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The traveler told us about his fears, the most dangerous situations, as well as about his favorite places on the planet
If The Revenant were set in the 21st century, Hazen Odel, a biologist, traveler, and survival instructor, would be the main character. Host of the National Geographic Channel's Tribal Power, he travels to the most remote tribes to learn how they managed to survive for thousands of years in the harshest corners of the planet. He lived among tribes in the jungles of Ecuador, in the Kalahari Desert in Namibia, on a remote island in Pacific Ocean, in the mountains of western Mongolia, in the snowy Arctic region of Canada and in equatorial Guinea, and heard firsthand about the skills of these masters of survival. Chameleon.fm editor Ekaterina Antonova talked to Odel about his fears, the most extreme situations he faced and about his favorite places on the planet.
Traveling is not a hobby for you, but a way of life. Tell us about the most vivid impression that happened to you in all the years of travel?
I have to spend a lot of time in the tribes, I am with them not only when the camera turns on, but all the time, so many interesting moments do not fall into the frame. They are often one of my favorites. We think that these people live on the edge of the earth, but for them, these are the usual places where their houses stand, neighbors live. It is simply incredible to watch how they live, how they understand nature and how they can take from it everything they need to survive: be it medicine or food. This is what really excites me!
It may seem that three weeks in the tribe is enough to understand the structure of their life. In fact, sometimes it seems to me that I have only, so to speak, only wiped off the top layer of paint. And for complete penetration, I would not have had a whole life.
- So you are more impressed by people than by beautiful landscapes?
Yes, that's what I'm really interested in. There are many "survival" shows, they teach how to survive in an extreme situation, such as how to get food, how to build a snow cave. The main task of the heroes of such shows is to get out of a dangerous place. And the tribes we are talking about have been living in these “dangerous” places for hundreds, even thousands of years! And they do not just survive, they thrive, educate new and new generations. Of course, I'm interested to know how they do it.
In your shows, you appear as a fearless person, a real superman. You find yourself among the snows and deserts, meet dangerous animals and wild tribes... Do you have any fears?
I don't think there's much to be afraid of. I'm just pretty lucky, that's why I've been able to go through so many adventures. Plus, I have a very clear understanding of what I can and can't do, which is really dangerous. AT modern world many people are afraid of something simply because they don't know anything about these things.
Creatures with more than six legs terrify many, but I am fascinated by them. I have more interest than fear. As for, for example, heights, I don't know if I'm afraid of it. I can get on very tall tree, but if I see that all its branches are strong, I am not afraid. And if all its branches are rotten, of course, I will be scared!
Or, for example, once we were on the Mekong River in China. locals there they swim through the rapids to reach places suitable for fishing. So, when I saw that the children were swimming in the same way, I was very afraid that they would be carried away by the current and they would drown. I know the capabilities of my body, and looking at some rapids, I know for sure that I won’t swim across them, but I will overcome some, because I was a rafting instructor and I can “read” the water well. One way or another, I always admit the thought that something can go wrong, I will be carried away to the waterfall and I will break. So I always try not to overstep the bounds of reason.
Have you been in really dangerous situations when your life was in the balance?
I got, of course ... Once we were in Darien - a section of undeveloped territory on the border of Central and South America- it was really dangerous there. There were great chances of catching malaria, in addition, cases of abductions are not uncommon in this part of Panama, once there was a bloody guerrilla war. It was necessary to beware of people, sleep in clothes so that the mosquito would not bite, burn a fire and make sure that no one suffocated from the smoke at night.
There was another unpleasant episode that happened to me. I was stepping over a log and did not notice the Fer-de-Lance snake, one of the most poisonous on the planet. Because of the good disguise, I didn't even see it, it looked like a bunch of leaves. Fortunately, I jumped aside in time, and she stayed where she was, but if she decided to attack me, I would not be in trouble.
Another time, our film crew ended up in a tribe of Bushmen, together with them we went hunting, to a reservoir. They hid in the bushes and waited. Suddenly, a huge cloud of dust appeared in the distance. We had no idea what it could be! Thought it was a tornado or dust storm. It turned out that a huge herd of elephants was running towards us, there were about 80 of them! Fortunately, the Bushmen helped us quickly get out of our ambush, otherwise we would have simply been trampled.
You have visited various parts of the world, but do you have favorite place Where do you want to return again and again?
I have two places. First, this a tropical forest in Ecuador, which I visited at the age of 19. For the first time I saw exotic animals, plants that fascinated me so much, for the first time I met people who live in almost complete isolation. It was there that I began to study the Quechua natives and the Huaorani tribe, I was interested in how they get along with all these dangerous animals. I lived there for another three years and still every year I try to return there, this habit is already more than 20 years old! The local tribes have become like a second family to me, so this place holds a special place in my heart.
And the second place is Irian Jaya, this is the region between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. I got there when I was very young, worked there as a biologist, studied leathery sea turtles. I got lost in those places and stuck on the same beach for a whole month! I was supposed to be picked up, but the group didn't come to pick me up. The food ran out after a week and I had to forage for food myself. I didn't have that much survival experience back then, so it was very, very hard for me. I not only suffered from loneliness, but also caught a staph infection and could hardly move. And I had to fish and hunt! I barely got out of there, of course, there was no question of any study of turtles. I often think about this place, I want to go back there again to see it differently.
Hazen, what about practical advice. What do you think you need to take with you on a trip or a hike?
The first thing you should take with you is curiosity. If you are interested in the world around you, you will quickly study it and understand what is useful to you. The more you know, the less things in your suitcase. There are so many survival gear in stores! But in reality, they often do not help.
As for me, I always take a flashlight with me. I love animals, and many of them, especially in the tropics, come out of their hiding places at night. If there is no flashlight nearby, you will not be able to see something interesting.
I'm not one of those who buy expensive Gore-Tex clothes, it is important for me that the shoes are warm, and if I'm going south, it's enough for me to buy flip flops for three euros, and if something happens to them, I can easily walk barefoot.
It is winter now and many will surely go to the mountains, what advice can you give to these travelers. How to behave in a dangerous situation?
I recalled one episode during my journey through the Arctic with the Eskimos. We fell through the ice. It was probably the scariest situation I have ever been in. Tons of ice could fall on our heads, and besides, we had practically no food supplies. Luckily, we managed to get out. Each situation is different, and it is impossible to foresee everything. But the main thing in any case is not to panic.
- Would you like to visit Russia?
Oh yes, Russia has long been on my wish list! Not so long ago I was in the north of Norway, I lived in the Sami tribe. I would like to know how such northern tribes live in Siberia. Russia is so vast and diverse that I think it will take me another lifetime to explore it all!
Attention! If you are claustrophobic, or especially taphophobic, read no further. it real stories about people buried alive. But they managed to escape and return to the world of the living.
1 French Boy Lasted Three Days
In 1937, Angelo Hayes, aged 19, crashed on a motorcycle after hitting his head on a brick wall. The guy was buried, but a couple of days later, suspicions crept in from his parents and he was exhumed. Angelo was still alive, but in a coma. After rehab, he became a celebrity in France, and also invented a safe coffin with a radio transmitter, a food locker, a library, and a dry closet.
2. Essie Dunbar woke up at her own funeral
Essie Dunbar of South Carolina died at age 30 following an epileptic seizure. Or so everyone thought. Her funeral was postponed for several days in order to wait for her sister, who lived in another city. The sister was late on the day of the funeral, and the priest began the service. She arrived immediately after the coffin had already been lowered into the grave, and demanded to see Essie for the last time. When the coffin was opened Essie sat up and smiled. She lived another 47 years and died in 1962 for real.
3 Chinese baby survives after being buried for eight days (2015)
The boy was born with a wolf sky. Since the young parents were not ready for a special child, in a panic they put the baby in a cardboard box and buried it shallowly in a cemetery in Tien Dong. The child was discovered by the cries of a woman collecting herbs nearby. At first she thought it was a ghost, but still contacted the police. The boy survived because the box received oxygen and rainwater.
4. The magician almost died due to a mistake
British magician Anthony Britton hoped to pull off an amazing stunt like the great Harry Houdini, but instead nearly died after being buried alive. Britton was handcuffed and was covered in liquid earth at a depth of almost 2 meters. Although the magician had been preparing for the trick for over a year, he was not prepared for the actual weight of the dirt and the stuck hand. Time passed, his team became alarmed and quickly dug up the mage. “I almost died,” he said. “I was close to death. And it's scary. Strongly pressed the ground. Even when I found an air pocket, when I exhaled, the earth pressed even more. I felt like I was losing consciousness and there was nothing I could do about it.”
5. A woman came to a family grave and found a man buried alive (2013)
One woman from a small Brazilian town came to the cemetery on her family plot, and suddenly saw a man crawling out of the grave. The head and hands were outside, and he tried with all his might to free the body. The frightened woman called rescuers, and the poor man was pulled out. He turned out to be a city hall employee. The man did not remember who and how did this to him, although it was clear that before that he had been thoroughly beaten. Most likely, the attackers decided that he was dead and hid the body, burying it in the cemetery.
6 World Record: Irish bartender lasted 61 days
In 1968, Mike Mainey broke the 45-day living burial record set by American Digger O'Dell. Maini was buried in a comfortable coffin, which had holes for air, water and food, plus a telephone. The bartender even spoke to boxer Joe Louis from the coffin. He lasted 61 days, and then they got him. Mainey was visibly weaker, but in relatively good health, and wearing sunglasses to keep from being blinded by the light.
7. The legend of Tom Guerin, a three-year-old boy who was accidentally buried alive
During the potato famine of 1845-1852 many Irish people died. Little 3-year-old Tom Guerin was mistaken for dead and buried in a mass grave. There are different versions of what actually happened to the child, but one of them says that when the gravedigger hit his legs with a shovel, the boy screamed. Although the boy survived, he remained disabled for life. Tom Guerin lived in poverty, but was a cheerful man and something of a poet. He even wrote a poem to the Irish government asking for new shoes.
8 Woman Buried Alive Was Saved But She Died The Next Day
In 1867, a young woman, Philomela Jonetra, fell ill with cholera. She was considered dead, the last rites were performed and six hours later. As the gravediggers finished their work, they heard a faint knock from within. It was quickly dug up. Philomela lived another day and died, either from illness or from the shock of being buried alive.
The bells of Khatyn are ringing. They do not let you forget that exactly 75 years ago, the punishers wiped out the village from the face of the earth. For 149 people, March 22, 1943 was the last. Only six survived - an adult and five children. Today there are two of them left - Viktor Zhelobkovich and Sofia Yaskevich. On the eve of the mournful date, the Respublika correspondent managed to find them and talk to them.
Today in the memorial complex "Khatyn" in the rally-requiem on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the tragedy will be attended by heads of government agencies, delegations from all regions of the country, representatives of embassies and leading religious denominations. At the end, the participants will read the All-Belarusian prayer for peace. The rally-requiem will be the centerpiece among the many events dedicated to this mournful date.
Memorial events will also be held in the regions. In Gomel, for example, more than two hundred teachers and schoolchildren will come to the meeting-requiem at the Mir cinema today at 12 o'clock. They will honor the memory of the victims and release 75 balloons into the sky as a symbol of 75 children's lives destroyed in the flames of Khatyn.
Only picture left
I go into Sofya Antonovna's apartment. Her husband meets her at the door. Warns: the wife does not hear well, you will have to speak loudly. I understand the interview will be difficult. But not because of the fact that you have to strain your vocal cords. I just don't know how to start a conversation. Too painful. But Sofya Antonovna looks out from the next room. Gray hair, styled in a neat hairstyle, a colorful dressing gown. I catch myself thinking: to what beautiful woman. She starts the conversation herself.
On that day, I lost almost everyone - my mother, father, sisters, brothers, nephew ... He was only 7 weeks old. Quite small, - Sofya Antonovna draws a tiny silhouette of a baby in the air, then starts talking again, but her voice does not obey. There is a lump in my throat that interferes. Grandmother turns away, then goes to the closet, takes an album off the shelf, takes out a photograph from it, runs her palm over it:
Perhaps this is all that is left of them.
In the picture - an obelisk in the form of a chimney with a bell. On it is a plaque with the names of her family. They were all burned alive in that infernal inferno.
Sofia Yaskevich cannot remember that day without tears
Photo by Evgeny KOLCHEV
Sofya Antonovna sharply turns the picture upside down, as if slamming a door behind which fear lives. But suddenly her face breaks into a smile.
I remember, in the summer they rushed with children. If you want to eat - we are in the ridge. We will pick peas, beans and chew - delicious! But they sat idle a little. Mom goes to reap the grain and punishes me: “Feed everyone, clean the potatoes in the evening.” Our village was friendly. They lived like one family. What a holiday - we are walking around. And this Easter was going to be celebrated. The hostesses were already planning a festive dinner. But we were not destined to rejoice.
Sofya Antonovna's smile flies away. It seems that she is no longer in this room, but again in Khatyn:
That day I was visiting my aunt, sister my mother. Her house stood, how can I explain to you ... if you go from eternal flame towards the old cemetery. We visited with her brother and sister. Wanda, my elder sister, weaving krosny, preparing for the holiday. I remember running around the house. I’ll run up to her and admire: such beautiful beddings have already turned out! My aunt cooked soup for the partisans for lunch. And I ran out into the street. And I hear some incomprehensible sound, as if the roof is being rebuilt. Well, I think someone is preparing for Easter. But all of a sudden it hit me. Understood: the Germans are shooting. Even my aunt was already upset. He shouts to me: "Run with Wanda to your mother, she will be offended." My sister and I took off running. They flew in such a way that they took their breath away - Sofya Antonovna's breathing is still quickening from tension. - And then Wanda pulled: "Sonya, you see how they are shooting, come back to your aunt as soon as possible, and I to my mother."
So the older sister saved the younger one. Miraculously, their brother, Volodya Yaskevich, also managed to escape from death. When the punishers entered the village, he managed to jump out of his aunt's hut and, with all his might, ran to the forest. On the way he came across a pit where potatoes were stored in winter. He rushed into it, buried himself in the rotten dust. Thus, he became another surviving witness to a terrible tragedy.
"Go, kinder, to the forest"
... Meanwhile, Sophia ran to her aunt. A woman, distraught with fear, sat in the cellar and gnawed at a half-cooked chicken. Sonya sucked in her stomach: "Give it to me." Aunt looked as if past her: “She is still damp, you won’t bite.” Suddenly there was a pounding on the door with terrible force. A second - and she had to collapse from such pressure. Aunt ran to open it. There were screams and shots.
The only photograph that survived the fire. On it is Sofya Antonovna's sister - Wanda YASKEVICH
photo mypresentation.ru
I notice how Sofia Antonovna's eyes begin to run rapidly. As then, in the look of confusion and fear. She is again that little nine-year-old girl who unexpectedly met with death. And there is no one nearby.
Two punishers descended into the cellar. I held my breath. But my heart was beating loudly. I thought they heard me. Knock-Knock. God, how to calm him down! And they don't leave. They carefully examine the cellar, exchange phrases. Another second - and the heart will burst with fear. Finally, the punishers leave the house. You know, I hid under potatoes then. I also put on some old coat. They didn't notice me.
With trembling hands and feet Sonya ran to her aunt. She was still alive, but blood was flowing from her mouth. The girl did not really have time to say anything, when she heard that someone was coming to the hut again. Sonya threw herself into the potatoes. And another shot. “Finished off,” flashed through my head. Sonya was not found. When she decided to run to her mother, she met two Germans. From a distance, it seemed to the girl that it was her father and uncle, they were bringing her a sheepskin coat to keep her warm. But disappointment awaited her. One pointed a machine gun at her. And the second one stopped him and threw to Sonya: “Go, kinder, into the forest.” The girl heard screams, acutely felt the smell of burning and smoke, but did not fully understand what was happening. In dismay, she headed towards Mokredi, to the farm where her uncle and aunt lived. And there she was told: "The village is on fire."
Sofya Antonovna closes her eyes:
When it got dark, the men could not stand it, they went to look - suddenly someone survived. Burnt corpses, like sheaves, lay one on one. My father, Anton Yaskevich, was still alive. But all burnt, black, with broken legs. It was even impossible to pick him up - there was no living piece of skin. These were the last minutes of his life. The next day, when they returned to the ashes, dad was no longer found. But they found everyone else. Everyone was dead. (A heavy pause hangs in the room for a couple of minutes. - Auth.) The sisters - Vanda and Nadia - were lying together. Mom, apparently, in the last minutes, with all her might, pressed our youngest brother, Vladik, to herself. They were found together. My brother's wife Vera was hugging her newborn son Tolik. Then information will pass through all the chronicles: the youngest inhabitant of Khatyn was only 7 days old. This was my nephew. His bright soul lived in this world a little - only a week. Do you know what surprised? The devotion of the cattle. They say that the rooster and dogs did not run away from under the burning barn. The rooster was crowing, and the dogs were bursting with barking...
Sofia Yaskevich and her brother Vladimir. They managed to escape death
photo dayonline.ru
Zigzags of fate
That day turned out to be happy for little Sonya. Although can it be called happiness when she lost her most precious thing - her parents? Sofya Antonovna admits that even now she often remembers her mother - Elena Sidorovna Yaskevich:
She took pity on me, she was kind. And what a hard worker. Kuzhel combed and dressed so that the neighbors came to admire her fine work. How many years have passed, and still crying for her. For all the time she came to me only twice in a dream. One in particular stood out. I go into the room, and she is sitting in a sheepskin coat, felt boots, and on her head is a beautiful red scarf in flowers. I to her: “You left me! You left me! You left me!" Repeated three times.
The picture shows both lisks in the form of a chimney with a bell. On it is a board with the names of Sofia's family YAS KEVICH. All of them burned alive inthat infernal hell
Without a mother, Sonya drank a lot of grief. After the tragedy, she and her brother Volodya and relatives went into the forest. Then he and his brother somehow got lost. The two of them walked. When someone was met, no one wanted to take them. They were afraid that they were from Khatyn.
We survived as best we could. I remember going to a lake. It is the size of this room, - the grandmother shows with her hand. - And there, among the reeds, - nests with eggs. Oh how we rejoiced. Volodya took a whole hat. I tried one thing and grimaced - it was impossible to drink it.
The fate of Sonya then took shape, as did the fate of thousands of Belarusian children left without parents during the war. At first, she lived with her aunt for some time, then went to an orphanage in Pleschenitsy. Then she studied at a vocational school as a telegraph operator. The practice took place in the town of Antopol. And she worked at the post office in Logishin, on the famous Morse Code. Then she moved to Minsk, worked in the 9th, 37th and 39th post offices. She lived with her brother. In 1964 she married Nikolai Fiokhin. He is Russian, originally from Vladimir region. We got an apartment. Sofia Antonovna has two sons. Previously, she often traveled to Khatyn. Now it is more difficult - he sees badly. So all she has left are memories.
Children of Khatyn after many years
photo dayonline.ru
"This wound won't heal"
The family of Viktor Zhelobkovich also lives with these memories. On that March day, he, a seven-year-old boy, managed to get out of the burning barn. Viktor Andreevich refuses to communicate with journalists. And to my numerous requests for an interview, he also answers: “Absolutely not!” His wife, Yadviga Andreevna, explains her husband's reaction:
Don't think he's a very kind person. But it's hard for him to tell. This wound does not close, does not heal. After last interview he was away for a long time. I was afraid to lose him. Therefore, now, like an eagle, I protect. We live with these memories forever. My daughter went to the 4th grade and wrote in an essay: "My dad is always sad." And what should he be when he experienced this. I, too, like him, from an orphanage. They worked at the same factory, lived in the same hostel. We met and started dating. I remember our first trip to Khatyn. I didn't know the details yet. We went there on a motorcycle. My husband, as they say now, was a biker. We approached the graves with three crosses. The bodies of all those burned down were buried here. Including his mom. I'm telling you now, and I have tremors all over my body. Yes, and I'm not the one to tell you. He is a living witness of Khatyn. During our first trip, he told the details for the first time. How they were driven into the barn, how they poured gasoline on the walls, how the thatched roof instantly flared up. Everything was on fire, crackling. There were inhuman screams. His mother stood at the door, holding his hand. Under the pressure of dozens of people, the doors could not stand it and collapsed. In burning clothes, the Khatyns tried to escape, but they were immediately shot. One of the bullets hit his mother. She fell on Victor. You say: tell me! We lived our lives in these conversations. But there is no strength to share this grief with others. I tell this and I seem to see his face contorted with fear and pain.
It is unbearably painful for Viktor ZHELOBKOVICH to recall the events of March 22, so in recent times he refuses to talk about it
photo site
Witnesses of Khatyn ... Probably, each of them would like to erase that day from their memory forever. Forget. Cut off. Chop off. But it doesn't come out. In one of the interviews, Viktor Andreevich admitted:
To this day I see these charred corpses, I still have the corpse of my mother before my eyes.
Let's not forget those terrible events And we. Today, the ashes of Khatyn pulsate in the heart of every Belarusian. It pulses with an eerie reminder-mandate to future generations: "Never again!"
31.07.2016 0 5121
World history knows many cases when people, finding themselves in difficult conditions, successfully fought against the elements and the destructive forces of nature. However, the flight crash №571 in the Andes occupies a special place in a series of such cases.
The passengers who survived the crash managed to survive and hold out for more than seventy days in the cold and deserted mountains, until help came to them. True, at the same time they had to eat the dead bodies of their dead comrades, that is, take the path of cannibalism.
Doom Cyclone
October 12 1972 The plane of the Uruguayan Air Force took off from Carrasco airport, heading to the capital of Chile, the city of Santiago. He was on a charter flight with a Uruguayan junior rugby team flying to a match in Santiago.
Young athletes were accompanied by relatives, coaches and sponsors. In total, there were 45 people on board the aircraft along with the crew. because of bad weather the plane landed at Argentinean Mendoza airport and was forced to stay there overnight. The next day the flight continued, and October 13 became a really unlucky day for the passengers of Flight 571.
The bad weather intensified, and the pilots began to perform complex maneuvers to overcome the cyclone. But when the plane emerged from the cyclone, right in front of it was big mountain. As a result, the liner hooked on the top, crashed onto a rock, and then rolled down the slope at great speed. Twelve people died during the accident, and six more passengers died the next day from their wounds.
Twenty-seven people survived, but they were on the verge of survival. Food, water, medicines, warm clothes and shoes were completely absent. And around were the harsh Andes.
Luckily, the rugby team included two first-year medical students. They gave first aid to the wounded, made tires from the wreckage of the aircraft and bandaged them with improvised means.
Without any hope
After the disappearance of the plane, the authorities of three countries - Uruguay, Argentina and Chile - organized a search operation. A week of intense search yielded nothing, so on the eighth day the operation was terminated. Officials and specialists decided that the plane crashed in the mountains, and all the passengers of Flight 571 died.
It so happened that one of the surviving passengers, Roy Harley, heard this news on his personal radio, which survived the crash.
People who were freezing without food, warm clothes and fuel at an altitude of 3600 meters realized that they would no longer be looked for. And they can only hope for own forces. By this point, the victims of the crash had used up all the food they had—a few chocolate bars, some crackers, and several bottles of wine. Water was obtained from snow, which was melted in the sun.
There were no plants, no birds, no animals around. It was impossible to get food. It remained either to die of hunger, or start eating the bodies of dead people. The first to do this was medical student Roberto Canessa. At first, such an idea caused horror, but then moral issues faded into the background.
Canessa cut off pieces of meat from a corpse in the snow. He explained to his comrades in misfortune, who were horrified, that their main task was to survive, and moral standards should not apply now. At first, it was not so easy for normal civilized people to do this: reason resisted. However, hunger was stronger than reason. And besides, Roberto Canessa reassured them: "This dead flesh is exactly the same as the beef that we eat every day."
First, they decided to use the bodies of pilots who were unfamiliar to the surviving passengers. The meat was cut with shards of glass, using them as cutting tools.
"When we are talking about survival, you start to look at many things differently, - he said later Nando Parrado. - The idea that we can eat our dead comrades occurred to many of us at the same time. We were tormented by the same fears, we had no one to rely on, we were already declared dead.
I looked at my piece for a long time before putting it in my mouth. Once or twice I chewed it without feeling the taste. Then he made an effort and swallowed.
We had nowhere else to look for help, we could only rely on ourselves. On the same day, four or five guys started talking about the same thing. I discussed this with Carlito. I don’t remember which of us started this conversation, but already 5-6 hours later everyone was talking about it.
We have made an agreement. Everyone allowed the others to eat his body in case of death, so that at least one of us could get out of here. In life, things happen so terrible that a normal person simply cannot imagine such a thing.
miraculous rescue
But this was also a temporary solution. In connection with the termination of the search operation, passengers were required to take steps to save themselves. Having approximately determined the place of the crash, the passengers realized that there was a habitable area to the west of the mountains. It was necessary to get there and call for help to evacuate the rest.
Students Nando Parrado, Roberto Canessa and Antonio Vizintin volunteered to go on a dangerous hike. Roberto Canessa was the leader of the group. They were given some warm clothes and a supply of human meat. Literally the next day of the campaign, the volunteers stumbled in the mountains on tail section aircraft in which the luggage was located. Having opened the suitcases, the students found many useful things there - food, chocolate, whiskey, clean clothes, medicines, cigarettes.
Such a find to a large extent contributed to their successful passage through the Andes. And yet along the way Vizintin weakened. So he was sent back, having made a makeshift sled made from the wreckage of the fuselage. With their help, he reached the main group of victims of the crash.
Parrado and Canessa continued on foot to the rescue. They managed to overcome the glacier without special climbing equipment and descend into the valley. After 9 days of travel through the snowy Andes without equipment, maps and warm clothes, having covered 55 km in the snow, they came to a mountain stream. On the other side they saw a man.
"We both started screaming," recalls Nando. "He saw us too, but we couldn't hear each other. He was very surprised, he obviously didn't expect to meet people so high in the mountains." Crossing this place was not possible.
Nando and Roberto waited for the morning. “Somewhere at half past six or six we saw a small fire on the other side of the river, almost at the very water,” says Nando. “Roberto was completely exhausted, and I went to the river alone. The water was so noisy that that guy didn’t hear me.
But he turned out to be very smart - he found a stone and tied paper and a small pencil to it, then swung and threw the stone to my side. Then I wrote this note:
"Our plane crashed in the mountains, we are from Uruguay. We walked here for 10 days, there are two of us, my friend and I. He is sick. There were 14 more people near the plane, they are all in serious condition. We need to get out of here as soon as possible, but we don't know how. We have no food, our strength is running out. When are you coming back for us? Hurry up, please. Where are we?"
The most important for me was this last question. We had no idea where we were. We knew we were somewhere in the Andes, but we didn't know anything else."
A local resident, having read the note, raced off on a horse, before leaving Nando and Roberto with a small piece of bread and cheese. They hadn't eaten anything like this for more than two months. The farmer had to ride a horse for 10 hours to the nearest settlement. There he sought out a military garrison and led 5 or 6 men to the place where Roberto and Nando were staying.
Those remaining at the crash site learned by radio that two passengers of Flight 571 had been found alive in the Andes.
“We heard the speech of the Ambassador of Uruguay on the radio,” recalls one of the surviving passengers, Carlitos Paez. “He announced that Canessa and Parrado were found alive in the mountains. Imagine how we felt at the moment when we heard these names on the radio. After all, this meant that our story was coming to an end, the end of our pain, the end of our suffering, no more fighting for life.
It meant the freedom we had dreamed of for so long. We jumped around the receiver like crazy. Even today I get goosebumps when I remember this day, although I have already told about it hundreds of times in the almost 40 years that have passed since the disaster.
On December 22, 1972, two helicopters flew to the scene of the crash, which evacuated the surviving passengers. Together with Parrado and Canessa, sixteen people escaped. All of them were then treated for a long time for altitude sickness, dehydration, scurvy, malnutrition and frostbite.
When communicating with rescuers, the press and the police, Parrado did not hide the price at which they managed to survive in the mountains without food.
His report of cannibalism was confirmed when rescue teams removed the bodies of the victims from the snowy graves. Therefore, the message about the plane crash and cannibalism in the Andes became a worldwide sensation.
Nando Parrado years later
However, law enforcement, most rescuers and professional travelers treated this information with restraint and understanding. It was officially recognized that the passengers acted in this way under the influence of extraordinary circumstances.
In 1973, American filmmakers shot the feature film Alive about this amazing story. And in it, in the foreground, there were not forced cannibalism, but the courage, steadfastness and mutual assistance of people who survived in emergency circumstances.
All 16 survivors of the crash are still alive today. They meet every year on the anniversary of their salvation.
“I would like to honor the memory of all those who were with us on that plane,” says Nando Parrado. “Why I survived, and not them, I don’t know. It sounds stupid, but I would like them all to be here, with me so that we never get on that ill-fated plane. I would very much like to hug them all. As long as I live, they too will live in my heart."
