Story of the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571.
Forty years ago, on October 13th, 1972, forty five people boarded a chartered flight out of Argentina headed for Chile. Only sixteen survived.
The flight, occupied by a young Uruguayan Rugby team, along with friends and family members, crashed into a desolate valley within the Andes Mountains.
With nothing but scraps of food, a few bottles of wine and small amounts of clothing to keep from dying in the negative 30 below temperatures, the survivors quickly ran out of food and began to succumb to injuries, hypothermia and malnutrition. A decision was made that their only chance of staying alive was to eat the meat from the dead.
As shocking as this sounds, survivor Nano Parrado explains, "Everyone asks themselves, 'How would I have reacted in the moment that I had to survive eating the dead bodies of my friends?' People have this ambiguity. They don't know how they would react. I know. Everybody would have done the same thing, even if they say no. We know. We are experts on the subject."
In a remarkable act of bravery, two members of the surviving passengers climbed their way through 38 miles of mountainous terrain for ten days in beat up rugby boots to finally find help for the fourteen survivors left behind.
What do you think you would do in such a situation?
