Despite the conditions and the degree of weakness and lethargy, the survivors, led by the medicine student, Roberto Canessa, who proposed solutions for everything, slept poorly protected from the cold. To avoid hypothermia, on colder evenings, massages were given to reactivate the blood circulation and tried to maintain body temperature in contact with each other. In mid-November, two young, died due to their wounds, they had gangrene infection caused by the injuries from the crash.
The survivors had little food. During the days after the accident they rationed the food available, but soon it was insufficient. Lack of food and the intense cold caused a low of defenses that allowed the continuous weakening in survivors. Environmental conditions increased the survivors’ loss their muscle mass with the body fats that protected them from the cold.
Although many survived the crash they still had to fight for their lives to keep alive, against unfavorable environmental, physical and physiological conditions. That brought as a result, that the sixteen survivors where the strongest of all.