.192
eating organs that are more rich in vitamins was essential for the nutrition.

00:30:45.192 --> 00:30:46.894
It was something that their bodies were craving.

00:30:46.894 --> 00:30:48.700
When they would try something different,

00:30:48.700 --> 00:30:50.646
it would taste good because the body is telling them,

00:30:50.646 --> 00:30:54.444
"Yes, you need more vitamins. You need this"

00:30:54.444 --> 00:30:57.637
Any different flavor was something that was highly welcomed.

00:30:57.637 --> 00:31:06.877
So that is how they ended up eating everything -- almost every part of the body.

00:31:06.877 --> 00:31:10.888
>> People used the term "cannibalism" for their food source.

00:31:10.888 --> 00:31:13.408
I actually consider it survival food.

00:31:13.408 --> 00:31:15.039
They did what they had to do.

00:31:15.039 --> 00:31:21.528
I've read, and I've seen our story described as cannibalism,

00:31:21.528 --> 00:31:23.658
which I think is wrong.

00:31:23.658 --> 00:31:26.269
Cannibalism is when you kill to eat.

00:31:26.269 --> 00:31:31.477
I mean ancient warriors killed the enemy tribes and then they eat the dead,

00:31:31.477 --> 00:31:36.376
and it had a lot of tribal and spiritual meanings also.

00:31:36.376 --> 00:31:41.016
In our case, I think the terminology we should use is anthropophagy.

00:31:41.016 --> 00:31:45.739


00:31:45.739 --> 00:31:47.524
And it's just terminology.

00:31:47.524 --> 00:31:51.229


00:31:51.229 --> 00:31:54.324
We made a pact, and we did what people do now.

00:31:54.324 --> 00:31:58.550
People give blood to friends -- to family members.

00:31:58.550 --> 00:32:02.975
They make organ transplants.

00:32:02.975 --> 00:32:04.313
And we made a pact.

00:32:04.313 --> 00:32:08.561
We said okay hand in hand.

00:32:08.561 --> 00:32:13.580
If I die please use my body, so at least one of us can get out of here.

00:32:13.595 --> 00:32:19.177
As a human being, you would see and do things so horrible you cannot even start to imagine,

00:32:19.177 --> 00:32:25.315
but things get worse.

00:32:25.315 --> 00:32:25.315
>> What the survivors didn't' realize was that this place was a time bomb.

00:32:25.315 --> 00:32:38.668


00:32:38.668 --> 00:32:44.943
>> Where the fuselage was was a place that gets regularly hit by avalanches.

00:32:44.943 --> 00:32:49.568
It was just a matter of time before an avalanche would come down.

00:32:49.568 --> 00:32:56.332
Nobody in the plane hand any experience with glaciers, with avalanches, with snow.

00:32:56.332 --> 00:32:58.737
That's one of the tragedies of this situation.

00:32:58.737 --> 00:33:07.797


00:33:07.797 --> 00:33:13.373
>> Avalanches have been known to move reinforced concrete buildings off their foundations.

00:33:13.373 --> 00:33:16.449
They've taken trains off the train tracks.

00:33:16.449 --> 00:33:20.641
They have taken steel bridges and blown them apart,

00:33:20.641 --> 00:33:26.033
so that there is an enormous amount of impact pressure behind avalanches.

00:33:26.033 --> 00:33:27.712


00:33:27.712 --> 00:33:30.730
>> [Nando] You're at the worst thing that can happen in your life.

00:33:30.730 --> 00:33:33.573
I mean we were stranded in the Andes,

00:33:33.573 --> 00:33:36.008
surviving in the worst way a human being can survive.

00:33:36.008 --> 00:33:38.779
>> For three consecutive days it snowed,

00:33:38.779 --> 00:33:40.963
and snowed, and snowed.

00:33:40.963 --> 00:33:43.638
We were totally enclosed in the plane surrounded by snow.

00:33:43.638 --> 00:33:47.792
>> Surviving in that way, two and a half weeks after the plane crashed,

00:33:47.792 --> 00:33:51.303
at night in complete darkness.

00:33:51.303 --> 00:33:54.075
We heard a distant sound.

00:33:54.075 --> 00:33:57.613
>> I heard some people describe an avalanche when it started as a large boom --

00:33:57.613 --> 00:34:02.852
like a sonic boom from an airplane, as the avalanche failed on its weak layer.

00:34:02.852 --> 00:34:05.176
Sometimes they make hissing noises.

00:34:05.176 --> 00:34:07.542
Sometimes they are absolutely quiet,

00:34:07.542 --> 00:34:12.229
and you don't even know that they are coming down the mountain until they actually strike you.

00:34:12.229 --> 00:34:17.008
>> Very quickly we felt something like the sound of a pack of horses charging at us --

00:34:17.008 --> 00:34:19.342
coming from above.

00:34:19.342 --> 00:34:23.678
>> It was something so lightningly fast.

00:34:23.678 --> 00:34:25.745


00:34:25.745 --> 00:34:28.791
I heard a sound, and I looked to my right,

00:34:28.791 --> 00:34:31.965
and at that moment the avalanche hit the airplane.

00:34:31.965 --> 00:34:36.014


00:34:36.014 --> 00:34:38.910
>> The avalanche came down off the mountain.

00:34:38.910 --> 00:34:42.425
It went right in the open end of the fuselage,

00:34:42.425 --> 00:34:47.291
blowing out the wall that they had built to help protect them, and buried all the people inside.

00:34:47.291 --> 00:34:51.057
>> Two seconds later, I was completely buried by the avalanche.

00:34:51.057 --> 00:34:56.400
>> Quickly tons of snow got inside the fuselage and buried us completely.

00:34:56.400 --> 00:34:57.775
>> I was trapped completely by the avalanche,

00:34:57.775 --> 00:35:02.763
and it was the most deadly silence you may imagine.

00:35:02.763 --> 00:35:05.018
I couldn't move.

00:35:05.018 --> 00:35:08.119
>> You are stuck in this contorted position.

00:35:08.119 --> 00:35:10.461
You could be bent backwards with your heels against your head.

00:35:10.461 --> 00:35:14.824
You could be in a position where the pain is just unendurable,

00:35:14.824 --> 00:35:17.986
and yet you can't breathe anymore either.

00:35:17.986 --> 00:35:20.924
>> It can be a horrible, horrible way to die.

00:35:20.924 --> 00:35:24.054
>> I felt I was dying, and then a smile came to my face.

00:35:24.054 --> 00:35:28.109
I realized that everything was over.

00:35:28.109 --> 00:35:32.488
>> You can only survive three minutes without oxygen.

00:35:32.488 --> 00:35:34.758
If you don't have adequate oxygen to breathe,

00:35:34.758 --> 00:35:38.189
you will die in that three to four minute time frame.

00:35:38.189 --> 00:35:43.932
>> Probably somewhere around 75% of people that are buried in avalanches die from asphyxiation.

00:35:43.932 --> 00:35:46.823
>> Roy hardly managed to get out,

00:35:46.823 --> 00:35:49.496
and then I got out.

00:35:49.496 --> 00:35:52.927
The first thing that we wanted to do was dig our friends out.

00:35:52.927 --> 00:35:57.658
Diego Storm, Nicolich, but when I got to them, they were both dead.

00:35:57.658 --> 00:36:00.203
>> It must have been an incredible panic situation.

00:36:00.203 --> 00:36:01.792
"Now what do I do?"

00:36:01.792 --> 00:36:04.909
"What do I do?"

00:36:04.909 --> 00:36:07.831
They are all in this confined space,

00:36:07.831 --> 00:36:10.365
but as soon as you move snow,

00:36:10.365 --> 00:36:13.585
you're piling it on top of other people,

00:36:13.585 --> 00:36:16.797
because everybody is packed in so tight.

00:36:16.797 --> 00:36:19.899
>> We continued looking for people, uncovering what we could.

00:36:19.899 --> 00:36:22.475
>> I opened up my eyes, and I realized that I was alive and they dug me out.

00:36:22.475 --> 00:36:24.945
>> Roy Harley took all the snow from my face.

00:36:24.945 --> 00:36:28.087
>> And I remember looking for the only woman that was alive at the time,

00:36:28.087 --> 00:36:30.354
which was Liliana Methol.

00:36:30.354 --> 00:36:33.653
Looking for her, I found the head of Nando Parrado,

00:36:33.653 --> 00:36:36.279
and he managed to survive.

00:36:36.279 --> 00:36:39.994
>> This avalanche killed eight of us, you know.

00:36:39.994 --> 00:36:43.102
Eight of our guys were killed by that avalanche.

00:36:43.102 --> 00:36:52.986


00:36:52.986 --> 00:36:54.298
>> It was just another brutal blow --

00:36:54.298 --> 00:36:57.160
as if things couldn't get any worse.

00:36:57.160 --> 00:37:01.457
The avalanche comes and kills eight of them at that point,

00:37:01.457 --> 00:37:03.437
and it's hard to imagine, I think,

00:37:03.437 --> 00:37:06.655
you're trapped in this little space.

00:37:06.655 --> 00:37:09.096
The avalanche has completely covered the plane.

00:37:09.096 --> 00:37:15.529
There is no light, and now they have a little space and a little bit oxygen to survive on,

00:37:15.529 --> 00:37:17.699
and they're on top of their dead friends --

00:37:17.699 --> 00:37:21.215
the ones that were just alive instance before.

00:37:21.215 --> 00:37:24.204
And to have to survive three days in something like that,

00:37:24.204 --> 00:37:32.500
I think, is just one of the most horrible circumstances you can even imagine.

00:37:32.500 --> 00:37:40.818
>> Our first concern was to be buried like a submarine without power in the bottom of the ocean.

00:37:40.818 --> 00:37:42.990
You know, we have water on top.

00:37:42.990 --> 00:37:44.291
How do we get out of there.

00:37:44.291 --> 00:37:47.531
And, also, we had air.

00:37:47.531 --> 00:37:50.763
So, we said, "Okay, don't move too much."

00:37:50.763 --> 00:37:52.522
"Breathe slowly."

00:37:52.522 --> 00:37:55.647
Because we didn't know if we had air.

00:37:55.647 --> 00:37:58.957
A lot of the guys said, "What does it matter?"

00:37:58.957 --> 00:38:01.233
"There is air nowhere."

00:38:01.233 --> 00:38:02.683
"We are buried."

00:38:02.683 --> 00:38:05.020
"We are dead."

00:38:05.020 --> 00:38:09.618
"If we get out of this burial of this fuselage, we will be on the same situation that we were before."

00:38:09.618 --> 00:38:13.456
-- stranded, lost in the middle of the Andes.

00:38:13.456 --> 00:38:18.228
Nobody is looking for us.

00:38:18.228 --> 00:38:19.716
We don't have any food.

00:38:19.716 --> 00:38:20.885
We don't have water.

00:38:20.885 --> 00:38:22.141
We are cold.

00:38:22.141 --> 00:38:23.351
We will die anyway.

00:38:23.351 --> 00:38:24.784
We are already buried.

00:38:24.784 --> 00:38:25.711
Let's stay here.

00:38:25.711 --> 00:38:28.972
>> Now they have to eat from their very own friends that were right there.

00:38:28.972 --> 00:38:29.947
Even worse.

00:38:29.947 --> 00:38:30.675
This story of survival has so many extreme moments.

00:38:30.675 --> 00:38:30.771


00:38:30.771 --> 00:38:32.945
>> I think that the human spirit is stronger than reality sometimes,

00:38:32.945 --> 00:38:33.826
and we asked ourselves "What are we doing?"

00:38:33.826 --> 00:38:35.140
At least we are breathing.

00:38:35.140 --> 00:38:36.686
And if we are breathing, we are alive.

00:38:36.686 --> 00:38:46.939
Let's fight until we stop breathing.

00:38:46.939 --> 00:38:48.699


00:38:48.699 --> 00:38:54.299
I found one of the posts that you tie straps to hold the luggage,

00:38:54.299 --> 00:38:57.424
and there was one of these poles in the floor.

00:38:57.424 --> 00:39:06.450
And I used it to make a hole in the top of the fuselage so that air would come in.

00:39:06.450 --> 00:39:13.339
I always think that if the avalanche hadn't happened, we wouldn't have survived.

00:39:13.339 --> 00:39:15.553
And people say, "Why?"

00:39:15.553 --> 00:39:21.957
And I look back and I say, "Well, first the avalanche covered the airplane,

00:39:21.957 --> 00:39:24.419
and all the blizzards and all the storms went over.

00:39:24.419 --> 00:39:28.668
So, we were not hit directly by the storms.

00:39:28.668 --> 00:39:35.169
And, secondly, we could wait there one and a half more months because we had eight more bodies.

00:39:35.169 --> 00:39:38.772
And it's very hard to think about that,

00:39:38.772 --> 00:39:40.641
but it's a reality.

00:39:40.641 --> 00:39:47.477


00:39:47.477 --> 00:39:49.116
I was terrified.

00:39:49.116 --> 00:39:50.417
I didn't know what to do.

00:39:50.417 --> 00:39:52.366
I just followed my heart -- my intuition.

00:39:52.366 --> 00:39:54.065
I wanted to go back to my father,

00:39:54.065 --> 00:40:00.097
and I didn't take into account all the risks that those things involved.

00:40:00.097 --> 00:40:03.266
Had we known what we were going to face,

00:40:03.266 --> 00:40:05.936
we would never have started.

00:40:05.936 --> 00:40:18.648


00:40:18.648 --> 00:40:20.183
>> As the snow melted around it,

00:40:20.183 --> 00:40:22.783
it left the fuselage in a bit of -- sort of a pedestal.

00:40:22.783 --> 00:40:24.649
So, it was very unstable.

00:40:24.649 --> 00:40:27.467
In fact they were afraid that it was going to roll off into a crevice.

00:40:27.467 --> 00:40:29.634
>> Over the weeks, you know,

00:40:29.634 --> 00:40:35.483
they came into a routine of drying out the airplane, and drying out their sleeping pads,

00:40:35.483 --> 00:40:38.710
and gathering water and gathering food.

00:40:38.710 --> 00:40:41.615
And it comes down, again, to a routine of basics.

00:40:41.615 --> 00:40:44.812
They were in a survival situation.

00:40:44.812 --> 00:40:49.976
>> The most secure place on that remote landscape was the fuselage.

00:40:49.976 --> 00:40:56.787
It was like an igloo, and comfort was inside that place.

00:40:56.787 --> 00:41:00.591
You only got out of there because you had to trek.

00:41:00.591 --> 00:41:02.099
You had to test things.

00:41:02.099 --> 00:41:03.900
You had to explore.

00:41:03.900 --> 00:41:07.228
>> The Andes are an amazing mountain range.

00:41:07.228 --> 00:41:10.377
They stretch the whole length of South America.

00:41:10.377 --> 00:41:11.732
They're rugged.

00:41:11.732 --> 00:41:13.270
They're tall.

00:41:13.270 --> 00:41:16.846
The air is thin in the Andes just like in any other high mountains of the world.

00:41:16.846 --> 00:41:22.690
So, it is a very challenging and difficult range of mountains to try to climb.

00:41:22.690 --> 00:41:25.687
>> The first guys who left the airplane for the first time,

00:41:25.687 --> 00:41:29.011
they just went away like 250 yards from the fuselage,

00:41:29.011 --> 00:41:36.133
and they found it so difficult to walk on deep snow, crevices that they had to return.

00:41:36.133 --> 00:41:39.309
>> It was very hard to go out from the plane.

00:41:39.309 --> 00:41:44.268
It was very hard because the plane in some sense would protect you.

00:41:44.268 --> 00:41:46.937
I went out on three expeditions.

00:41:46.937 --> 00:41:48.516
I went out, I came back --

00:41:48.516 --> 00:41:51.081
always trying to look for the tail of the plane.

00:41:51.081 --> 00:41:56.063
And in the last expedition, I remember that I surrendered.

00:41:56.063 --> 00:42:01.582
>> I returned with my eyes mostly blinded -- burned by the snow --

00:42:01.582 --> 00:42:08.483
because I didn't have any shades and it loosened up my teeth and my feet were practically gangrene.

00:42:08.483 --> 00:42:14.058
>> It was very tough because you felt like an insect against huge forces of nature.

00:42:14.058 --> 00:42:18.770
>> It is the story of being easier to die than it is to live.

00:42:18.770 --> 00:42:21.616
The most attractive option was to die.

00:42:21.616 --> 00:42:24.978
>> Any survival story that you read about,

00:42:24.978 --> 00:42:28.315
whether it's on a desert island or in the middle of the ocean or the mountains,

00:42:28.315 --> 00:42:31.725
people simply out of desperation improvise,

00:42:31.725 --> 00:42:35.474
and they build and make the things that they need to survive.

00:42:35.474 --> 00:42:41.857


00:42:41.857 --> 00:42:43.904
>> Once we had created a couple of snow shoes,

00:42:43.904 --> 00:42:46.934
I was elected as the expedition leader

00:42:46.934 --> 00:42:51.527
because of probably my will to get out of there and look for my father and go back to him.

00:42:51.527 --> 00:42:55.267
And I said, "Okay, we have to test the equipment."

00:42:55.267 --> 00:43:01.210
"We have to go further down the valley to see how we react ourselves as a team."

00:43:01.210 --> 00:43:05.090
>> Nando became the kind of the "head boy."

00:43:05.090 --> 00:43:08.986
He was the sort of -- the younger boys looked up to him.

00:43:08.986 --> 00:43:15.555


00:43:15.555 --> 00:43:18.762
>> Roberto, Antonio, and myself we left one morning

00:43:18.762 --> 00:43:25.943
to try to get away as far as we could from the airplane and come back in a day.

00:43:25.943 --> 00:43:27.199
It was a test.

00:43:27.199 --> 00:43:30.886
It was research and development, you could call it.

00:43:30.886 --> 00:43:33.740
We started to walk down the valley, down the valley, down the valley,

00:43:33.740 --> 00:43:39.862
and suddenly as soon as we went over a small hill, we saw the tail.

00:43:39.862 --> 00:43:45.795
The tail had flown - had been torn from the fuselage and had cartwheeled down the mountain,

00:43:45.795 --> 00:43:48.391
and it was in the valley.

00:43:48.391 --> 00:43:50.443
There were a few suitcases there.

00:43:50.443 --> 00:43:53.303
And instantly we searched for food.

00:43:53.303 --> 00:44:00.134
We only found a small box of chocolates and the camera.

00:44:00.134 --> 00:44:04.738
We also found something that was quite interesting which were the batteries --

00:44:04.738 --> 00:44:09.435
24 batteries that were installed there at the tail.

00:44:09.435 --> 00:44:11.424
And we said, "Okay, we have batteries."

00:44:11.424 --> 00:44:13.680
"We have radios in the cockpit."

00:44:13.680 --> 00:44:17.384
"Maybe we can make these radios work."

00:44:17.384 --> 00:44:20.067
So, we decided to spend the night there,

00:44:20.067 --> 00:44:25.901
and the next day we went all the way up to the fuselage again.

00:44:25.901 --> 00:44:30.344
And we said, "Okay we have to take the radios from the cockpit."

00:44:30.344 --> 00:44:35.011
Roy helped us as he had assembled a stereo unit in his home.

00:44:35.011 --> 00:44:38.269
We declared him the radio expert.

00:44:38.269 --> 00:44:42.103
You know that connecting radio equipment to batteries is not easy.

00:44:42.103 --> 00:44:44.255
We didn't have the knowledge.

00:44:44.255 --> 00:44:49.430
And from the back part of the radios bundles of cables came out that we had to cut.

00:44:49.430 --> 00:44:52.263
How do we connect those cables to the batteries?

00:44:52.263 --> 00:44:54.194
Impossible.

00:44:54.194 --> 00:44:56.436
It never worked.

00:44:56.436 --> 00:45:01.778
Another piece of hope was completely destroyed then.

00:45:01.778 --> 00:45:06.136
And we were very depressed because we had put a lot of hope on the radios working.

00:45:06.136 --> 00:45:09.880


00:45:09.880 --> 00:45:12.352
When we found the camera on the tail,

00:45:12.352 --> 00:45:15.079
I remember saying, "Okay it has a roll."

00:45:15.079 --> 00:45:22.438
"Let's take pictures because maybe this camera will be found maybe 50, 60, 100 years from now,

00:45:22.438 --> 00:45:26.489
and they will reveal the roll, and they will see that people lived here.

00:45:26.489 --> 00:45:30.325
Because on our minds we were going to die.

00:45:30.325 --> 00:45:32.163
So, we took photographs.

00:45:32.163 --> 00:45:40.549


00:45:40.549 --> 00:45:45.938
>> One night Arturo threw something at me,

00:45:45.938 --> 00:45:47.989
and he said he was in a lot of pain.

00:45:47.989 --> 00:45:51.552
So, I lowered him, and he told me he was dying.

00:45:51.552 --> 00:45:55.582
So, for about an hour, I started doing CPR.

00:45:55.582 --> 00:45:59.297
When I stopped, he was acting as if he was going to die,

00:45:59.297 --> 00:46:02.995
and so I continued until finally I told him I couldn't do it anymore.

00:46:02.995 --> 00:46:05.505
And he got really gone,

00:46:05.505 --> 00:46:08.064
and he let go of my hands like this,

00:46:08.064 --> 00:46:11.847
and he died with a look of happiness on his face.

00:46:11.847 --> 00:46:22.549


00:46:22.549 --> 00:46:24.427
>> In the case of Numa Turcatti,

00:46:24.427 --> 00:46:26.994
his physical condition told him that he was going to die.

00:46:26.994 --> 00:46:28.549
There was no way out.

00:46:28.549 --> 00:46:30.937
And he did not survive.

00:46:30.937 --> 00:46:32.519
>> We loved him a lot,

00:46:32.519 --> 00:46:34.075
and he never complained.

00:46:34.075 --> 00:46:36.027
He died weighing 55 pounds.

00:46:36.027 --> 00:46:40.860


00:46:40.860 --> 00:46:46.277
>> Waiting is horrible at that point when you are condemned to die.

00:46:46.277 --> 00:47:04.388


00:47:04.388 --> 00:47:06.232
I kept speaking with Roberto.

00:47:06.232 --> 00:47:08.265
"Roberto, we have to get out of here as soon as we can."

00:47:08.265 --> 00:47:12.459
We couldn't try to escape to the south because we didn't know where we were going.

00:47:12.459 --> 00:47:14.910
To the north -- the northern part of South America.

00:47:14.910 --> 00:47:17.963
For us to the east laid the whole Andes,

00:47:17.963 --> 00:47:20.404
but to the west was Chile.

00:47:20.404 --> 00:47:22.679
We had to aim to that country.

00:47:22.679 --> 00:47:30.269


00:47:30.269 --> 00:47:32.213
>> The pilot before he died, had said,

00:47:32.213 --> 00:47:34.588
"We've crossed the Andes and Chile is to the west."

00:47:34.588 --> 00:47:41.315
"To the west is Chile became a kind of slogan that -- a kind of dogma that none of them could doubt.

00:47:41.315 --> 00:47:45.938


00:47:45.938 --> 00:47:47.860
>> We didn't know if we were in Argentina in Chile.

00:47:47.860 --> 00:47:52.628
We only knew that to the west is Chile because of the sun.

00:47:52.628 --> 00:47:55.482
We would climb one mountain and from the top,

00:47:55.482 --> 00:48:04.647
we would see green valleys, lights of a city in the horizon.

00:48:04.647 --> 00:48:07.320
>> To the west, we would be saved.

00:48:07.320 --> 00:48:10.930
>> Their information indicated the wise decision was west.

00:48:10.930 --> 00:48:14.736
They thought over that ridge has got to be the green valleys of Chile.

00:48:14.736 --> 00:48:18.277
To the east, not only did they think that whole Andes was there,

00:48:18.277 --> 00:48:21.303
but there's nothing really encouraging for them --

00:48:21.303 --> 00:48:25.647
other than the fact that it's downhill.

00:48:25.647 --> 00:48:30.818
The survivors didn't realize if they would have gone east into that valley,

00:48:30.818 --> 00:48:34.112
there is a hotel 18 miles away from them.

00:48:34.112 --> 00:48:49.046


00:48:49.046 --> 00:48:51.477
>> The hotel is 18 miles away.

00:48:51.477 --> 00:48:57.197
It is a hell of a hike out to get to that point.

00:48:57.197 --> 00:49:02.662
It's on the other side of the river.

00:49:02.662 --> 00:49:04.397
It is quite a big river.

00:49:04.397 --> 00:49:05.141
You can't really cross it.

00:49:05.141 --> 00:49:09.251
So, most likely, they wouldn't have been able to get to the other side where the hotel was.

00:49:09.251 --> 00:49:12.987
So, it's easy to second guess once you know everything else,

00:49:12.987 --> 00:49:14.620
but they didn't.

00:49:14.620 --> 00:49:20.565


00:49:20.565 --> 00:49:23.474
>> Nando was very desperate to get out of there

00:49:23.474 --> 00:49:28.701
because he wanted to go back to his father and tell him that not everything was lost.

00:49:28.701 --> 00:49:31.375
>> Nando was raring to go.

00:49:31.375 --> 00:49:36.002
He had this extraordinary determination to leave and get back to his father.

00:49:36.002 --> 00:49:39.883
>> I think that he realized that either he got himself out of there,

00:49:39.883 --> 00:49:42.756
or most likely they were all going to die.

00:49:42.756 --> 00:49:44.720
>> I think the others procrastinated.

00:49:44.720 --> 00:49:46.385
They hesitated.

00:49:46.385 --> 00:49:48.017
They held him back.

00:49:48.017 --> 00:49:49.226
They thought the moment wasn't right.

00:49:49.226 --> 00:49:51.294
They kept putting it off.

00:49:51.294 --> 00:49:52.935
It is difficult to know why.

00:49:52.935 --> 00:49:55.101
I think partly because they were frightened he might fail.

00:49:55.101 --> 00:50:00.504
>> He needed support, so he asked me to go with him.

00:50:00.504 --> 00:50:05.393
And I saw that in the plane there were lots of people pushing Nando,

00:50:05.393 --> 00:50:07.127
but they wouldn't go with him.

00:50:07.127 --> 00:50:13.761
So, I thought that this was a very coward attitude of supporting someone,

00:50:13.761 --> 00:50:17.161
but not completely.

00:50:17.161 --> 00:50:22.455
At that moment I realized that I was the guy that could help Nando.

00:50:22.455 --> 00:50:24.426
Nando said, "Because you see very well."

00:50:24.426 --> 00:50:25.964
"You can handle the maps, and you're a handy man."

00:50:25.964 --> 00:50:28.725
"And I want you to go."

00:50:28.725 --> 00:50:30.391
Nando was fit.

00:50:30.391 --> 00:50:33.199
I was fit.

00:50:33.199 --> 00:50:37.771
>> The last expedition was made up of Parrado, Canessa, and Vizintin,

00:50:37.771 --> 00:50:39.573
and they had the sleeping bag.

00:50:39.573 --> 00:50:42.179
>> I had the idea that with the insulation,

00:50:42.179 --> 00:50:43.877
you could make a sleeping bag,

00:50:43.877 --> 00:50:45.380
but I not only had the idea.

00:50:45.380 --> 00:50:49.920
I made it myself, and it was, without a doubt,

00:50:49.920 --> 00:50:51.650
the proudest moment of my life.

00:50:51.650 --> 00:50:57.156
The contribution that I made for that final expedition -- that sleeping bag that I made.

00:50:57.156 --> 00:51:02.982
>> Carlitos with a needle and copper wire sewed those pieces together,

00:51:02.982 --> 00:51:10.436
and we made like a sleeping bag that fundamental to cope with the cold and escape.

00:51:10.436 --> 00:51:13.908
>> When I go on a climb, I have a checklist of equipment --

00:51:13.908 --> 00:51:18.144
cold weather gear -- solid, heavy boots, crampons,

00:51:18.144 --> 00:51:22.414
which attach to the boots, which give me traction in the snow --

00:51:22.414 --> 00:51:30.153
ice axes, gloves, hats, insulated clothing, tents, sleeping bags, ropes, anchors.

00:51:30.153 --> 00:51:32.889
I mean there's a pile of equipment

00:51:32.889 --> 00:51:36.997
that we really don't ever leave home without when we go into the mountains.

00:51:36.997 --> 00:51:38.799
And when these guys crashed --

00:51:38.799 --> 00:51:39.814
You know, they were rugby players.

00:51:39.814 --> 00:51:41.915
They were dressed for summer.

00:51:41.915 --> 00:51:44.804
To land in the middle of this arctic wilderness,

00:51:44.804 --> 00:51:47.378
you might say, with literally nothing,

00:51:47.378 --> 00:51:49.726
it was a pretty amazing feat.

00:51:49.726 --> 00:51:50.947
We've got to improvise.

00:51:50.947 --> 00:51:55.473
We've got to build and create our own equipment just so that we can get out of here.

00:51:55.473 --> 00:51:59.953
>> We had already decided that three of us were going to leave the airplane

00:51:59.953 --> 00:52:03.256
as soon as we had a window in the weather.

00:52:03.256 --> 00:52:06.829
Finally, we left on December 12th.

00:52:06.829 --> 00:52:07.577


00:52:07.577 --> 00:52:10.492
The three of us.

00:52:10.492 --> 00:52:12.865
>> We left to walk off and Nando returns and he tells me,

00:52:12.865 --> 00:52:18.129
"Carlitos, before leaving I want to give a kiss to your rosary."

00:52:18.129 --> 00:52:21.044
In exchange for that he gives me a little shoe and he tells me,

00:52:21.044 --> 00:52:24.560
"Carlitos, I promise you that I'm going to come back for this other shoe."

00:52:24.560 --> 00:52:29.056
That he was going to come back to reunite the pair.

00:52:29.056 --> 00:52:32.220
But then he adds, "But this is the most important,

00:52:32.220 --> 00:52:39.702
but if this doesn't happen and you need to use my mother and my sister, then do it."

00:52:39.702 --> 00:52:43.829
And that was such a great act because he didn't have to give us that authorization,

00:52:43.829 --> 00:52:45.698
but he did.

00:52:45.698 --> 00:52:50.283


00:52:50.283 --> 00:52:55.535
>> To the west is Chile, and this was the idea which we left the fuselage.

00:52:55.535 --> 00:52:58.715
>> The only certain thing was to the west was Chile.

00:52:58.715 --> 00:53:03.386


00:53:03.386 --> 00:53:07.289
>> On the first day we were very optimistic and full of energy.

00:53:07.289 --> 00:53:11.296
And at the beginning of the day everything is very easy because the snow is very hard.

00:53:11.296 --> 00:53:13.564
But as the day passes by the snow begins to melt.

00:53:13.564 --> 00:53:16.299
>> I had never climbed any mountains before,

00:53:16.299 --> 00:53:19.732
so I didn't know what I was doing.

00:53:19.732 --> 00:53:22.232
It was so strange.

00:53:22.232 --> 00:53:26.037
At that altitude, you breathe and you get less oxygen.

00:53:26.037 --> 00:53:32.611
I remember seeing those films with climbers walking very slowly towards the summit of the mountains.

00:53:32.611 --> 00:53:34.883
And I said, "Why don't they walk faster?"

00:53:34.883 --> 00:53:38.375
And then I was in the same situation, and I just couldn't move.

00:53:38.375 --> 00:53:46.195
You just take five breaths and move one leg and then the other leg and you climb and climb.

00:53:46.195 --> 00:53:48.228
>> When they were confronted with this headwall,

00:53:48.228 --> 00:53:53.561
they had 2,000 feet of climbing to do at a 45 degree angle,

00:53:53.561 --> 00:53:56.436
which is quite steep.

00:53:56.436 --> 00:54:01.307
And the snow was an impediment to their climbing higher.

00:54:01.307 --> 00:54:02.972
And you can imagine without any skill --

00:54:02.972 --> 00:54:07.750
without any training, you are like a child when you are confronted with a snow slope.

00:54:07.750 --> 00:54:09.987
You try to go straight up.

00:54:09.987 --> 00:54:12.016
You might be using your hands and your feet.

00:54:12.016 --> 00:54:12.791
You're slipping.

00:54:12.791 --> 00:54:13.792
You're sliding.

00:54:13.792 --> 00:54:17.994
For every step that you go up, you slide back a half a step.

00:54:17.994 --> 00:54:20.425
>> It's hard to explain the fear of the unknown.

00:54:20.425 --> 00:54:23.175
The having no clue what you are getting yourself into.

00:54:23.175 --> 00:54:25.309
It could be terrifying.

00:54:25.309 --> 00:54:28.237
Even in mountaineering, when we do know what we're up against --

00:54:28.237 --> 00:54:29.803
What the route is.

00:54:29.803 --> 00:54:31.574
What the summit is.

00:54:31.574 --> 00:54:34.404
It has been documented and everything.

00:54:34.404 --> 00:54:36.894
It's still intimidating.

00:54:36.894 --> 00:54:38.715
>> I looks like courage.

00:54:38.715 --> 00:54:40.817
I can tell you it was not courage.

00:54:40.817 --> 00:54:41.904
It was fear.

00:54:41.904 --> 00:54:46.279
>> And we tried then to climb through the rocky parts instead of the snow,

00:54:46.279 --> 00:54:49.483
and this came unloosed and there were huge rocks coming down.

00:54:49.483 --> 00:54:51.561
I was telling Nando, "We are going to kill ourselves."

00:54:51.561 --> 00:54:54.225
I was telling Nando, "Come down. This is not the way."

00:54:54.225 --> 00:55:00.672
>> I was so wasted when we reached one of the false summits.

00:55:00.672 --> 00:55:10.150


00:55:10.150 --> 00:55:12.215
I said there is no more strength in me.

00:55:12.215 --> 00:55:14.072
Roberto said, "Come on."

00:55:14.072 --> 00:55:15.755
"Are you breathing?"

00:55:15.755 --> 00:55:16.564
"You're still breathing."

00:55:16.564 --> 00:55:17.339
"Come on."

00:55:17.339 --> 00:55:18.356
"You can do It."

00:55:18.356 --> 00:55:22.820
I said, "Okay, I'll keep on going until I stop breathing."

00:55:22.820 --> 00:55:24.390
That was my thought.

00:55:24.390 --> 00:55:25.391
Nothing more profound.

00:55:25.391 --> 00:55:27.996
Nothing more critical.

00:55:27.996 --> 00:55:28.531
I'm alive.

00:55:28.531 --> 00:55:29.425
I'm breathing.

00:55:29.425 --> 00:55:31.253
I'll keep on going.

00:55:31.253 --> 00:55:33.890
>> And we put the sleeping bag and the wind come down,

00:55:33.890 --> 00:55:35.785
and the valley was incredible.

00:55:35.785 --> 00:55:37.464
It was just gorgeous,

00:55:37.464 --> 00:55:39.563
and the moon came down.

00:55:39.563 --> 00:55:42.911
And we had some buns that we had find on the tail of the plane.

00:55:42.911 --> 00:55:46.863
And taking this run, and I couldn't believe that I was enjoying the scenery,

00:55:46.863 --> 00:55:49.826
after struggling and crying and weaping.

00:55:49.826 --> 00:55:57.277


00:55:57.277 --> 00:56:01.323
>> What we were facing after the first day climbing that first mountain,

00:56:01.323 --> 00:56:04.080
was not what I expected to find.

00:56:04.080 --> 00:56:09.808
The first day I thought I was going to be in the summit and looking at the green valleys of Chile,

00:56:09.808 --> 00:56:13.480
but we were half way climb the mountain.

00:56:13.480 --> 00:56:15.740
>> It was very disheartening for the first three days,

00:56:15.740 --> 00:56:20.057
because it took them three days to climb up.

00:56:20.057 --> 00:56:24.009
What they thought would only take one day took three.

00:56:24.009 --> 00:56:27.552
And for three days we saw them as little points up there on the mountain.

00:56:27.552 --> 00:56:36.529


00:56:36.529 --> 00:56:40.755
>> Roberto was looking in the distance and seeing a line thinking "that could be a road."

00:56:40.755 --> 00:56:43.067
And it was impossible for them to tell if it was or not.

00:56:43.067 --> 00:56:47.914
>> The road is very interesting because Nando says that the road doesn't exist.

00:56:47.914 --> 00:56:54.173
But the road is there, and I bet everything that I saw that road.

00:56:54.173 --> 00:56:58.455
>> We actually know now that what he was looking at was the road.

00:56:58.455 --> 00:56:59.403
I was there.

00:56:59.403 --> 00:57:01.287
I took a photograph.

00:57:01.287 --> 00:57:08.089
And I realized that we could actually see the road that we use now from the east to access this valley.

00:57:08.089 --> 00:57:12.899
>> But this is a very interesting because although this was a right answer,

00:57:12.899 --> 00:57:21.524
at that moment it was a chance in 1,000 that was a road.

00:57:21.524 --> 00:57:23.108
>> They were in a very tough situation.

00:57:23.108 --> 00:57:27.486
They had already made a huge effort to get that high on the mountain,

00:57:27.486 --> 00:57:32.108
and Nando still had the hope that looking over the top of the mountain,

00:57:32.108 --> 00:57:34.857
he was going to see green valleys and everything.

00:57:34.857 --> 00:57:39.924


00:57:39.924 --> 00:57:43.164
>> When I was run down, Nando would say, "Let's keep going."

00:57:43.164 --> 00:57:49.760
>> I would climb the mountain, and I would see salvation on the other side.

00:57:49.760 --> 00:57:56.559
And when we climbed that first mountain what we saw to the other side really froze me.

00:57:56.559 --> 00:58:06.515


00:58:06.515 --> 00:58:08.217
I couldn't breathe.

00:58:08.217 --> 00:58:09.931
I couldn't speak.

00:58:09.931 --> 00:58:13.059
I couldn't even think because what we saw was horrible.

00:58:13.059 --> 00:58:18.946
Instead of green valleys, we saw mountains and snow-covered peaks 360 degrees around us --

00:58:18.946 --> 00:58:22.309
to the horizon -- all around us.

00:58:22.309 --> 00:58:27.726


00:58:27.726 --> 00:58:31.937
And I knew that I was really dead.

00:58:31.937 --> 00:58:35.823
I decided the way I was going to die.

00:58:35.823 --> 00:58:41.249
There was absolutely no way we could survive what we were looking at.

00:58:41.249 --> 00:58:42.774
I told Roberto,

00:58:42.774 --> 00:58:45.239
"Look, Roberto, there is no way we can go back."

00:58:45.239 --> 00:58:46.971
"The only way is forward."

00:58:46.971 --> 00:58:49.264
"We'll die, but we'll die trying."

00:58:49.264 --> 00:58:53.139
And he looked at me, and I said, "Okay, we have done so many things together."

00:58:53.139 --> 00:58:55.808
"Let's do one more."

00:58:55.808 --> 00:58:56.973
"Let's die together."

00:58:56.973 --> 00:59:08.490


00:59:08.490 --> 00:59:12.850
>> When the three of them Vizintin, Nano, and Roberto got to the top of the mountain

00:59:12.850 --> 00:59:17.729
and saw there weren't the green valleys of Chile that they always supposed would be on the other

00:59:17.729 --> 00:59:19.991
side of the mountain, it was a terrible moment.

00:59:19.991 --> 00:59:22.327
And psychologically it was a terrible blow.

00:59:22.327 --> 00:59:27.060
And, again, it sort of shows Nando's extraordinary psychological resilience.

00:59:27.060 --> 00:59:31.809
Instead of being daunted and depressed and giving up in despair,

00:59:31.809 --> 00:59:34.135
he just said right, "We are just going to go on."

00:59:34.135 --> 00:59:36.180
"We are going to keep going west."

00:59:36.180 --> 00:59:42.284
>> It has been said that hard and tough and challenging situations create character.

00:59:42.284 --> 00:59:45.026
I think they actually reveal character.

00:59:45.026 --> 00:59:48.683
When you're put into a situation -- a desperate situation --

00:59:48.683 --> 00:59:54.161
all the tings that you are and learned come out.

00:59:54.161 --> 00:59:57.224
>> Roberto and myself, we got along very, very together.

00:59:57.224 --> 00:59:59.539
We were a fantastic team.

00:59:59.539 --> 01:00:03.329
And I told Roberto, "Look, the three of us move very slowly."

01:00:03.329 --> 01:00:05.113
And we said, "Antonio, please go back."

01:00:05.113 --> 01:00:07.376
"Give us whatever you have of food."

01:00:07.376 --> 01:00:09.351
"The two of us will go froward."

01:00:09.351 --> 01:00:12.746
"Tell the guys that we'll climb and trek to the west."

01:00:12.746 --> 01:00:22.189


01:00:22.189 --> 01:00:24.358
>> Tintin -- he was delighted.

01:00:24.358 --> 01:00:27.491
He beetled back down the mountain as quickly as he possibly could,

01:00:27.491 --> 01:00:29.567
because at least they felt safe in that plane.

01:00:29.567 --> 01:00:32.023
You know, they had survived and would go on surviving.

01:00:32.023 --> 01:00:35.445
>> After three days, we saw that one of them came down,

01:00:35.445 --> 01:00:38.580
and we went to meet him.

01:00:38.580 --> 01:00:40.541
And it was Vizintin.

01:00:40.541 --> 01:00:42.494
And when we got there,

01:00:42.494 --> 01:00:47.196
he told us instead of finding the green valleys of Chile they saw a pathetic and disheartening panorama.

01:00:47.196 --> 01:00:54.315
But Nando and Roberto made the decision to take Vizintin's food and his extra clothes.

01:00:54.315 --> 01:00:59.156
And they sent him to the fuselage with the message that the two of them would forage ahead.

01:00:59.156 --> 01:01:03.867
And they wouldn't stop until they were dead.

01:01:03.867 --> 01:01:07.807
>> He saw two peaks that had now snow on them.

01:01:07.807 --> 01:01:11.446


01:01:11.446 --> 01:01:12.472
And behind those peaks you can see no more peaks,

01:01:12.472 --> 01:01:16.743
and you see the moisture of the Pacific Ocean.

01:01:16.743 --> 01:01:19.578
When you stand there and you look at how far those peaks are,

01:01:19.578 --> 01:01:26.854
it brings it home what a desperate situation they were in.

01:01:26.854 --> 01:01:29.322
>> My need to get out was completely unique to me

01:01:29.322 --> 01:01:33.161
because there would be a time when we didn't have more bodies

01:01:33.161 --> 01:01:35.463
except the bodies of my mother and my sister.

01:01:35.463 --> 01:01:40.739
And I wouldn't even like to think to get to that moment when we would have to use their corpses to survive.

01:01:40.739 --> 01:01:44.913
I had to get out of there,

01:01:44.913 --> 01:01:48.007
and we started down the mountains.

01:01:48.007 --> 01:01:51.838
That was two guys deciding to go forward.

01:01:51.838 --> 01:01:53.396
>> And I said, "Let's go for it."

01:01:53.396 --> 01:01:56.240
"Let's forget about it."

01:01:56.240 --> 01:02:02.546
And I knew this was a no return way, but every step is a step.

01:02:02.546 --> 01:02:05.593
And if we had gone back to the plane,

01:02:05.593 --> 01:02:08.457
there were no chances.

01:02:08.457 --> 01:02:13.805
>> I wanted to see what they were up against.

01:02:13.805 --> 01:02:15.481
What they had gone through.

01:02:15.481 --> 01:02:17.443
Just how challenging it was -- especially for a mountaineer.

01:02:17.443 --> 01:02:19.702
I was fascinated by it.

01:02:19.702 --> 01:02:22.706
So, in December 2005, we retraced the escape route.

01:02:22.706 --> 01:02:28.142
We choose the same days that the survivors had gone.

01:02:28.142 --> 01:02:30.887
We wanted to experience the same snow conditions.

01:02:30.887 --> 01:02:35.527
Recreate as much as possible the challenge they had without, of course, killing ourselves.

01:02:35.527 --> 01:02:38.264
We brought equipment.

01:02:38.264 --> 01:02:39.792
We came prepared.

01:02:39.792 --> 01:02:43.189
Our plan was to try to set up similar camps to what they had done.

01:02:43.189 --> 01:02:45.028
As closely as possible.

01:02:45.028 --> 01:02:46.597
But once we were on the slope,

01:02:46.597 --> 01:02:50.467
the slope was so avalanche prone that the whole slope could go.

01:02:50.467 --> 01:02:52.605
You could fall to your death.

01:02:52.605 --> 01:02:55.669
I didn't like it.

01:02:55.669 --> 01:02:58.381
I thought the only thing to do here is just push and to go all the way to the top in one day.

01:02:58.381 --> 01:03:01.307
Once you hit the ridge, you're safe of avalanches.

01:03:01.307 --> 01:03:03.520
Nothing is going to fall on you.

01:03:03.520 --> 01:03:05.892
And so it was a brutal day.

01:03:05.892 --> 01:03:07.624
It was a really hard day.

01:03:07.624 --> 01:03:10.426
We pushed really hard and went all the way up.

01:03:10.426 --> 01:03:13.757
Basically, covering the distance that Nando and Roberto covered in three days.

01:03:13.757 --> 01:03:16.223
It was exhausting.

01:03:16.223 --> 01:03:21.193
When you are in the mountains, it is much harder to judge distances and sizes.

01:03:21.193 --> 01:03:28.113
They valleys they climbed down on are just immense.

01:03:28.113 --> 01:03:31.306
There is a picture that we took where you see this little dot.

01:03:31.306 --> 01:03:35.454
Just a black little speck there.

01:03:35.454 --> 01:03:38.350
It's actually Myau, one of our expedition members.

01:03:38.350 --> 01:03:42.787
Once you see that little dot, you realize the size of the valley you're looking at.

01:03:42.787 --> 01:03:45.919
It's very, very huge mountains all around you.

01:03:45.919 --> 01:03:48.963
It is really a very humbling experience.

01:03:48.963 --> 01:03:52.924
>> What I remember of the ten days with Roberto,

01:03:52.924 --> 01:03:58.547
it's like blurred images of continuous and strenuous effort.

01:03:58.547 --> 01:04:01.000
It was so huge.

01:04:01.000 --> 01:04:05.313
The mountains are so huge that it looks like you don't make any progress.

01:04:05.313 --> 01:04:12.149
And you think, "I'll get there in two or three hours or five hours."

01:04:12.149 --> 01:04:14.120
But it is so huge that you never get there.

01:04:14.120 --> 01:04:18.974
The only way you go forward is because you can't go back.

01:04:18.974 --> 01:04:25.909
>> Nando and Roberto as they journeyed out for those ten long, adruous days

01:04:25.909 --> 01:04:28.607
that was an amazing feat,

01:04:28.607 --> 01:04:33.467
and you truly have to think about what they suffered through.

01:04:33.467 --> 01:04:34.645
They can't explain that.

01:04:34.645 --> 01:04:37.977
I think I have an idea of what they went through.

01:04:37.977 --> 01:04:39.563
But it is still quite an amazing feat.

01:04:39.563 --> 01:04:45.058
>> I think it was Roberto that said, "One foot on ground and another foot on snow."

01:04:45.058 --> 01:04:47.088
"This is the line between life and death."

01:04:47.088 --> 01:04:48.959
"I'm going to make it."

01:04:48.959 --> 01:04:50.889
"I'm not going to die out there like everybody else."

01:04:50.889 --> 01:04:52.761
"I'm going to live."

01:04:52.761 --> 01:04:57.964
>> That line where the ice finished for me was the line between life and death for myself.

01:04:57.964 --> 01:05:02.300
>> It was like crossing a very thin line --

01:05:02.300 --> 01:05:04.591
jumping from one side to another one.

01:05:04.591 --> 01:05:06.975
We were very happy.

01:05:06.975 --> 01:05:09.059
>> Now, that the temperatures were warmer,

01:05:09.059 --> 01:05:11.212
now that they are not in such a danger to freeze,

01:05:11.212 --> 01:05:14.452
now they don't have refrigeration for their food.

01:05:14.452 --> 01:05:17.812
And so their food starts going rotten.

01:05:17.812 --> 01:05:20.149
That's a new problem.

01:05:20.149 --> 01:05:34.772


01:05:34.772 --> 01:05:39.313
>> Nando and Roberto had left the 12th of December 1972.

01:05:39.313 --> 01:05:43.006
We were near losing our hopes.

01:05:43.006 --> 01:05:52.073


01:05:52.073 --> 01:05:55.029
>> The next day we were very happy to see things changing

01:05:55.029 --> 01:05:57.623
from no more fear of snow, ice, rock,

01:05:57.623 --> 01:06:00.188
and we begin hearing water.

01:06:00.188 --> 01:06:01.749
It was pouring out.

01:06:01.749 --> 01:06:04.725
Hearing water was going back to normal life.

01:06:04.725 --> 01:06:06.508
And then we saw this river.

01:06:06.508 --> 01:06:09.662
It was growing out of the ice.

01:06:09.662 --> 01:06:14.665
And I saw a green spot there.

01:06:14.665 --> 01:06:17.077
>> I had a grasp of life.

01:06:17.077 --> 01:06:20.374
First when we saw that there was some civilization here --

01:06:20.374 --> 01:06:22.082
We saw a cow.

01:06:22.082 --> 01:06:27.020
So, there must be a human being nearby.

01:06:27.020 --> 01:06:29.583
>> I could see how significant that was for them.

01:06:29.583 --> 01:06:31.456
When you start seeing plants.

01:06:31.456 --> 01:06:32.831
You start seeing a little bit of flowers -- living things.

01:06:32.831 --> 01:06:34.744
And you smell these flowers.

01:06:34.744 --> 01:06:37.629
You haven't smelled anything like that in so many days.

01:06:37.629 --> 01:06:40.195
And little grass you can smell.

01:06:40.195 --> 01:06:42.272
It was just like, "Wow!"

01:06:42.272 --> 01:06:44.496
They talk about starting to find their first signs of civilization,

01:06:44.496 --> 01:06:48.066
and they had a big debate, Nando and Roberto,

01:06:48.066 --> 01:06:50.679
as to whether somebody threw it from a plane or something.

01:06:50.679 --> 01:06:54.229
And Roberto told him, "You can't open a window in a plane."

01:06:54.229 --> 01:06:56.447
"It obviously didn't come from a plane."

01:06:56.447 --> 01:07:01.625
It is the science of humans being here.

01:07:01.625 --> 01:07:03.445
>> I was in a five-star hotel.

01:07:03.445 --> 01:07:05.725
I had water.

01:07:05.725 --> 01:07:07.292
I had grass to eat.

01:07:07.292 --> 01:07:10.093
And I realized what simple things we need to be happy.

01:07:10.093 --> 01:07:13.393
And how we demand lots more than what we need in life.

01:07:13.393 --> 01:07:40.814


01:07:40.814 --> 01:07:46.093
>> The precise moment that I really knew that I was going to survive,

01:07:46.093 --> 01:07:48.332
I was looking towards the west,

01:07:48.332 --> 01:07:51.497
and Roberto was looking towards the north.

01:07:51.497 --> 01:07:54.924
And Roberto said, "Look, Nando, a man on a horse."

01:07:54.924 --> 01:07:58.647
I looked and instantly I saw him.

01:07:58.647 --> 01:08:12.442


01:08:12.442 --> 01:08:15.664
We started to shout both of us.

01:08:15.664 --> 01:08:17.771
Somebody is looking at us.

01:08:17.771 --> 01:08:19.858
It's a human being.

01:08:19.858 --> 01:08:21.728
We couldn't communicate,

01:08:21.728 --> 01:08:23.796
but he looked at us because, obviously,

01:08:23.796 --> 01:08:25.808
he couldn't believe that there were two guys so high up in the mountains.

01:08:25.808 --> 01:08:27.978
>> It was very difficult to communicate across this river

01:08:27.978 --> 01:08:29.108
because of the noise of this raging river.

01:08:29.108 --> 01:08:31.741
You can't cross it.

01:08:31.741 --> 01:08:33.340
There's just no way.

01:08:33.340 --> 01:08:35.756
There's no question.

01:08:35.756 --> 01:08:37.921
If you get down, it'll take you down and you'll drown.

01:08:37.921 --> 01:08:40.181
>> The night came and we lost sight of him.

01:08:40.181 --> 01:08:42.402
And we spent all that night with Roberto,

01:08:42.402 --> 01:08:44.217
I remember, talking and saying,

01:08:44.217 --> 01:08:47.122
"Okay, look we are near civilization, so maybe tomorrow we'll get help."

01:08:47.122 --> 01:08:49.129
"I feel so happy now."

01:08:49.129 --> 01:08:51.327
"How do you feel."

01:08:51.327 --> 01:08:53.362
All those things.

01:08:53.362 --> 01:08:55.501
And we have to get help for the other guys.

01:08:55.501 --> 01:08:59.777
The next morning at around 5:30, 6:00,

01:08:59.777 --> 01:09:01.773
we saw a small fire on the shore --

01:09:01.773 --> 01:09:04.981
at the edge of the river on the other side of the river.

01:09:04.981 --> 01:09:07.449
I was stronger than Roberto, so I went down.

01:09:07.449 --> 01:09:12.184
The sound of the water was so high that we couldn't understand eachohter.

01:09:12.184 --> 01:09:16.486
And this guy with great intelligence and common sense,

01:09:16.486 --> 01:09:19.847
he got a small stone, put a piece of paper around

01:09:19.847 --> 01:09:23.994
it, tied it with a string, and pencil and threw it across the river.

01:09:23.994 --> 01:09:26.376
That's when I wrote that message.

01:09:26.376 --> 01:09:29.333
I come from that plane that fell into the mountains.

01:09:29.333 --> 01:09:32.740
I'm Uruguayan.

01:09:32.740 --> 01:09:34.767
We have been walking for ten days.

01:09:34.767 --> 01:09:37.776
I have a friend up there that is injured.

01:09:37.776 --> 01:09:40.190
In the plane there is still 14 injured people.

01:09:40.190 --> 01:09:43.196
We have to get out of here quickly,

01:09:43.196 --> 01:09:46.292
and we do not know how.

01:09:46.292 --> 01:09:48.421
We don't have any food.

01:09:48.421 --> 01:09:49.926
We are weak.

01:09:49.926 --> 01:09:52.496
When are you going to come and fetch us.

01:09:52.496 --> 01:09:54.623
Please, we can't even walk.

01:09:54.623 --> 01:09:56.772
Where are we?

01:09:56.772 --> 01:09:58.771
For me the most important part is the last sentence.

01:09:58.771 --> 01:10:00.999
"Where are we?"

01:10:00.999 --> 01:10:03.139
We didn't have a clue where we were.

01:10:03.139 --> 01:10:05.245
We knew we were in the Andes in South America,

01:10:05.245 --> 01:10:07.301
but that was our reference point.

01:10:07.301 --> 01:10:09.378
Where are we?

01:10:09.378 --> 01:10:13.939


01:10:13.939 --> 01:10:16.016
I threw it back to him.

01:10:16.016 --> 01:10:18.028
He reads it.

01:10:18.028 --> 01:10:20.126
He looks at me.

01:10:20.126 --> 01:10:22.187
Reads it again.

01:10:22.187 --> 01:10:23.922
He says, "Okay, wait, wait."

01:10:23.922 --> 01:10:27.233
And he got on his horse,

01:10:27.233 --> 01:10:31.493
but before he threw me a little piece of bread and cheese

01:10:31.493 --> 01:10:34.670
that I brought to Roberto.

01:10:34.670 --> 01:10:44.741


01:10:44.741 --> 01:10:47.211
It took him ten hours to go by horseback to the nearest civilization.

01:10:47.211 --> 01:10:52.358
When he got there, he got five or six military men on horseback from a military post.

01:10:52.358 --> 01:10:54.817
And he climbed back, and when they come back,

01:10:54.817 --> 01:10:58.111
we were so happy.

01:10:58.111 --> 01:11:00.541
You were leaving behind horror.

01:11:00.541 --> 01:11:03.659
You were leaving behind death.

01:11:03.659 --> 01:11:06.837
And you embraced life again.

01:11:06.837 --> 01:11:28.188


01:11:28.188 --> 01:11:30.242
And suddenly reality started to shoot on us,

01:11:30.242 --> 01:11:32.623
when we saw that journalist and news men from nowhere

01:11:32.623 --> 01:11:40.607
started to appear in the middle of the mountains.

01:11:40.607 --> 01:12:24.581
>> Nando lost his family.

01:12:24.581 --> 01:12:27.776
And I think this was very devastating for him.

01:12:27.776 --> 01:12:32.318
>> They gave us some food.

01:12:32.318 --> 01:12:33.438
They gave us warm soup.

01:12:33.438 --> 01:12:36.493
I remember and things like that.

01:12:36.493 --> 01:12:38.587
And then they displayed them up,

01:12:38.587 --> 01:12:40.659
and said, "Where are the other guys?"

01:12:40.659 --> 01:12:42.808
And I draw a circle on the map.

01:12:42.808 --> 01:12:44.866
And they said that's Argentina.

01:12:44.866 --> 01:12:47.593
You couldn't have crossed the Andes on foot.

01:12:47.593 --> 01:12:50.951
And I said, "Look, I don't know if that's Argentina, but I know that they are there."

01:12:50.951 --> 01:12:56.212
>> The distance they covered from where the fuselage was to Los Maitenes

01:12:56.212 --> 01:12:59.610
was about 37 miles.

01:12:59.610 --> 01:13:02.081
We measured it with GPS.

01:13:02.081 --> 01:13:07.317
The problem with that number is that these are really long miles.

01:13:07.317 --> 01:13:12.116
>> What Nando and Roberto did still kind of blows me away.

01:13:12.116 --> 01:13:14.263
With literally no training.

01:13:14.263 --> 01:13:16.359
No skills.

01:13:16.359 --> 01:13:18.500
No knowledge of what they were doing and no equipment.

01:13:18.500 --> 01:13:21.102
Somehow they survived.

01:13:21.102 --> 01:13:23.796
>> I had to retrace the expedition.

01:13:23.796 --> 01:13:28.844
I think it's just a really inspiring example of the human spirit --

01:13:28.844 --> 01:13:31.841
Of what humans can do in extreme conditions when there's that strong will

01:13:31.841 --> 01:13:42.690


01:13:42.690 --> 01:13:45.655
>> We heard the Uruguayan Ambassador on the radio that it was official.

01:13:45.655 --> 01:13:48.638
That Canessa and Parrado had appeared.

01:13:48.638 --> 01:13:54.093
Imagine that moment -- what it was like to hear the names: Parrado and Canessa.

01:13:54.093 --> 01:13:59.040
To hear these names was the end of our story -- the end of our pain.

01:13:59.040 --> 01:14:01.241
The end of our fight.

01:14:01.241 --> 01:14:04.340
It was the beginning of our freedom.

01:14:04.340 --> 01:14:06.274
That was what we had fought for.

01:14:06.274 --> 01:14:09.443
Imagine what that was like?

01:14:09.443 --> 01:14:12.116
We were like crazy men around the radio.

01:14:12.116 --> 01:14:15.654
It still gives me goose bumps just thinking about it today --

01:14:15.654 --> 01:14:21.159
hundreds of times and 37 years after it happened still it makes me emotional.

01:14:21.159 --> 01:14:26.839


01:14:26.839 --> 01:14:29.020
>> And that's when they called for helicopters.

01:14:29.020 --> 01:14:31.339
And when the helicopters arrived, this thing happened.

01:14:31.339 --> 01:14:33.547
Where are the guys?

01:14:33.547 --> 01:14:35.709
And I drew the same circle,

01:14:35.709 --> 01:14:37.275
and the pilot looked at me and said,

01:14:37.275 --> 01:14:39.953
"Look, I will never find them."

01:14:39.953 --> 01:14:42.201
"You have to come with us."

01:14:42.201 --> 01:14:44.305
So they took me, put me on the helicopter, .

01:14:44.305 --> 01:14:47.968
strapped me with seat belts, headphones, a microphone, and we took off.

01:14:47.968 --> 01:14:52.688


01:14:52.688 --> 01:14:55.498
The pilot kept telling to me,

01:14:55.498 --> 01:14:57.634
"I don't have enough power."

01:14:57.634 --> 01:14:59.926
"I'm too high for this type of helicopter."

01:14:59.926 --> 01:15:01.432
"Are you sure?"

01:15:01.432 --> 01:15:04.168
"Are you sure you're not lost?"

01:15:04.168 --> 01:15:06.069
No, I'm not lost.

01:15:06.069 --> 01:15:07.736
I know where I am.

01:15:07.736 --> 01:15:09.641
I remember the helicopter shaking,

01:15:09.641 --> 01:15:11.241
and the Plexiglas from the front vibrating.

01:15:11.241 --> 01:15:13.009
It looked like it was coming off the rivets.

01:15:13.009 --> 01:15:14.782
The engine of the helicopter was at full power.

01:15:14.782 --> 01:15:16.537
And finally we crossed over the mountains and then the pilot threw the helicopter down.

01:15:16.537 --> 01:15:18.178
I said, "Look, it's there."

01:15:18.178 --> 01:15:20.017
"It's there."

01:15:20.017 --> 01:15:21.435
And the fuselage was white on white.

01:15:21.435 --> 01:15:25.094
Until we were about 300 yards away,

01:15:25.094 --> 01:15:27.307
he couldn't see it.

01:15:27.307 --> 01:15:29.768
And suddenly he says, "I see."

01:15:29.768 --> 01:15:31.884
"I see."

01:15:31.884 --> 01:16:03.592


01:16:03.592 --> 01:16:28.282
>> Two of my friends jumped into the helicopter,

01:16:28.282 --> 01:16:31.386
and I grabbed Daniel with my hands,

01:16:31.386 --> 01:16:34.530
and the pilot took off.

01:16:34.530 --> 01:16:36.717
He said, "How many do we have?"

01:16:36.717 --> 01:16:38.932
I said, "three, three."

01:16:38.932 --> 01:16:41.093
I said, "Close the doors."

01:16:41.093 --> 01:16:43.271
"Close the doors."

01:16:43.271 --> 01:16:45.334
So I went there.

01:16:45.334 --> 01:16:47.343
I closed the door.

01:16:47.343 --> 01:16:49.034
I closed the other door.

01:16:49.034 --> 01:16:50.974
And I said, "Give me a break, please."

01:16:50.974 --> 01:16:53.948


01:16:53.948 --> 01:16:55.657
These friends of mine embraced me and they were crying and shouting so happy.

01:16:55.657 --> 01:16:58.484
You know, I remember those smiles so big.

01:16:58.484 --> 01:17:00.753
That was a wonderful moment, you know.

01:17:00.753 --> 01:17:11.599


01:17:11.599 --> 01:17:13.941
>> My father called me, and he was crying.

01:17:13.941 --> 01:17:16.037
He said, "Nando is alive."

01:17:16.037 --> 01:17:18.370
"Nando is alive."

01:17:18.370 --> 01:17:20.812


01:17:20.812 --> 01:17:23.003
I was sitting in my bed,

01:17:23.003 --> 01:17:25.178
and hugging me there was my father crying.

01:17:25.178 --> 01:17:27.383
And he was saying, "You were right."

01:17:27.383 --> 01:17:29.766
"He's alive."

01:17:29.766 --> 01:17:34.683
So, that was the way that I knew that Roberto and Nando had appeared.

01:17:34.683 --> 01:17:37.562
>> They were asking in Uruguay to give forth a list of the survivors.

01:17:37.562 --> 01:17:40.330
If it's for Uruguay, then I can give it to the country.

01:17:40.330 --> 01:17:42.900
And then I went about uncovering the names of the boys.

01:17:42.900 --> 01:17:55.187
And I started Fernando Parrado, Antonio Vizintin, until I came to the name of my son.

01:17:55.187 --> 01:18:00.544


01:18:00.544 --> 01:18:02.939


01:18:02.939 --> 01:18:05.250
And it's evident that I had to hold the phone down because of all the force of that name,

01:18:05.250 --> 01:18:08.237
and the surprise and the marvelous feeling of knowing that my son was alive.

01:18:08.237 --> 01:18:11.060
>> I got to the door of the this old hospital,

01:18:11.060 --> 01:18:14.025
and I was shouting that I wanted to go in.

01:18:14.025 --> 01:18:19.303
Nobody could stop me.

01:18:19.303 --> 01:18:22.701
And he was very skinny, but so beautiful.

01:18:22.701 --> 01:18:27.327
And he held my father in his arms,

01:18:27.327 --> 01:18:29.511
and he pulled him out of the floor.

01:18:29.511 --> 01:18:32.107
He was strong.

01:18:32.107 --> 01:18:40.884


01:18:40.884 --> 01:18:43.558
>> People ask me "At that moment did you felt guilt because you were alive?"

01:18:43.558 --> 01:18:45.857
We celebrated life.

01:18:45.857 --> 01:18:48.086
We didn't have any guilt.

01:18:48.086 --> 01:18:50.426
What kind of guilt?

01:18:50.426 --> 01:18:59.143


01:18:59.143 --> 01:19:01.399
>> An airplane with 45 people aboard --

01:19:01.399 --> 01:19:03.800
most of them members of the rugby team from Uruguay crashed on the flight

01:19:03.800 --> 01:19:06.130
from Uruguay crashed on a flight from Montevideo, Uruguay to Santiago, Chile.

01:19:06.130 --> 01:19:08.549
There was a search, but it was abandoned several weeks ago.

01:19:08.549 --> 01:19:10.812
Those mountains are a graveyard for airplanes.

01:19:10.812 --> 01:19:12.982
It is 18,000 feet high.

01:19:12.982 --> 01:19:15.753
They're icy cold, and continuing snow makes visibility there just about zero.

01:19:15.753 --> 01:19:18.657
All those aboard were given up for dead.

01:19:18.657 --> 01:19:22.458
And then today the incredible happened.

01:19:22.458 --> 01:19:27.462
Two starving, exhausted survivors who had hiked for ten days found their way to civilization.

01:19:27.462 --> 01:19:37.843


01:19:37.843 --> 01:19:40.893
>> I think that the biggest psychiatrist in the world

01:19:40.893 --> 01:19:44.853
would never find an answer to the human behavior there.

01:19:44.853 --> 01:19:48.133
>> Would I have done the same thing?

01:19:48.133 --> 01:19:51.349
When it came out in American, everyone in New York was saying:

01:19:51.349 --> 01:19:54.821
How would I have behaved if I'd been in that situation?

01:19:54.821 --> 01:19:59.204
>> In Spain, for instance, the first press release had titles such as --

01:19:59.204 --> 01:20:02.447
"The cannibals have returned."

01:20:02.447 --> 01:20:04.968
>> We had survived on the flesh of our friends,

01:20:04.968 --> 01:20:09.909
and we didn't want to hurt any feelings from the families which were our families too.

01:20:09.909 --> 01:20:14.909
>> These survivors in the most appalling conditions didn't turn into savages.

01:20:14.909 --> 01:20:19.018
They sustained one another.

01:20:19.018 --> 01:20:24.285
They kept their faith in god, and god would bring some of them out of it.

01:20:24.285 --> 01:20:31.959
I think it helped them enormously that when they were still in Chile in hospital

01:20:31.959 --> 01:20:36.037
a priest came by and said you did the right thing.

01:20:36.037 --> 01:20:39.143
And the Catholic Church immediately said they did the right thing.

01:20:39.143 --> 01:20:44.577
The survivors had decided at this point that they wanted a book to be written.

01:20:44.577 --> 01:20:50.312
And they formed a committee to choose the publisher and the author.

01:20:50.312 --> 01:20:53.991
>> They were very afraid of what kind of book would be written.

01:20:53.991 --> 01:20:59.534
Inevitably, the truth showed that some of the survivors had performed in a heroic manner.

01:20:59.534 --> 01:21:03.372
And other in a less heroic manner.

01:21:03.372 --> 01:21:08.014
But I felt that there was no point in writing a book unless you were going to tell the truth.

01:21:08.014 --> 01:21:13.241
The picture of Nando builds up in the book as someone exceptional,

01:21:13.241 --> 01:21:17.642
and in the end a person who saved them all, comes from the other characters.

01:21:17.642 --> 01:21:20.802
It doesn't come from Nando himself.

01:21:20.802 --> 01:21:24.112
>> It's very strange because we came out of the mountain with a same dreams.

01:21:24.112 --> 01:21:27.402
I had my house, my family, everything.

01:21:27.402 --> 01:21:36.326
And when he went to his house, his pictures were at the fireplace with the dead members of his family.

01:21:36.326 --> 01:21:41.129
>> My father, being very pragmatic, said, "He's not coming back."

01:21:41.129 --> 01:21:45.203
So, he gave away my clothes to people, and he sold my motorcycle.

01:21:45.203 --> 01:21:52.317
And he went into a very difficult mental state.

01:21:52.317 --> 01:21:55.187
>> He lovede

01:21:55.187 --> 01:21:58.614
>> He loved my mother and my sister very, very much.

01:21:58.614 --> 01:22:01.838
He cried for them until the end of his life.

01:22:01.838 --> 01:22:05.386
>> Nando tried to follow the normal dreams of a young guy.

01:22:05.386 --> 01:22:09.330
He was completely lost.

01:22:09.330 --> 01:22:12.306
He didn't know what to do or where to go.

01:22:12.306 --> 01:22:17.230
And so I don't know if he was tougher when he was out of the mountain,

01:22:17.230 --> 01:22:20.307
or when he was up there in the mountains.

01:22:20.307 --> 01:22:26.774
>> The Andes made him stronger because he lost his mother and his sister.

01:22:26.774 --> 01:22:31.853
And later, afterwards, he continued with such an amazing force of will

01:22:31.853 --> 01:22:37.041
that really isn't able to be expressed or understood.

01:22:37.041 --> 01:22:43.291
>> When I came back from the Andes I said,

01:22:43.291 --> 01:22:45.997
"Look, what's the most important thing in your life before that?"

01:22:45.997 --> 01:22:50.986
Before the plane crash, my father was the president of the Uruguayan Racing Drivers Association.

01:22:50.986 --> 01:22:53.586
So, he took me to the races since I was very young.

01:22:53.586 --> 01:22:55.989
So, I loved the sound, the cards, the racing.

01:22:55.989 --> 01:22:58.315
And I wanted to race, so I started racing.

01:22:58.315 --> 01:23:01.809
Because I thought it was important for me.

01:23:01.809 --> 01:23:04.252
It has nothing to do with the danger, with fear.

01:23:04.252 --> 01:23:06.991
No, it has to do with what I felt I should do in life.

01:23:06.991 --> 01:23:14.136
I know maybe I'm going to face some dangerous today.

01:23:14.136 --> 01:23:20.233
I don't look back and say, "Well, I had so much fear."

01:23:20.233 --> 01:23:22.589
"I don't want to have fear anymore."

01:23:22.589 --> 01:23:27.636
The main reason in my will of going out of there was seeing my family and my father again.

01:23:27.636 --> 01:23:34.715
So, I thought that naming the highest mountain we climbed this name,

01:23:34.715 --> 01:23:37.761
and it was kind of a gift to him.

01:23:37.761 --> 01:23:43.724
Even though he's gone through this tragic event and lost his mother and his sister,

01:23:43.724 --> 01:23:49.545
he decided that rather than grieve and completely shut down why not revel in life?

01:23:49.545 --> 01:23:53.200
Why not revel in the fact that I survived this.

01:23:53.200 --> 01:23:55.802
And if anything I think he kicked it up a notch,

01:23:55.802 --> 01:23:58.704
and said, "I'm going to take advantage of this life I have,

01:23:58.704 --> 01:24:00.935
and do the things I love rather than not do anything at all."

01:24:00.935 --> 01:24:04.089
>> And through cars, I found a beautiful girl.

01:24:04.089 --> 01:24:06.486
I married her.

01:24:06.486 --> 01:24:09.718
We have been married for more than 30 years.

01:24:09.718 --> 01:24:12.917
I was blessed the moment I decided I had to race cars.

01:24:12.917 --> 01:24:17.321
>> Two years ago, we all went to the crash site together.

01:24:17.321 --> 01:24:21.892
It was an incredible experience.

01:24:21.892 --> 01:24:28.674
And I think that in some sense, it was a way for him to show his daughters where they were born.

01:24:28.674 --> 01:24:33.371
Because had Nando not walked out -- not done what he did,

01:24:33.371 --> 01:24:36.477
they never would have been born.

01:24:36.477 --> 01:24:40.353
So, it was a way of showing them the beginning of their lives.

01:24:40.353 --> 01:24:44.944
>> I have had a fantastic life.

01:24:44.944 --> 01:24:47.620
I have a fantastic family.

01:24:47.620 --> 01:24:54.625
I'm doing what I love, which is appreciated in the astonishing fact of being alive.

01:24:54.625 --> 01:24:57.301
Every day.

01:24:57.301 --> 01:24:59.634
Every single breath.

01:24:59.634 --> 01:25:04.095


01:25:04.095 --> 01:25:07.685
>> We went back to Chile with Roberto and Gustavo and our families,

01:25:07.685 --> 01:25:13.359
and we were driving through this dirt roads, climbing the mountains, and suddenly

01:25:13.359 --> 01:25:19.875
we see a man on a horse coming down the mountain on the side of this small road.

01:25:19.875 --> 01:25:22.591
And we drive past him and it was Sergio.

01:25:22.591 --> 01:25:25.827
We recognized him.

01:25:25.827 --> 01:25:29.173
So, we stopped the car, and Roberto and I run towards him.

01:25:29.173 --> 01:25:31.497
I say, "Hey sir."

01:25:31.497 --> 01:25:34.016
"Please stop."

01:25:34.016 --> 01:25:36.336
"Stop."

01:25:36.336 --> 01:25:38.239
"We are lost."

01:25:38.239 --> 01:25:40.241
"Can you help us?"

01:25:40.241 --> 01:25:42.203
"Can you tell us where we should go to?"

01:25:42.203 --> 01:25:44.198
And he looked at us and started crying.

01:25:44.198 --> 01:25:46.140
I have that photograph of Sergio and the two of us.

01:25:46.140 --> 01:25:48.113
35 years later we remember him,

01:25:48.113 --> 01:25:49.770
and whenever we can we go and visit him.

01:25:49.770 --> 01:25:52.024
>> [Announcer] Ladies and gentleman, please welcome Mr. Nando Parrado.

01:25:52.024 --> 01:25:53.982
[Applause]

01:25:53.982 --> 01:26:01.857
>> Sometimes it's difficult to speak about ones self, you know,

01:26:01.857 --> 01:26:06.196
but it's nice to feel that sometimes you can give something back.

01:26:06.196 --> 01:26:11.068
I don't know if I have a message.

01:26:11.068 --> 01:26:14.426
I can share what I feel and what I learned,

01:26:14.426 --> 01:26:17.044
and what my life has brought me to.

01:26:17.044 --> 01:26:19.739
It's hard sometimes, you know.

01:26:19.739 --> 01:26:23.048
Life is simpler than than it looks.

01:26:23.048 --> 01:26:25.886
For me love is the most important thing in the world.

01:26:25.886 --> 01:26:28.324
The love for our families kept us alive.

01:26:28.324 --> 01:26:31.184


01:26:31.184 --> 01:26:49.904


01:26:49.904 --> 01:26:54.354
You know I would also like to honor all of the people that were on that plane,

01:26:54.354 --> 01:26:57.246
because instead of Nando here, Marcelo could be here,

01:26:57.246 --> 01:27:02.955
Guido, Arturo, Alexis, Gaston.

01:27:02.955 --> 01:27:05.966
Why am I here and not them.

01:27:05.966 --> 01:27:08.486
That's one of the questions we'll never have an answer.

01:27:08.486 --> 01:27:11.130
I say, "Susie, I wish, that you were here."

01:27:11.130 --> 01:27:14.604
"That we never would have boarded that airplane."

01:27:14.604 --> 01:27:22.089
"I send you the biggest and warmest embrace I could give where ever you are."

01:27:22.089 --> 01:27:24.773
And "You are always in my heart."

01:27:24.773 --> 01:27:26.943