Alive
Alive tells an amazing and interesting story about
survival, courage, endurance and sacrifice that
happened in los Andes in the 70´s. It tells how a
group of rugby players from Carrasco, Uruguay
went through a hard situation after a tragedy
happened. It all started when they decided to go to
Chile to play a rugby tournament, they decided to
hire a plane that would take them there. After
some months of preparation everything was ready
and on October 12 they started their trip.
They got on a plane called the “Fairchild”
without knowing what will happen to them due to
that. When they were traveling from Montevideo to
Chile the pilots were told that the weather was not
good and that they had to stop at Mendoza,
Argentina. The day after that they had to leave
that country so they had to decide whether to go
back to Uruguay or to continue flying to Chile over
the cordillera despite the bad weather. Later they
decided to continue traveling to Chile taking a
safer route. When they were over the cordillera
they heard a strong noise and the plane crashed
in the middle of the cordillera de los Andes and
some of the passengers died during the crash,
many survivors lost their family and friends there
but they tried to stay strong; for example Nando
Parrado lost his sister and mother in the crash.
After all that happened they sheltered in the plain
fuselage and waited for someone to help them,
while they ate chocolate and wine. They lived in
terrible conditions, and after 10 days passed they
realized that they had to get out of there by
3
themselves, however they didn’t know how.,
Piers Paul Read
Meanwhile the air force and the boy´s parents were
wondering where they were and they searched them for
some
days.
At the same time food was running out and they knew
that probably they will die of starvation. They had to be
clever and they invented a method to melt snow to make
water. As time passed they became weaker a very hungry
and they thought that maybe they would have to eat their
friends bodies to survive. Some days after that they ran out
of food so they had to make a hard decision: to eat their
friends bodies to survive. It was very hard for them but if
they didn’t do that they would starve to death. When they
were getting stronger there was an avalanche that killed
many of them, including the only woman among them called
Liliana Methol , so they noticed that they had to get out of the
cordillera as soon
as they could.
They chose the 3
stronger among
them and prepared
an expedition,
they equipped the
three of them with
food and clothes,
and the
expeditionaries
promised the others
4
that they would find