00:00:06
hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is morbid [Music] 2025 2025 Edition it's our first episode
00:00:29
it's not the first episode you're listening to in 2025 but it's our first recording from 2025 heyo it is January
00:00:38
3rd second second yeah it's the second check us out I woke up early I went on a walk on the treadmill this [ __ ] is in
00:00:48
her resolution era I made breakfast and I never make breakfast I made a new kind of breakfast for the
00:00:57
kids I got up early I made like a yummy little like breakfast sandwich in the oven yeah tell them about it it's like a
00:01:04
it's like a yummy bisc crescent roll with cheese and eggs and then I also made them a yummy lunch yeah pizza rolls
00:01:15
which I always make them lunch obviously but and breakfast but I made like some different ones that's that's part of my
00:01:21
resolution is to come up with more creative lunches for their school lunches I love that I have so many
00:01:27
resolutions this year and I'm going to nail all yeah we are we both are we're lousy with resolutions we are and I feel
00:01:34
like I don't I I'm like drawing a blank if you've had a lot of resolutions in the past I usually don't make like I'll
00:01:41
I'll be like Oh I'm going to eat healthier that's mine are always very nonchalant yes but this year they're
00:01:47
chalant I am so chalant this year I feel very chalant with my resolution we're about to be shalant as [ __ ] I got so
00:01:55
many just Visions for this year yeah and it's a it's not only a new year like calendar for you it's a new year of life
00:02:02
for you because it was just Elena's birthday it was yeah yay it's true she's like 87 now I am not 87 it's crazy I am
00:02:11
what I am and I that's all that you are that's all that I am byebye um yeah so we're excited it's the year of exciting
00:02:20
things yeah lots of things are going to evolve lots of things are going to get better yeah it's the year of like
00:02:28
greatness yeah we're excited 2025 yeah it's here it's here baby it's here here it's here it's here it's here it's
00:02:38
finally here and we've been waiting for it cuz last year was shite it was poo pooa and it wasn't even that's the thing
00:02:45
like last year was not complete [ __ ] no you made the New York Times bestsellers
00:02:49
I reached number one on the New York that's been the dream since the beginning the dawn of time I hit that I
00:02:55
forever happy and grateful for that that best year ever for that but it's like other stuff it was just a tough year we
00:03:04
were we were swimming through the weeds baby yeah it was tough so that's I like I was like waitressing again you can
00:03:10
never have a fully [ __ ] year or you know what I mean like there's always little
00:03:15
no matter what there's always blips of greatness in year of course you know this year though this year is going to
00:03:20
be just greatness across the board awesome hell yeah no bad no poooo Kaka no pooo Kaka like everybody manifest
00:03:28
greatness for yourself cuz you can do it I started listening to the secret and I
00:03:33
know it's like SEC woo but I'm into it okay I love that I think everyone should listen to it perfect that's perfect yeah
00:03:40
I'm only speaking about the things I want and the things I will have well H that's just nice it is that's not even
00:03:46
like woo that's just that's just nice nice a of Attraction positivity you know let's [ __ ] go girls and honestly we
00:03:52
need more of it in this world right now cuz shit's popping off uhhuh um but not in our not in our and this will be way
00:04:02
past the time now but like New Orleans we're thinking of you yes and I know we're it seems like we're we're far
00:04:10
delayed from what that happened probably cuz again I have no [ __ ] clue when this episode comes out but right now
00:04:17
it's very fresh while we were recording it I posted some stuff on my Instagram about like there's going to be some
00:04:25
blood donations and stuff happening I I wish we could get this out soon but you know but just know that no matter what
00:04:32
we're thinking of New Orleans right now um so with that being said let's get into hair toss that hair toss she just
00:04:41
whipped her hair out and she said with that being said and she got she got comfy to tell the cuz whenever I I do we
00:04:48
do a recording we both have this problem where we get so so hot so you immediately have to take a layer off I
00:04:54
was immediately sweating toss your curls well we figured we would start off this
00:04:59
you know we didn't even plan this but we're going to start the year off with a mostly Survival Story hell yeah some
00:05:07
people pass away in this not great very tragic this story is brutal it's tragic but it's also got this side of it that
00:05:16
is like really inspiring like really beautiful these people came together and took care of
00:05:21
each other we're talking about the crash of Uruguayan Air Force flight 571 okay you may know it as the case the live
00:05:30
case there's a movie about it there's a book about it um I'm sure you know it for one particular aspect of it but um
00:05:39
Dave and I are here to broaden your horizons to tell you more about it because that is one very big aspect of
00:05:49
it obviously you know the cannibalism is a big part of this but when you hear the
00:05:54
other [ __ ] that these people survived and the way that they like held on to each other and took care of each other
00:05:59
each other and just immediately went into survival mode they all like the mindset that everyone went into is like
00:06:07
unbelievable cuz when it's hor you have to yeah but some people can't no I could
00:06:13
I don't know that I could yeah it's like that and these people did it's really it's really really a fascinating case so
00:06:20
let's start back in 1971 the old Christians club which was an amateur Uruguayan rugby team uh they
00:06:28
charted a small playing to Chile to play in a championship game against the Chilean national team okay for most
00:06:35
members of the old Christians the trip was honestly the first time they'd ever been on a plane and the first time
00:06:40
they'd ever traveled far away from home oh God uh this is not when they crashed oh okay um they didn't end up winning
00:06:47
the championship but the trip was pretty exciting pretty fun pretty great everybody loved it so when they returned
00:06:54
home they were like we got to start planning another trip for the next year like this was too much fun so by the
00:07:00
time the next year came around the team found themselves unfortunately not in the best position like last year for
00:07:07
going to the Nationals okay uh they'd been a little overconfident here causing them to lose the Uruguayan championship
00:07:15
and this is a quote to a team they considered inferior so I think that the Cockiness got the best of them here uh
00:07:24
the loss made the team's officers questioned whether honestly they wanted to invest the money in a trip for what
00:07:30
they were considering a losing team at this point but eventually they ended up being convinced that this was a good
00:07:36
idea it was going to be fun it was going to be great and in the fall of 1972 the
00:07:40
members of the old Christians Club began planning their trip to Santiago Chile okay despite their
00:07:47
enthusiasm there was some problems right away the cost of charting the small Fairchild FH 227d plane from the
00:07:56
Uruguayan Air Force was approximately 1,00 ,600 which now is $122,000 I was going to say I feel like that today in
00:08:05
money that would be a lot yeah so in order to afford it they were going to have to fill all 40
00:08:11
seats now they only had 19 people on their team oh so that's a problem that's a big problem so they were faced with
00:08:18
the very real possibility of having to cancel this trip and so the members of the team started reaching out to friends
00:08:25
family anyone they thought might be interested in taking a trip to ch okay by the time uh the day of the
00:08:32
flight had arrived they had assembled a group of 40 passengers which were including family members of the team
00:08:39
several students visiting you know interested in visiting Chile and one woman who was traveling to attend her
00:08:45
daughter's wedding oh now around 6:00 a.m. on October 12th 1972 the passengers started arriving at
00:08:53
the Carrasco airport to board the plane everyone was super like light the mood was light you know everyone's is just
00:08:59
excited it's like this is a fun little trip but they soon encountered another problem one person from their group
00:09:06
Gilberto rulis had not arrived okay although it was a private flight and obviously they didn't have like the
00:09:13
strictest schedule they had been informed that the flight would need to leave as early as
00:09:19
possible to avoid bad weather okay so they were put behind by by him being late the flight was finally able to
00:09:26
leave a little after 8:00 a.m. piloted by two very experienced pilots who are actually from the Uruguayan Air Force oh
00:09:33
wow um but because of the late start the plane ran into the weather that made it
00:09:37
impossible to pass through the cordier range and into the Andes so they had to land the plane in Mendoza Argentina and
00:09:45
wait till the following day cuz they didn't want to go through that weather yeah smart especially going through a
00:09:50
mountain range yeah that could be wly now the pilots were not just concerned about the weather though there was this
00:09:57
like super strict regul against the Uruguayan Air Force where they couldn't spend more than 24 hours on Argentinian
00:10:04
soil oh [ __ ] and if they did they would get fined like seriously fined or they
00:10:09
would get a more serious penalty oh it's like an international incident at that point like it's not good yeah now under
00:10:16
those circumstances the pilots told the passengers to you know go come back to the airport by 1 pm. and we we got to
00:10:24
get out of here but when they arrived the pilots were nowhere to be seen instead several administrative delays
00:10:32
caused them to be late they ended up missing the window to leave and having to wait until the next morning oh [ __ ]
00:10:38
this is the flight by the way the amount of times that this got like derailed derailed when you look back on it you're
00:10:46
like whoa what was like was play here the next morning everyone gathered at the airport only to find that the
00:10:55
weather conditions over the Andes had not improved oh no but but the uruguayans were under a tight time
00:11:01
restriction to leave Argentina so the pilot and co-pilot Julio Caesar Fades and Dante Hector larara decided that it
00:11:11
was honestly better to probably face the inclement weather than risk a literal international incident yeah I can get
00:11:20
that I understand the the thought process there cuz they're also very experienced Pilots they're in the Air
00:11:26
Force like they're probably thinking okay we can get through it it's going to be turbul but we'll get through that
00:11:30
it's a short flight oh but it's a small plane yeah and because you know they had
00:11:35
to make the choice the flight left Mendoza a little after 2 p.m. okay within a few minutes the plane had
00:11:41
reached 18,000 ft and was cruising between 20 and 60 knots and they were thinking they were going to reach
00:11:47
Santiago in honestly a little under two hours it was going to be super fast wow that's a quick flight it was an older
00:11:53
model plane but it was equipped with an automatic direction finder also known as
00:11:58
an ADF in a VHF omnidirectional range both of these things were critical for keeping the flight on course and staying
00:12:07
in the proper airspace okay about an hour into the flight the plane reached the Ciera and larara dropped into a new
00:12:15
airlane and switched frequencies to put them in contact with air traffic control
00:12:19
in Santiago yeah so as he did this they entered a patch of dense cloud cover and
00:12:25
so they ascended so that they could get better visibility over it at this Point everything's going fine flight is on
00:12:32
schedule now at 3:21 p.m. larara radioed Santiago to inform them that they were over the pass of planchon and were about
00:12:40
to fly over Coro which is a small town on the west side of the andies few minutes later larara radioed again to
00:12:48
say the flight was making a slight right angle in order to course correct and keep on the right flight path unable to
00:12:55
track the flight Santiago's Air Traffic Control took the co-pilot at his word because once they go out of that flight
00:13:02
like he can't TR do anything yeah and he was like you know what I'm they basically air traffic control is like
00:13:08
he's probably been accurately tracking the flight so they authorized him to descend to 10,000 ft and they began
00:13:14
preparing for The Descent okay now the plane had descended 3,000 ft and again it was going to be um descending 10,000
00:13:23
ft yeah so it went down 3,000 ft when they shifted from one air current to another and that caused the plane to
00:13:30
jump and Shake as it moved to one from that current can I just say I give you so much credit for telling the story as
00:13:36
somebody with a fear of flying now the reason I am okay with this is one we have different regulations and two this
00:13:44
is a smaller plane yeah and three it's flying very close to a mountain range and I have no plans to do that yeah um
00:13:52
larara turned on the seat Bel signs and directed the passengers to go back to their seats just to avoid any injuries
00:13:58
during the turbulence and a minute or two later the plane lurched and dropped several hundred feet cuz it it hit an
00:14:05
air pocket oh I think we've all kind of been in that scenario where it hits an air pocket and it just goes yep I'm not
00:14:12
horrifying I can get in the vibe now that like turbulence won't make you fall out of the sky and like it's just
00:14:18
Jello-O air pockets can go [ __ ] themselves cuz that has happened to me and I thought I was like this is it yeah
00:14:24
like it's just it's the worst feeling that shit's scary in the world to me yeah oh not fun and this one the several
00:14:32
hundred feet drop the passengers were all very alarmed like they were panicked a little bit now the the young men on
00:14:40
the rugby team started to chant hoping that the words would distract the other passengers from this like panicked
00:14:47
moment I'm not going to lie I would [ __ ] hate that I would hate that so much I think they were doing it thinking
00:14:53
like just listen to us just listen to us like don't pay attention to what's happening they're like that's sweet and
00:14:58
when when you hear what they do like you're like you're just like damn like you guys were just thank goodness it was
00:15:04
you guys who had to like help each other you know what I mean like you were all there for each other now most of the
00:15:10
members of the rugby team and the others who joined in their chant could not see
00:15:14
out the window so they assumed turbulence was just you know this is bad turbulence but the people who could see
00:15:20
out of the window they were like something's wrong here oh no because that second bout of turbulence was
00:15:25
caused by the air pocket and it caused the plane to again drop out of the cloud cover that they had Tre been above
00:15:33
before right and so they could look out the window and see that they weren't seeing you know Chilean Villages
00:15:39
thousands of feet below them like they should have seen cuz they were descending they saw the edges of the
00:15:45
snow covered Andes about 10 ft from the tip of the wing oh no that's what I'm talking about
00:15:53
they were not supposed to be there like this was not supposed to be happening they 10 ft from the tip of the wing they
00:16:02
see the mountain dude like what do you how do you come to any kind of resolution in
00:16:10
that moment I give them all credit cuz I would have immediate Cardiac Arrest that
00:16:15
would be it it would be curtain for me right away like that's it I see that 10 it's gone you would think you were in a
00:16:22
nightmare you would' think you're were dreaming I I literally can't fathom this like my brain won't allow me to go into
00:16:29
this place where they had to be like I can't that's called self-preservation yes my brain is deep in
00:16:35
self-preservation right now not my imagination Boop turned off like during this whole thing my imagination went I'm
00:16:43
going to take a holiday I'll see you after you're done it erased the Whiteboard yes it went by like I don't
00:16:49
think any further into this yeah now the passengers felt the plane Lurch again as
00:16:54
the co-pilot tried to make a rapid Ascent tried to lift back up so we could get the [ __ ] out of this Mountain Valley
00:17:01
but it was too late the engine struggled to accommodate the ascent the right wing
00:17:06
tip caught the edge of the mountain sh the [ __ ] and it tore the right wing from
00:17:12
the plane and sent it flying back over the fuselage where it struck the tail and ripped the tail from the plane the
00:17:21
wing hit the tail of the plane yep and ripped it from the plane as this happened a flight attendant in a row of
00:17:29
three young men from the team were torn it was torn loose the whole row and they
00:17:34
all got sucked out of the hole just gone so three of the the people on the team and one flight
00:17:44
attendant were sucked right out of the hole immediately oh my God a few seconds later the left wing caught on the other
00:17:54
side of the mountain and it tore it that free and ripped a second hole in the fuselage then a blade from the propeller
00:18:02
Broke Free ripped into the fuselage and it flew behind the plane and so now the plane is flying with no tail and no
00:18:11
wings it's just a fuselage just like free falling so it just started hurdling towards the mountain like Free Falling
00:18:19
like nose diving towards the mountain my [ __ ] god it crashed into a steep valley and luckily there was deep deep
00:18:27
snowfall that cushioned the plane cushioned is a is probably a very like optimistic word for what happened here
00:18:36
but I see what you but it would have been even worse if there was no uh snowfall here damn it would later be
00:18:44
estimated that that plane hit the mountain going approximately 230 mph the fact that anyone survived that
00:18:53
is absolutely mindboggling and so many people did yeah and also they said if because it was going 230 approximately
00:19:01
230 M an hour when it hit the [ __ ] Mountain if it had hit the floor the ground it would have just obliterated
00:19:07
the fuselage there would have been nothing left of anybody or anything but because of the snow it at least
00:19:14
cushioned it enough that it didn't obliterate it really just the like all the stops along the way and all the
00:19:21
there's some kind of weird thing going on here some Vibe going on I don't know what it is but before the plane hit the
00:19:27
snow two more young men were ripped out of the side but the rest of the passengers were all buckled into their
00:19:34
seats oh man once the fuselage hit the ground the speed caused the plane to slide down the valley as it was like
00:19:42
losing momentum and the Crash caused tons of the rows of seats in the plane to become unsecured from the floor and
00:19:50
as it's flying down the valley skidding down the valley the rows are shifting forward and they crushed many of the
00:19:58
passengers between seats oh my God so several of the passengers who [ __ ] survived the crash were killed because
00:20:07
they were crushed by the twisted metal and plastic in the slide on the way down the mountains oh my and then a bunch
00:20:16
more got way more injured in this as well of course yeah and finally the plane came to a stop okay now Roberto
00:20:24
Kessa who was a medical student who' booked the cheap flight for a short vacation in Chile oh yep he was among
00:20:32
one of the first people to wake up in the plane cuz they were all gone like out of course in its slide down the
00:20:39
mountain the fuselage had shifted and come to a stop on its side so it tossed the bodies of living people and dead
00:20:46
people throughout the interior of the fuselage oh God so canessa quickly located his friend Daniel mass bonss and
00:20:54
helped to free him from his seat and then they started making their way through the plane looking for survivors
00:21:00
and Roberto canessa is a medical student so he's trying to think of anything he can do to help anybody yeah but when
00:21:06
some of the survivors made their way out of the plane for the first time they found themselves in the scariest
00:21:13
scenario you can possibly imagine complete isolation they were surrounded by Mountain walls on three sides stop
00:21:21
and then the one open side looked straight down into a valley oh God and they said it looked like it went on for
00:21:27
Miles like just gone there's no way out everywhere they looked they said they saw ice snow and they couldn't tell
00:21:35
whether it was I mean doz it was dozens and dozens of feet deep in in places yeah and because they hadn't planned on
00:21:44
being in any cold temperatures going to Chile from Argentina like what all of the passengers had dressed in warm
00:21:52
weather clothing of course so none of them were prepared for the literal subzero temperatures outside not me
00:21:57
packing my [ __ ] Park on every flight go on from this day forward now once outside two of the rugby team members
00:22:03
spotted their friend Carlos Veta and this is very sad a few yards from the plane and neither of them knew how
00:22:10
Carlos had come to be so far outside of the plane yeah but he seemed confused and was walking in the direction of that
00:22:18
steep valley and so they all called out to him hoping that their voices would bring him back towards them but it
00:22:25
looked like he couldn't see them he couldn't hear them and he just walked deeper and deeper into the snow and they
00:22:31
were terrified that he was going to slip and fall into the valley so two of them
00:22:35
tried to walk out there or like crawl out there to get to him but the snow was too deep and the incline was way too
00:22:42
Steep and so they only made it about a dozen or so feet before turning back and they all just watched helplessly as
00:22:49
Carlos stumbled in the snow and then he tried to stand but he slipped a second time and then he just tumbled into the
00:22:55
valley below oh and they just had to walk this happen that's horrific yeah like their friend just watching this
00:23:04
happen now back inside the plane the two medical students Robert Roberto canessa
00:23:09
and Gustavo Sabino they did their best to try to help the injured people but like you don't even have anything
00:23:15
they're medical students too like they are not doctors yet like they they only know what they know and then again like
00:23:21
you said they don't have any medical supplies really like and also zerbino was only in his first year of medical
00:23:28
school and he was studying to be a psychologist oh so he wasn't super familiar with emergency medicine he had
00:23:35
some knowledge yeah but he was like uh I'm yeah aside from the six passengers who'd been thrown from the plane when it
00:23:43
started to break apart only three others died on impact wow yeah the rest I know
00:23:50
the rest suffered a wide range of injuries many of which were pretty serious several people were unconscious
00:23:56
and many mostly all we're in a state of physical or Andor psychological shock yeah by the time one of the team members
00:24:04
mcho Sabella managed to reach the cockpit there was really nothing they could do to help fadus or larara the
00:24:13
pilot and co-pilot oh that's so sad the nose of the plane had been absolutely crushed when the plane landed in the
00:24:18
valley and it crushed the instrument panels into the chests of the pilot and co-pilot oh God they were still strapped
00:24:25
into their seats and looking through the windshield could tell that fadus was definitely already dead but larara was
00:24:33
was still alive and was conscious oh God at that point what do you do so they couldn't do anything like literally he
00:24:41
was in bad shape so there was really nothing they could do so uh Sabella grabbed several handfuls of snow and
00:24:50
packed them into his handkerchief just to try to like comfort larara as he died like just kind of like easing his wounds
00:24:57
and stuff and just like being there with him right and he just sat with him until
00:25:02
he died like just like comforted him wow but he had the entire instrument panel like think about a cockpit that whole
00:25:09
thing was crushed against him that's like you my imagination will not yeah now Nando parado was another um
00:25:17
passenger on the plane and the first thing he said he remembered was absolute Blackness oh he said I'm dead this is
00:25:24
death it's so black that this is death and he said when he woke up he had no no idea how much time had passed between
00:25:30
the crash and him waking up that must be so strange like so disorienting and then
00:25:35
he said he was so thirsty like all of a sudden he was just so thirsty so he said
00:25:39
if I'm dead I cannot crave water so he was like I'm alive so like okay that's my like moment so he started coming too
00:25:47
and he said that's when he realized his head was throbbing and everything everybody was talking around him it's
00:25:52
just like a cacophony of voices the stress yeah and he said when he opened his eyes he saw several of his friends
00:25:59
faces who were gathered around him and that's when he saw that they were surrounded by the wreckage like he had
00:26:05
he was like what the [ __ ] is going on so he's like okay the plane crashed uhhuh
00:26:10
and they explained it to him they said several passengers didn't make it and they said unfortunately including
00:26:16
Nando's mother Eugenia oh and his best friend panito Abal and his sister Susy was very injured and was laying nearby
00:26:27
on the floor cockpit oh that's awful like his whole family's there yeah and Nando remembered crawling over to where
00:26:34
she was laying on the floor and curling up beside her and he said I stayed with her I melted snow with my mouth and gave
00:26:41
her water because we didn't have anything we didn't have cups oh my God he melted snow in his
00:26:49
mouth to give to his dying sister that was a brother like I was just like damn Nando and unfortunately Susie would die
00:26:59
from her injuries on the eighth day oh my God and Nando said that he had a lot like later is when it really hit like
00:27:10
cuz he said what he said later was that he learned that at those moments my brain didn't react to anything that was
00:27:15
outside survival I couldn't cry I didn't feel sorrow yeah you're in shock and he
00:27:20
said they buried her alongside the others that the day after she died oh that's so sad now the next day when
00:27:25
Nando was able to stand and kind of walk walk he went outside for the first time
00:27:30
and was overwhelmed by what he saw he said I saw the magnitude of the place we're in it's immense it's huge and I
00:27:37
said [ __ ] this is going to be horrible how are we going to get out of here they
00:27:41
won't find us here I mean I don't know like how would I don't even know how they were found and well and it's worse
00:27:47
because he was right there was very little chance of anyone having found them on that Ridge because when the
00:27:54
plane failed to arrive in Santiago the Chilean air search and rescue service was alerted and they started searching
00:28:00
by the air but the problem was the plane had come to rest at an elevation of roughly 12,000 fet and it was tucked
00:28:07
into a valley which is not very visible from the air anyway and also the fuselage was white so it was just
00:28:15
blending into the snow and I didn't even think of that and then what's even worse
00:28:21
is that the search and rescue team were searching an area they believed the plane had been to based on the flight
00:28:27
plan oh they never knew that they had gone off course because they had just kind of trusted each other there yeah
00:28:34
and then all hell broke loose now in the first few days after the crash the survivors listened to updates on the
00:28:40
plan's radio until after 10 days they heard a report that the search was called off imagine hearing that no like
00:28:48
of all they've gone through and all they've been through up to this point then you hear that they're not looking
00:28:53
for you anymore I because you would just think I'm gonna die here and what's Wild
00:28:57
is they didn't lose hope here that's remarkable they somehow took this as like okay now our survival is in our
00:29:06
hands so we need to do it like what the [ __ ] I'm like that is I mean you go one
00:29:11
of two ways there the strength that like talk about the human Spirit right there
00:29:16
like damn team building like the fact that they're just like okay so they're not looking for us anymore now we got to
00:29:21
do it we're the only people who can get us out of here it's now Ramon Sabella said thinking of the suffering that must
00:29:28
have caused our families at home made us even more determined to survive so knowing that the search was called off
00:29:34
and knowing their families were probably devastated they were like now we got to
00:29:37
get the [ __ ] out of here and of course none of the survivors had any idea where
00:29:42
they were or which direction that Civilization even was and then you must be so scared to go in the wrong
00:29:48
direction to end up even further lost exactly now the first week or so on the mountain was spent taking stock of their
00:29:54
resources stabilizing the injured and rein forcing what very little shelter they had inside the plane but those with
00:30:02
that were physically able to spent most of their time doing their best to cover the holes in the side of the plane to
00:30:07
keep out the Subzero wind um and then they also were piling and packing snow to create a barrier from the elements
00:30:15
and since it was supposed to be a short trip with a small number of people there
00:30:19
weren't many resources to even be had in that plane Chile has a warm climate like
00:30:24
we were talking about so no one had clothing for cold weather and other than some candy and other small snacks there
00:30:30
was no food on board and they couldn't find the luggage the luggage was nowhere to be found um the environment also
00:30:37
offered very little in that respect they were not going to find food out here it
00:30:41
was freezing cold super desolate other than some roots and some Highly Questionable berries which they
00:30:48
definitely all found out there was very little to eat out there oh man what they
00:30:54
did have though was snow in every [ __ ] Direction so at least they thought they were like okay well we're
00:31:01
not going to dehydrate yeah like we always have water we can always just eat snow and melt snow how long can you go
00:31:08
without food how many days I got to Google it I don't know how many days you can go I don't I can't remember which
00:31:13
one is longer it's it's definitely food it's food right yeah you can go longer without food than water I think you
00:31:18
dehydrate Wicked quick yeah that's yeah it says so the body's response to not eating can be broken down into three
00:31:25
phases phase one the body uses its stored glucose and glycogen which usually happens within 24 hours then
00:31:32
phase two your body breaks down fat to create glucose and Ketone bodies to fuel the brain which we were just saying
00:31:37
these are athletes they don't have a high body fat percentage and then phase three the body breaks down muscle tissue
00:31:43
to convert amino acids to glucose this phase is called protein wasting and can be fatal if protein loss is over 50%
00:31:51
damn that's crazy and just think of how weak you would feel and you're just trying to literally survive in the snow
00:32:01
thing like that was like a to them it was a blessing they were like we are surrounded by snow we will not dehydrate
00:32:06
that is like one of the biggest problems that we would have had yes solved so at
00:32:11
least we have that and they're all like it's again the way they're looking at the situation like these people had the
00:32:16
best mindset you could possibly imagine um but it also became kind of a curse because the snow kept them hydrated but
00:32:23
the temperature of the snow made it difficult to consume at all it would burn their mouths and throats it was so
00:32:30
cold oh God now the days were obviously exhausting they were challenging but the
00:32:36
nights I can't imagine the nights were brutal cuz it's so much colder yeah those anybody who was you know feeling
00:32:44
strong physically or honestly like mentally did their best to keep up the spirits of those that were injured and
00:32:52
those who' lost hope you know they were trying to make them believe that they could get out of here they would tell
00:32:57
them stories to pass the time they would just sing to distract them like anything
00:33:03
and with nothing but the cloth from the seats to protect them from the cold all of the survivors huddled close to one
00:33:09
another during the night just like in one big pile in the fuselage oh God like relying on body heat to keep them from
00:33:15
freezing and during the night their clothing and hair would freeze like every single night and they would take
00:33:21
turns punching each other's arms and legs to improve circulation oh my God and when they became too exhausted to
00:33:29
punch to actually hit each other they would then get as close as possible to each other and just try to breathe like
00:33:36
hot breath on each other wow that's a [ __ ] nightmare like what like just to take care of your
00:33:44
fellow human like that though yeah like and just not give up like wow and within
00:33:50
a few weeks everything that he had even remotely passed as food had been eaten gone yeah and the remaining survivors
00:33:58
were looking at starvation they were like we might die of star we survived this far and we're going to starve to
00:34:04
death out here and in the days immediately following the crash they struck they stuck to very strict rations
00:34:10
for everyone a scrap of and they said um from alive uh which is a very interesting book I highly recommend it
00:34:18
we'll definitely um Link Link in the show notes uh they said a scrap of chocolate a capful of wine and a
00:34:24
teaspoon of jam or tinned fish every for the day wow and when that ran out some tried to
00:34:30
eat the leather straps from any of the seats or luggage that they like pieces that they could find but they couldn't
00:34:37
eat it no now it was Nando parado who first suggested that they consider eating the meat from the bodies of the
00:34:44
dead he later said I didn't have any doubts I had arrived at the conclusion of my thoughts very clearly no doubt
00:34:50
this is the only way out I mean what else are you going to eat and if you're determined to survive at that point
00:34:56
there is no part of my dumbass that's gonna sit here and say to you that after weeks after a [ __ ] plane crash that I
00:35:04
survived on the [ __ ] Andes that I'm not going to think about eating a dead body I'm not going to sit here with any
00:35:12
kind of [ __ ] like and it's also like you're kind of in the perfect equation because they're not only they're
00:35:18
preserved presed because of the snow and what what are you going else do you do what do you do at this point like I get
00:35:24
it I get what they it's totally fine if you know if you don't but yeah I just can't presume to say that I would oh I
00:35:33
would certainly not do that like I don't [ __ ] know I hope I never have to know
00:35:37
that none of us know because we weren't there and we haven't like sounds like an
00:35:40
awful experience yeah the worst kind of experience I can possibly conjure and can't even in my brain and think of the
00:35:49
hungriest you've ever been and then multiply that by six gajillion literally like no you have to eat yeah you're
00:35:57
going to lose your [ __ ] mind otherwise exactly and like you said they had not begun to decompose cuz they were
00:36:03
laying out and other than you know there being quite a strong social taboo around
00:36:09
cannibalism there was really no other argument that everybody had like everybody was like that's really it's
00:36:16
all really just like ethical kind of thing like moral stuff which would be hard I'm sure to of course I can't even
00:36:22
fathom this discussion find yourself in that situation can't even fathom this discussion but I get why it got brought
00:36:29
up uhhuh um and again not a lot and this decision was not made lightly either like these people did not just go like
00:36:37
oh [ __ ] why don't we eat our friends like not what they did it's everybody's family members and friends like they did
00:36:43
not come to this as just like whatever we might as well like this is desperation yeah and
00:36:48
self-preservation and Roberto canessa led the discussion and he very much argued his point from his position as a
00:36:55
medical student he said to them it is meat that's all it is the souls have left their bodies earon in heaven With
00:37:02
God all that is left here are the carcasses which are no more human beings than the dead flesh of the cattle we eat
00:37:09
at home I mean I get and I mean he's just coming from like a very clinical logical point of view and be like these
00:37:15
are not your loved ones your loved ones aren't in these shells anymore right now
00:37:21
once the suggestion was raised to the rest of the survivors the group spent nearly an entire day discussing it among
00:37:28
themselves before doing anything and then finally after several several hours all remaining survivors agreed that they
00:37:35
had little Choice other choice if they wanted to live cuz what else are they going to do in the years after the
00:37:40
rescue again like I said before this aspect of the story dominated The Narrative and it overshadowed nearly
00:37:47
every other part of their ordeal of course which again I know it's shocking I'm shocked by it I'm fascinated by it
00:37:54
like of course that's the one part where you go oh but holy [ __ ] there's so many
00:37:59
other things that they did for each other and to survive this that is like also unbelievably incredibly like
00:38:08
remarkable outside of my realm of comprehension but it was the key to their survival at this point and it was
00:38:17
again only a small part of the story that this story that has so many other things that definitely need to be known
00:38:24
for sure uh pado later said every body in that situation you would have arrived at the same thought and it's easier than
00:38:31
you think yeah cuz he's probably like when you're that hungry that's the thing I IM just thinking like I said of the
00:38:36
hungriest I've ever been and then multiplying it to like the nth degree think of that stomach ache you get when
00:38:41
you are hungry and it hurt like it feels you feel empty so they all also made a Packa with each other that should any of
00:38:49
them die before being rescued their bodies were to be used as food to help the others survive wow so they all made
00:38:56
a [ __ ] act with each other that if I don't survive this you're going to survive it because you're going to use
00:39:02
my meat wow what a sentence my brain like won't I just can't fathom the ultimate dis it
00:39:11
is like and it's just like and to have to have that discussion and to if you die out here you're going to be eaten
00:39:20
yeah like you're not going be that would hopefully comfort you in any like sense
00:39:26
of the word if you were dying in that sense is like I'm going to keep my friends alive like
00:39:32
I'm going to give them a hope and in a weird way it's not even like I'm yeah it's I agree with this vessel that I'm
00:39:39
walking around in yeah will at least be used to hopefully get them out of here yeah like
00:39:45
that's like weird I don't it's just that's wild it's some kind of logic you know and I agree like believe whatever
00:39:53
you want but when you're gone you're gone yeah I mean that's what I not your body anymore just like there's there's
00:39:58
something else there so it's like yeah it's and but again what a hard to Fathom what a wildly difficult conversation to
00:40:06
navigate yeah that they must have had but you know they they'd already gotten through the worst they had now after
00:40:11
they'd come to an agreement and it was everybody came to the agreement a small group of the young men left the fuselage
00:40:18
and walked to the area where they had put the bodies of the dead and they that must have been oh heavy they said they
00:40:26
were all wildly uncomfortable obviously wildly upset but they just knew what they had
00:40:33
to do but none of them walked out there being like cool we're going to go eat our friends like they were all
00:40:39
horrifically traumatized by this yeah but they reasoned that you know and this is a quote God wanted them to live and
00:40:46
he had given them the means to do so in the dead bodies of their friends it would be wrong now to reject this gift
00:40:52
of life because they were a little too squeamish okay it was decided that canessa cuz he was a medical student was
00:40:59
probably the most appropriate person to cut the bodies because they didn't want to mutilate the bodies of their friends
00:41:04
either and so they used a piece of broken glass from the plane I was wondering what they ended up using and
00:41:10
he cut pieces of Frozen Frozen flesh into 20 strips and laid them out on the roof of the plane to dry in the Sun and
00:41:18
then he went back inside and let them all know it's up there if you want to eat it eat it okay it's there all right
00:41:26
despite all of them being in the most profound state of hunger that you can possibly even conjure in your
00:41:31
imagination none of them made a move to get it you would not want to be the first person to make that move no that's
00:41:38
the thing but canessa himself said he was going to try to set an example try to make them all feel better about the
00:41:44
whole thing cuz you knew they were all starving he's like you're starving and you're going to and this is what we I'll
00:41:49
be the one to start the whole thing and he went out and he got a piece from the roof and you know he was the one that
00:41:56
just a few hours early was like convincingly arguing that it was no different from the meat of the cattle
00:42:01
back at home that they were accustomed to eating but it is cuz it's it you but he found himself like pretty much
00:42:08
paralyzed when it came to actually eating the meat and he had to force himself to bring his hand up and like
00:42:13
shove it into his mouth decades later Ramon Sabella would recall this whole experience with the same way he said of
00:42:21
course the idea of eating human flesh was terrible repugnant it was hard to put in your mouth but we got used to it
00:42:27
mhm so none of them are like yeah it was great like thanks thanks a bunch friends
00:42:31
like they all they're like it was the [ __ ] worst experience of my life and and it's true the food actually
00:42:38
and it's like remarkably nourishing this sustenance so it has a lot of you know we're full of vitamins
00:42:46
and nutrients so it's like this was and it's meat yeah it's got a lot to protein
00:42:52
so for the first time since the crash several of these young men started feeling like okay I'm getting my
00:42:57
strength back like I'm feeling like I can get through this and because they were feeling physically stronger their
00:43:04
resolve was getting more strong sure so they were like this is the gift that our
00:43:08
friends have given us like they they wanted this you know what I mean like that's how they had they would have
00:43:13
wanted this yeah now having solved their biggest problem starvation they started
00:43:19
discussing how they might get the [ __ ] out of the Andes after a couple of weeks
00:43:23
in the mountains they had actually kind of acclimated to their surroundings a little bit and they started to learn
00:43:28
things they should do things they shouldn't do um parado said we started to acclimate you start to learn I
00:43:34
started to learn how to walk in the snow properly on day 12 a small group managed
00:43:40
to climb several M miles up the mountain actually wow hoping that up there they would be able to maybe spot some
00:43:47
civilization in One Direction or another but every time they thought they were reaching the top of the peak they would
00:43:54
find another higher Peak just above them oh God and they couldn't see anything through it but it was on this track that
00:44:00
when they reached an outcropping of rock finally that had broken through the snow
00:44:04
that they found one of the plane's wings and it was twisted scattered across the snow and with it they found
00:44:12
five of their former traveling companions oh God Gaston camale Alexis Hoy Guido magri Wen Ramirez and Ramone
00:44:22
Martinez that must have been awful yeah they were they were you know preser as well cuz of the freezing temperatures
00:44:29
but their faces were black which suggested that they had been burned by the engines or the fuel when they were
00:44:35
ripped out of the plane oh my God now although they had discovered more of the wreckage and the missing bodies of their
00:44:43
friends they didn't really come out of the mountains with anything else yeah unfortunately they hadn't managed to
00:44:49
gain any more insight into their location they hadn't found anything useful in the wreckage that they had
00:44:54
found and most importantly they were now exhausted physically literally trucked up a mountain side and they said if they
00:45:02
thought they were going to be hiking out of these mountains to go get help that short Excursion proved that that was
00:45:07
going to be a lot more difficult than they thought maybe impossible yeah now by October 29th the survivors had fallen
00:45:14
into kind of like a routine at this point they were keeping a schedule they were maintaining order it was like a
00:45:20
little it's like Survivor Village yeah and that day October 29th they had broke into smaller groups and spent the
00:45:28
morning cleaning the fuselage cutting and drying meat melting snow and those who were still too weak were you know
00:45:36
resting in Hammock beds that they' created from materials and for most of the day it was unusually calm but then
00:45:43
later the sky started getting darker and it this like wicked cold wind started whipping through and everyone it was too
00:45:52
cold for everyone to be outside so they got into the fuselage all together and they spent the rest of the night telling
00:45:57
stories trying to keep warm chatting with each other about family about what they're going to do when they get out of
00:46:03
here and then one by one they drifted off to sleep now Roy Harley was laying awake on the floor squeezed between
00:46:10
Javier methyl and caros PAs when he felt this like weird vibration run through the floor of the plane and just seconds
00:46:19
later he heard what he described as the sound of metal falling to the ground and
00:46:25
he jumped up to see what was happening and he had a t-shirt covering his face like to try to get away from the wind
00:46:31
but he'd only just stood up when he was hit by a wall of snow that buried him to
00:46:36
his waist and nearly knocked him to the ground an avalanche when he pulled his shirt away from his face he was
00:46:42
horrified to see that the plane was just hit by a [ __ ] Avalanche and the entire fuselage was filled with snow
00:46:51
densely packed snow it had knocked down all of the walls that they had built up and it had
00:46:57
buried everyone who had been laying on the floor so not only did these people survive the wildest plane garage of all
00:47:06
time but now they've been hit by a [ __ ] Avalanche and all the [ __ ] that they have spent weeks and weeks
00:47:13
building to keep themselves together gone and all of their the bodies would which is their food source is now buried
00:47:21
under how much snow mhm oh my God so Roy question absolutely everything like how
00:47:30
do you go after the Avalanche I'm like how how did you get the will cuz that would have been I don't know how
00:47:37
mentally I would have been able to get myself out of that no so Roy is frantic he starts digging down into the snow to
00:47:43
get any of his friends and manages to uncover Caro's face but the snow was packed too densely and he wasn't able to
00:47:50
free any more of his body just his face oh my God he knew there were others so he left caros where he was and started
00:47:57
furiously digging around and he kept seeing hands pop up so he's digging around the hands and he managed to First
00:48:04
free Rob Roberto canessa uh who immediately started digging to free others and one by one they dug each
00:48:11
other out of the snow which had begun to settle and was now forming a sheet of ice across the surface oh my God Nando
00:48:19
parado had also been laying on the floor alongside several others and was completely buried when the Avalanche hit
00:48:26
he later said which goodness I couldn't move I was under Rubble but I could I could breathe
00:48:32
and he said he laid buried in the snow for 30 minutes and he would take shallow breaths to try to keep from suffocating
00:48:40
oh how do you not hyperventilate I have no idea I would I would absolutely without a doubt hyperventilate and he
00:48:46
said within the after the 30 minutes he said he just kind of like accepted that he was going to die buried in snow and
00:48:53
then someone started scraping the ice and snow away from face and haed him out of the snow even I feel like I can't
00:48:59
breathe just hearing this and they just didn't give up on each other no these people must have been lifelong friends
00:49:06
Lally yes and spoiler alert yes they and like after ripping each other being buried in the snow hit hit by an
00:49:15
avalanche by a [ __ ] Avalanche torn out of the snow they all just immediately start digging for the other
00:49:21
people they're not like taking a second to be like oh my God I just got hit by Devan they're all just running on
00:49:27
adaline outside the plane there's a blizzard raging by the way inside they're doing their best just to get
00:49:34
everyone out of this [ __ ] snow and in filling the plane with densely packed snow the Avalanche also blocked every
00:49:40
exit and they were now trapped in the fuselage no yep buried to their waists in freezing snow oh my how did they not
00:49:48
get hypothermia that I have no idea and some I mean some of them most certainly did but yeah of course and they didn't
00:49:56
whether the weight of the snow on the top of the fuselage was enough to crush them they had no idea how much snow was
00:50:02
on top of them oh my God PR later said we didn't know if we had enough air we didn't know if we had 2 M 4 M or 50 m of
00:50:10
snow on top of us oh my they had no idea God and equally bad was the real realization that not everyone had made
00:50:18
it through the Avalanche some had been completely buried by the compact snow and others had been crushed by the
00:50:24
falling debris from the makeshift wall oh like can you imagine no no of the 27 survivors who laid down to sleep that
00:50:34
night eight died in the Avalanche wow those killed were Carlos Rog Daniel maspons Juan Carlos Menendez Liliana
00:50:42
methyl Gustavo nikolich Marcelo Perez Enrique PLO and Diego storm were all killed in the
00:50:51
Avalanche sad now a few hours later a second Avalanche struck no no yeah but the only good thing was that
00:51:02
they had already been buried by the first one so it just kind of rolled over the already buried plane like once it
00:51:10
felt safe enough to move without triggering another Avalanche Nando used a cargo Pole to punch a large hole
00:51:17
through the roof of the plane which allowed fresh air to enter through wow but while they were you know it was
00:51:23
keeping them from being suffocated you know suffocated by this they were still buried yeah like and even if they could
00:51:29
get out of the plane the blizzard conditions outside were going to kill them right like what do you do I have no
00:51:34
idea the group spent 4 days buried in that plane just waiting for the blizzard to pass four
00:51:43
days stop it yeah at night they slept in just like a tangle with each other again
00:51:49
punching each other's arms and legs to try to keep circulation up on the fourth day when they were finally able to
00:51:55
emerge from the plane they forc themselves into the cockpit and squeeze past the bodies of the pilot and
00:52:01
co-pilot who are still there and then they spent hours working in 15minute shifts to dig out and exit through the
00:52:09
broken windshield of the cockpit oh my God yeah they managed to drag some of the bodies out through the tunnel they'
00:52:15
created but those that were buried too deeply in the dense snow were just left where they died uh in a the week that
00:52:22
followed they worked tirelessly to clear out some of the snow so they would at least have like some protection from the
00:52:28
elements but much of the interior was too densely packed with snow they couldn't even move it wow with what
00:52:35
little resources they had now obliterated by an avalanche and their shelter I mean seriously compromised
00:52:44
there were now 19 survivors and they had to make a [ __ ] decision at this point
00:52:48
they were like what do we do we can't stay here no if they were going to make it out of here alive they were going to
00:52:53
have to walk out yeah so in the earliest days after the crash several of the survivors started talking about walking
00:53:00
out of the mountains for help of course that was always on everyone's mind yeah the problem of course was that they
00:53:05
didn't have any equipment they didn't have any training necessary to make that kind of trk and they're on the side of a
00:53:10
[ __ ] mountain and also they have no [ __ ] idea where they are what direction civilization is so they would
00:53:17
take short hikes out of the B Valley just to see like we talked about before but again those would only emphasize how
00:53:24
unprepared they were to take such a track right so once the danger of the you know future avalanches and snow
00:53:30
drifts was here they decided the only way out was for them to hike out so three of the strongest members of the
00:53:37
remaining survivors parado canessa and Antonia vizon volunteered to make the trip and they started immediately
00:53:44
preparing they weren't they wer just going to go straight out they were going to prepare for it now this kind of
00:53:50
Journey would have been hard for the most experienced Mountaineer to do and even then they would have been outfitted
00:53:58
with like everything that you need specialized climbing and hiking equipment all the things you need food
00:54:04
yeah water and among all of this they were also complete these people are also completely unfamiliar with the terrain
00:54:11
outside the valley so they were at huge risk for falling into hidden valleys and
00:54:16
random creases in the earth slipping off a ice plane becoming buried in a snow drift there's like any host of dangers
00:54:25
out there and also they would have to do a certain amount of climbing over icy and Rocky
00:54:31
terrain all of which they would have to do without climbing shoes ice axes any safety equipment ropes all I can do
00:54:39
right now is think of the beginning of this episode when I was like I woke up early and took a walk on my treadmill
00:54:44
yeah wow wow wow wow these people are like I survived a plane crash two avalanches and hiked outside of
00:54:53
mountains that I don't even know where they were yeah with no equipment and I complain about like waking up early but
00:54:59
you know what if this is a motivation to get the [ __ ] up and do some stuff you've
00:55:02
been meaning to do my damn you go yeah P said I knew that when I gave the first step to leave the fuselage I was not
00:55:12
coming back this is a kamakazi Expedition I mean yeah so the three men spent weeks preparing for this Gathering
00:55:20
whatever supplies they could find they made sleeping bags from sewn together cushions and fabric W how did you how
00:55:26
they even sew anything together no idea I think it was like hand tied kind of [ __ ] damn and they made a sled crafted
00:55:32
out of suitcases that like pieces of suitcases that they had cuz they I think they didn't have like maybe they had
00:55:38
like one or two pieces of luggage but they did not they miss they were missing quite a bit of luggage yeah they also
00:55:43
spent the days consuming large amounts of fat and meat to try to like build up strength um they took short trips into
00:55:50
the surrounding mountains like trying to see how they could build up their strength and on one of those trips they
00:55:56
found the wreckage of the tail the plan's tail and all of the [ __ ] luggage oh okay well that's they found
00:56:05
the luggage to them this was like a [ __ ] gold mine the ultimate sign to keep gold they got dry clothes chocolate
00:56:16
candies a ski kit with poles they could use for the [ __ ] hike wow tell me they weren't meant to find that [ __ ]
00:56:24
dude that just makes you believe that the Universe [ __ ] works for you ski a ski kit with with pulse that is so it's
00:56:32
the secret it is that's wild like purest form they said we're getting out of here
00:56:38
we're going to figure it out we're going to build up our stamina and they were not it didn't sound like they were
00:56:43
negative in any way whatsoever and they all the [ __ ] they needed not all the [ __ ] but like most of the [ __ ] they
00:56:49
needed came to them and it's like you know there were times of deep despair of course and deep hopelessness here I
00:56:56
can't the likes of which probably most of us can never even understand or fathom or conjure in our minds but I
00:57:04
think that like what was important here was that they didn't let it consume them
00:57:08
yeah they just said we're getting out of here we're going to figure out how to get out of here like for them to do
00:57:13
these little trips to try to gain the strength and to prepare they weren't just like let's give it our best shot
00:57:19
they were like oh no [ __ ] we're getting the [ __ ] out of here we're going to make sure we are prepared and out of
00:57:26
here I cannot wait to hear about the lives that they LED afterwards it's wild they also in the luggage they found a
00:57:32
bottle of rum you needed at that point many cartons of cigarettes nice bottles of Coca-Cola which oh holy [ __ ] a crisp
00:57:41
Coke after IM two Avalanches oh my God I can't imagine how good those Cokes tast
00:57:47
oh my God but also you have to go so slow you can't just your body's not used to it yeah oh my God they also found a
00:57:53
crate of moldy sandwiches which at that point eat let's go that night they camped at the
00:57:59
site eating a pretty large meal they had a feast that and finishing it off with a
00:58:04
dessert they called it which was a paste made of sugar toothpaste and rum oh God which you know so Bleak they're
00:58:14
hungry but this time unfortunately was not one just of Hope and just of good things there was more tragedy to come
00:58:22
two weeks after the Avalanche one of the survivors our turo nogira had become sick and started getting weaker as the
00:58:30
days passed he became delirious and eventually fell into a coma and died on November 15th imagine like he got so far
00:58:38
that far that's awful noa's death was followed a few days later by Raphael eavan who died from an infection in his
00:58:45
leg oh a few weeks after eavan passed Numa turati died in his sleep from sepsis so it was like really one after
00:58:55
the other and that far to survive the crash survive two avalanches and then have that be the case like that's awful
00:59:02
now by the time that turati had passed the group had been stranded in the Andes for 61 days 61 days and it was clear to
00:59:11
the three volunteers that the longer they waited the more likely it was that people were going to die yeah they had
00:59:16
to go so on the morning of December 12th par canessa and vison left the valley headed to the west where they believed
00:59:24
they would find help before leaving they dressed in several layers of clothing because again they had found those
00:59:30
[ __ ] luggage things and even fashioned socks made of human skin they did this because they felt like it would
00:59:38
keep their feet from getting soaked with water which would put them at risk for frostbite yeah pretty smart very maob
00:59:46
rough very smart morbid within a few days of hiking it became clear to the three on the trip that this was going to
00:59:53
be a lot harder than they thought it would be and they thought it was going to be pretty [ __ ]
00:59:56
hard there were several sheer ice Cliffs and rock walls to climb all again with no equipment or experience on the second
01:00:05
night canessa and pado suggested it might be better if vizintin returned to the plane because they said it would
01:00:11
give them more food rations and increase the likelihood of getting help okay they
01:00:16
were like maybe we shouldn't have all three of us out here so vitin agreed he was like you know what yeah so he began
01:00:21
the trick back to the plane while they continued West doing that all by yourself no for nearly a week canessa
01:00:28
and parado hiked and climbed through the [ __ ] Andes at times climbing nearly a
01:00:33
thousand ft in one day holy [ __ ] that is twice the recommended daily climb for an
01:00:39
experienced hiker that's insane that just shows you how absolutely [ __ ] determined they were deted they also
01:00:46
were going through Al several bouts of altitude sickness which is [ __ ] awful if you've ever been altitude sick oh oh
01:00:55
no I'm multiple occasions they were deceived too by what looked like a short distance between one location and
01:01:01
another oh only to have it suddenly stretch out for miles and miles early in the trip they spent days climbing
01:01:08
thousands of feet up the mountain too to just look on the other side and find it
01:01:12
completely impassible oh God so to have to go all the way back down that's horrific now after about a week of
01:01:18
walking the pair began to notice the environment around them started changing a little okay the once Frozen terrain
01:01:24
started to soften and then all of a sudden they started seeing signs of [ __ ] life I can't even imagine what
01:01:31
that would feel like they saw an old campfire that would be euphoric animal manure stop it eventually they saw some
01:01:37
cows dude I would cry I would cry on those cows finally on December 20th canessa and Prado reached a river and
01:01:44
began following it until they saw the smoke from a campfire across the river up when canessa then canessa spotted two
01:01:51
men by the fire one standing the other on a horse two too weak to walk he just yelled for parado who ran to the edge of
01:02:00
the water to and immediately they were trying to catch the men's attention urging them to come to the edge of the
01:02:05
water which the man did yeah and then but the noise of the Rushing River made it impossible for them to hear each
01:02:11
other stop it so the man across the way pulled out a piece of paper and wrote a message and then he wrapped it around a
01:02:18
rock and tossed it to the other side just the where with all of these people I always say people are going to people
01:02:25
here's another reason people are people but in good way but in the good way people are peopling Nando grabbed the
01:02:32
Rock and unwrapped the note and it read There is a man coming later that I told him to go tell me what you want and in
01:02:40
response Nando sat down and wrote this note I come from a plane that fell in the mountains I'm Uruguayan we have been
01:02:47
walking for 10 days I have a friend up there who is injured in the plane there are still 14 injured people we have to
01:02:53
get out of here quickly and we don't know how we don't have any food we are weak when are you come and fetch us
01:02:59
please we can't even walk where are we oh now before sending the note back over the river he took out a tube of red
01:03:06
lipstick that he had in his pocket from the luggage and wrote SOS on the bottom of the note okay and then he threw it
01:03:12
back to him the man read the note slowly then looked up at Nando and indicated that he understood then he took a large
01:03:19
chunk of bread from his bag and tossed it to them people going to [ __ ] people oh my God can you imagine this is
01:03:26
what we needed to hear for like in the beginning of the year yes we didn't need another hopeless story of people being
01:03:32
[ __ ] terrible to each other no we needed this this is the energy to bring into 2025 imagine what that bread must
01:03:39
have tasted like oh my god wow I can't even fathom wow I say I know I've said that a lot I can't fathoming is not
01:03:46
something I can do during this episode W I've said remarkable we we're all using
01:03:50
the same adjectives and it was before he left to get help he was like here's some
01:03:54
bread like please eat Nando rushed back to canessa and they shared their food and news that after 69 days in the
01:04:02
mountain they were going to be saved now it turned out that the man on the other
01:04:07
side of the river was a local farmer named Sergio Catalan he lived high in the mountains and after discovering PR
01:04:14
and canessa by the river he himself traveled 10 hours by mule to the nearest police station to get them help 10 hours
01:04:22
by by mule himself and they must have losing some kind of help Hope at that point like not knowing if he's going to
01:04:29
come back cuz then it's like I'm assuming 10 hours back well and then they a few hours after he left they were
01:04:35
discovered by another man on Horseback who gave them more food and water then carefully he loaded them onto the back
01:04:42
of his horse and brought them to his Hut oh my God where he shared some cheese and gave them a place to lay down and
01:04:48
rest people people people angeling right pado said Roberto was very weak he gave
01:04:56
everything that he had everybody gave everything that they had oh over the course of 10 days the two men had
01:05:02
traveled 37 miles oh my God under some of the most intense and bad conditions that you can imagine climbing hundreds
01:05:11
of feet every single day and in fact years later when they discussed the trip with mountaineering experts they were
01:05:18
told that they quote achieved what they did because of their ignorance had you known what you were going to face you
01:05:24
would have never left the airplane you never knew what you were going to face and that's why you made it so they're
01:05:29
literally like had you known no way you would have made that out but because you
01:05:33
went in there completely ignorant and just said we're getting out you did it the next day a helicopter arrived in the
01:05:40
village and canessa and parado were presented with maps and asked to point where the plane had crashed but they
01:05:47
indicated where the plane was and their Rescuers were like no that's nearly 80 mil away in Argentina like what are you
01:05:54
talking about it couldn't possibly be where it was so Nando was like do you want me to get in the [ __ ] helicopter
01:06:01
and go show you despite everything that he had been through in a [ __ ] aircraft he was like I'll get in the
01:06:06
helicopter I what the fact that that didn't even register in my brain after everything these people have been
01:06:11
through this guy offers to get in a helicopter Nando was like I'll get in the helicopter so we can go get my
01:06:17
friends because like I need to get you to them wow like they're safe he's getting in there to get the rest of them
01:06:24
he's like I can't let you not them so I'm going to get in here desite what I've been through in the [ __ ] a
01:06:30
that's a [ __ ] King right there if he wanted to he would he he if he wanted to he would he did damn and what he said
01:06:39
about it later when they finally got to the crash site he said three of my friends jumped over me like dogs kissing
01:06:46
me and shouting it was a very surreal and emotional scene it was their first Spark of being alive again wow the
01:06:53
helicopter couldn't accommodate everyone all at once so they had to leave a few survivors at the site and come back for
01:06:59
them after the first group which like must have been the scariest because you're just like please come back for me
01:07:04
eventually they did manage to rescue all 16 survivors who were taken to the hospital that were at the site taken to
01:07:11
the hospital in San Fernando Chile where they were treated for various injuries and severe malnutrition yeah but the
01:07:17
news of the rescue came as an absolute shock to everyone particularly the families of the survivors oh you must
01:07:26
have just thought your family member was dead two months yeah even more surprising was the fact that according
01:07:32
to their doctors their survivors were deemed to be despite all they what they went through in surprisingly good
01:07:39
condition wow despite what they had been through like it you know relatively like
01:07:43
you said we're full of vitamins and nutrients although they had lost a significant amount of weight now at
01:07:48
first the group appears to in the beginning they look like they kind of like minimized their ordeal to the Press
01:07:54
they did like yeah they were all just like you know what it's fine so Robert Roberto canessa told the reporter after
01:08:00
the crash I looked to one side and there was my friend Fernando I asked him if he
01:08:05
was all right and he said yes he said he only had some bruises wow the truth of what happened PR was unconscious for
01:08:12
several days and had sustained a head injury oh but he was just like ah you know crash I looked over my friend was
01:08:19
fine like let's move on like he was just like we don't need to talk about it because it probably didn't sink in for
01:08:24
all of them right away dead none of them wanted to focus on like the tragedy of the whole thing instead they wanted to
01:08:30
focus on their survival instincts like they were just like we got out of there like that's what matters here like none
01:08:35
of them wanted like pity none of them wanted any of that they were like we got together we stayed together we worked
01:08:41
together and we stayed alive together and they probably were like we're out of there now and we don't really want to
01:08:45
think about it that much again well and I think they were literally like what you need to know is that we worked as a
01:08:52
team and because we cared about our fellow human that's why we're here where we are and Kessa said all who could do
01:08:59
so worked the others prayed but we all kept our faith wow and again who knows why they chose to like minimize the
01:09:08
extent of the trauma and injuries they sustained but the most glaring you know thing that was left out of their story
01:09:14
obviously was how they had managed to avoid starvation yeah the Press noted that they had melted snow to avoid
01:09:21
dehydration and you know managed to avoid starvation by rationing you know what food was left on the plane and I
01:09:28
understand why they wanted to leave this part out of the thing you know like why
01:09:33
that's not what should be focused on here no but within a few days Chilean officials had leaked the real
01:09:39
explanation for how the survivors had stayed alive so unnecessary yeah and the Press of course sees the story oh yeah
01:09:46
it's salous the reports said police sources said that after the food aboard the plane ran out the exhausted
01:09:52
survivors ate one body every 5 days and other sources to told journalists The Rescuers quote found six cut up human
01:10:00
bodies at the crash site which is like yeah that's true that is what happened and of course reporting on it would be
01:10:06
priority CU that's a very fascinating and horrifying part of it yeah because obviously
01:10:12
cannibalism has been the subject of like horror and also Fascination to the public for literal centuries so like you
01:10:20
understand why this is like a massive part of this and obviously it's like one of the biggest taboos you can of and
01:10:26
again they had good reason to keep that to themselves because of that um in alive um which again is the book that
01:10:33
you guys should definitely read uh by Pierce Paul Reed he said they thought they would be stoned in the streets like
01:10:40
they were scared but fortunately while understandable that feeling they were wrong that's good that's not what they
01:10:48
received they still claim they had a significant amount of food on board the plane um One Survivor said that they
01:10:53
thought they could survive if they rationed for you know another few weeks but the reality of their surviving on
01:10:59
chocolate and other snacks for 2 months was just not reality um in the end most people understood that under the
01:11:07
circumstances they had no other choice to but to resort to eating meet yes um in his speeches about the experience
01:11:15
Ramone Sabella always asked the audience would any of you not have done the same
01:11:20
thing and he has yet to have anyone raise their hand yeah that would be such a [ __ ] dick imagine looking at that
01:11:25
man and being like n you know somebody in the years that followed the Survivor story became honestly like a
01:11:33
Beacon of Hope yeah and like the ability to triumph over the most extreme circumstances and challenges you can
01:11:42
imagine um in 1974 Reed's book about the experience alive the stories of the Andy
01:11:48
survivors was released much a claim to this day people know that book um and this is it kind of like reignited the
01:11:56
interest in learning more about this story and what they went through oh yeah outside of just the cannibalism kind of
01:12:01
thing right um canessa said of the whole like Fame that came with this story he said there's a difference in how you
01:12:08
feel you are and how others see you and he said he was surprised at how little judgment they had received for their
01:12:14
actions and he was also kind of shocked by the attention they were getting for surviving the whole thing which I was
01:12:20
like dude like like you the fact that you don't know you done now in the decades since the crash the survivors
01:12:29
have all gone on to live very productive lives yes none of them want to waste their Good Fortune like all of them
01:12:35
looked at it as like this is a gift and I need not waste it Nando PDA became a motivational speaker and has written a
01:12:43
book and several articles about the whole thing canessa went on to finish medical school yes yep and became a
01:12:51
Pediatric Cardiologist wow yeah he also has written and spoken extensively about
01:12:58
the whole ordeal in the Andes many of the others have chosen to keep their lives a little more private they totally
01:13:05
get that they're kind of they're doing the damn thing but they're like yep I did it um but they have all gone to find
01:13:13
success in whatever they've done y um and every year the remaining survivors get together on the anniversary of the
01:13:20
crash and they all Gather in the salon that Roberto canessa has built onto his home specifically for the purpose of
01:13:28
this yearly meeting shut the [ __ ] up and I have never been happier to hear something like that I was like [ __ ] yeah
01:13:34
you do I love that like that's a bond that no one other than those 14 14 to 16 people like that's could ever understand
01:13:44
I'm just I imagine like imagine being in that room this like that feeling in that room
01:13:52
must be insane remember when you breathed your hot breath onto me to keep me me alive and
01:13:58
like punched my leg to keep circulation until you were too exhausted my God and just the the trauma that they all share
01:14:06
God the traa bond is beyond but like just and the fact that Roberto canessa has like one gone on to become a
01:14:14
Pediatric Cardiologist when he was in medical school during that like good for him yes and then like built this
01:14:20
specific little thing onto his home so that they can have their meetings every year like shut the [ __ ] that's beautiful
01:14:26
it is it's so beautiful that is one of the gnarliest stories I've ever heard in life most tragic but most inspiring and
01:14:32
like uplifting in the end and I had heard of that one and of course I mainly just heard that like they ate each other
01:14:37
to stay alive but wow I did not know the details it is such an it is just an incredible story a
01:14:48
plane crash and two [ __ ] avalanches in the middle of absolutely nowhere yep wow like and then the guy
01:14:57
throwing them the bread oh my God that's the thing like it just is like and I like you look at the pictures oh yeah
01:15:06
that they have from the crash site and everything it's unbelievable crazy truly unbelievable wow yeah well new year new
01:15:15
us we're about to tackle everything we ever dream does if that doesn't inspire you to like do whatever the [ __ ] it is
01:15:22
that you were thinking about doing or changing or fix or getting better at or releasing from your life do it I'm going
01:15:30
home to play my [ __ ] electric keyboard I'm going to figure that [ __ ] out hell yeah if those people can figure
01:15:35
out how to [ __ ] hike thousands of miles out of a valley in the middle of the Andes I can learn the the G chords
01:15:44
[ __ ] yeah you can let's go brother [ __ ] yeah you can wow yeah wow wow wow I have
01:15:49
nothing other than to say except wow that's all you can say I can't even speak at this point
01:15:55
so with that being said go crush your [ __ ] day do it we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird
01:16:04
but not so weird that you ever think you can't do anything ever again because this story is proof that you could do
01:16:09
legitimately anything literally anything no excuse [Music] [Music] [Music] for