Will to Live: Dispatches from the Edge of Survival (6 page)

My next tutorial involves net fishing in the small, muddy jungle streams. This time, the women take over as my teachers. As Anna shows me how to shove my net deep into the muddy water to corner the fish, Laura, who was busy trying to get some video footage, falls backward into the murky stream. When she surfaces, the first words out of my mouth are “Is the camera okay?” Everything we do, we do as a group, including laughing together.

It is the night before I am to set out on my week-long survival test. Tomorrow, I will be deposited in the heart of the jungle, alone. Before sleeping, I take my satellite phone out to the airstrip to call home. It is my only link to the outside world, and on this night I need to hear familiar voices. Instead, I hear a low growl from about sixty yards away in the pitch-black jungle. I make a beeline back to the hut. The growl belongs to a full-grown puma that has been hanging around the area.

Sleep proves difficult. I’m more anxious about this survival stay than any other, yet I’m also exhilarated; surviving in the Amazon jungle is my personal quest. Bug screening covers my hammock. This is good, given that our hut is filled with annoying, biting gnats. Also, the alternative—sleeping on the floor while thousands of army ants and the odd tarantula crawl over me—is worse. Before we embark in the morning, the elders ceremoniously paint my back and arms with ink made from plant dyes. I am immediately swarmed by bees. They, along with wasps and butterflies, will be my constant companions for the next seven days.

My greatest insect foe, though, is a huge, two-inch-long ant they called the
manyi
(or bullet) ant. It has a monster-sized set of chompers on the front end and a massive stinger on the rear. A sting from one of these ants is said to feel the same as jamming a pair of red-hot pliers into your skin, twisting it hard, and holding it there. The pain doesn’t diminish for at least five hours. The Waorani fear this bite more than snakebites, yet I’m amazed when one of the kids skillfully catches one for me using a small piece of grass twisted like a noose. In the days to come, I will step barefoot beside at least six of these devils.

I will also plunge my hands deep into muddy riverbanks in search of catfish, praying I don’t instead get a handful of electric eel—or a fresh-water stingray, the most feared creature of all. I will suspend disbelief and do a number of things that go against all my instincts. But this is jungle-style survival, and all bets are off. My crew, including paramedic Barry Clark, will wait for me back in the village, just in case.

On day six of my week alone in the jungle, I go for a short walk to relieve myself at the end of the day while the sun is setting. I look up to see a huge spotted jaguar not more than fifteen yards away. Concentrating on slowing my breathing and keeping the monster cat in sight, I slowly make my way back to my bush camp. I hadn’t planned on following the jungle trail home until tomorrow, but this unexpected visitor is reason enough to cut this adventure short. I don’t mind suffering for my art, but I’m not interested in getting eaten for it.

The sun is setting and darkness falling fast as I start to pick my way home. The trail is small and tangled, and I use the video camera’s night-vision function to guide my way. I set a quick pace, constantly searching for the jaguar. The big cat stalks me all the way back to the village.

After what seems like an eternity, I come to the edge of the airstrip and hastily make my way into the fenced enclosure of the village. I’ve made it. Barely.

Later that night, as I lie exhausted and spent in a hammock that now feels like the ultimate in luxury, Jim wakes me up. “Listen,” he says, and motions to the side of our hut. Clearly audible is the growl of the jaguar; he will continue to circle the village all night. The next day, Kinta hikes out to where I first saw the big cat and tells me that, by the size of the prints scattered all over the equipment I’d left behind, he is a 250-pound male.

Although
Survivorman
is now part of my past, people always ask what my favorite location was. Suffice it to say that I have never been so profoundly affected and full of awe as I was in the Amazon, the land of Waorani.

Chapter 3 - “I Will Not Die on This Mountain”

I
N THE
PANTHEON
OF SURVIVAL STORIES, THERE ARE THOSE THAT STAND TALL AMONG THEIR PEERS AS TRULY EPIC, STORIES THAT ARE SPOKEN OF WITH AWE, EVEN AMONG THOSE WHO HAVE LIVED THROUGH THEIR OWN ORDEALS. THE STORY OF
NANDO PARRADO
AND THE FORTY-FOUR OTHER PEOPLE WHO BOARDED A CHARTER FLIGHT FROM
MONTEVIDEO
, U
RUGUAY, TO
S
ANTIAGO
, C
HILE
,
ON
O
CTOBER 13, 1972, IS ONE OF THOSE.
F
OR MORE THAN TWO MONTHS, THEY ENDURED SOME OF THE MOST HORRIFIC CONDITIONS
IMAGINABLE
BEFORE TWO AMONG THEM MADE A FINAL, DESPERATE
TREK
INTO THE HEART OF THE
A
NDES TO TRY TO FIND HELP.

Along with some friends and family, Nando Parrado and his fellow members of the Old Christians Rugby Club were on their way to Santiago to play an exhibition match against a Chilean team. Spirits were high as the players, most in their early twenties, boarded the Fairchild twin-engine turboprop for the three-and-a-half-hour flight across the Andes. But when the pilots heard of bad weather in the mountains ahead, they decided to set down for the evening in the small town of Mendoza, just on the eastern edge of the great mountain range. The weather had not improved significantly the next day, and the pilots struggled to make a decision. Nando and his teammates, full of the piss and vinegar that so often defines young athletes, jeered the pilots for not daring to attempt the passage across the mountains. Eventually, the pilots acquiesced, and they took off shortly after 2
p.m.
on October 14.

The flight was uneventful at the start. The boys laughed, played cards, and marveled at the vastness of the Andes below them. Here was a mountain range like few of them had ever conceived of, let alone seen. Given that some of the mountains in the range easily eclipsed the maximum cruising altitude of the Fairchild (22,500 feet), the pilots had charted a course through narrow Planchon Pass, where the ridges were low enough to allow passage of the craft.

Yet, as is often the case in these situations, the break in the weather that the pilots had hoped for never materialized, and the steward was soon asking the passengers to fasten their seat belts due to approaching turbulence. The Fairchild pitched and moaned in the ferocious wind, and at one point lost several hundred feet of altitude in a matter of seconds. When the cloud cover stubbornly refused to lift, the pilots were forced to rely on dead reckoning for navigation. Nando leaned forward to comfort his mother, Eugenia, and sister, Susy, who were accompanying him on the trip. Seconds later, Panchito Abal, one of Nando’s best friends, pointed out the window. Through the sporadic break in the thick cloud they could see the dark walls of the mountains flying past, not more than fifty feet away. The engines whined as the plane tried desperately to climb. Seconds later, all hell broke loose.

The Fairchild careened off the mountain and the fuselage split into two pieces, with the tail section falling away. Everybody sitting behind Nando was lost immediately, including one of his best friends, Guido Magri. Miraculously, the front section of fuselage hit the snow at almost precisely the same angle as the slope itself, preventing it from disintegrating on impact. Instead, the severed plane careered down the icy mountainside like a runaway toboggan at speeds near 200 miles per hour.

The fuselage eventually slammed into a snow berm, partially crushing the nose of the craft and dooming the pilot and copilot. The force of the impact ripped all the remaining seats from their anchors and hurtled them to the front of the plane, killing several of those who had survived the initial impact. All told, thirteen people were already dead once the plane came to a fitful rest on the side of what is now known as Mount Seler.

Nando lay unconscious as the others began their survival ordeal. Gustavo Zerbino and Roberto Canessa, both medical students, took stock of the living. Amazingly, some of the players had suffered only minor scrapes and bruises, while others had far more gruesome injuries. Enrique Platero was impaled by a steel pipe during the crash; when Gustavo pulled out the pipe, a few inches of Enrique’s intestine came with it. The calf muscle on one of Rafael Echavarren’s legs had been almost completely torn off the bone and was dangling around the front of the leg.

Almost instinctively, Marcelo Perez del Castillo assumed his position as leader of the group and earned his C as team captain. He was brilliant in the early moments after the crash, organizing the uninjured and setting them to work to help the others. This was the perfect response, because it was action—proactive action, which is vital to making it through any kind of survival ordeal. Action immediately dispels panic, which can be horribly contagious in grim situations. While you might almost expect panic to have occurred, it didn’t. I believe Marcelo was instrumental in keeping this runaway emotion at bay, which in turn likely helped save lives. It gave people something to focus on other than the sheer terror of their circumstances.

Now came the first of many difficult decisions the survivors would have to make: who would get attention first and who would be left to possibly die. In other words, triage. Search and rescue teams receive extensive training on what kind of victim is most likely to survive an accident; these people receive attention first. Gustavo and Roberto did the same, working their way through the plane, determining which victims they would spend their energies on and which were too close to death to warrant aid. The dead were removed from the fuselage and moved outside; the injured were carried gently out to the snow while those fit enough for work set to the task of clearing the debris from the plane. Though they may not have realized it at the time, the decision to move the injured out into the snow was brilliant. The cold began to dull their pain. Anyone who has ever iced an injury knows that, once the pain of the cold eventually subsides, the pain of the injury does as well. This move certainly slowed the metabolic processes of many of the injured, thereby improving their chances of survival.

Marcelo proved his natural leadership—and survival—abilities in those frantic early hours in more ways than one. Having organized the healthy into work crews, he then set his mind to assessing the reality of rescue. Marcelo realized that, since the plane had crashed late in the afternoon, there was no way rescue crews would find them before the next day, at the earliest. With this in mind, he realized that his next step must be to ensure that he and the others survived the night perched on the side of the icy, windswept mountain.

To make the survivors as comfortable as possible, Marcelo and the others who were healthy cleared space inside the fuselage. He then assessed the structure of the plane itself, and took another brilliant proactive step. He realized that, while the fuselage would provide protection from the elements, it was full of holes, particularly a gaping one at the rear, where the tail section had ripped off. He organized his friends to seal these holes, to prevent the frigid (below -20°F or -30°C) air from ripping through their flimsy shelter, and even to build a wall of snow at the far end of the plane. Were it not for this last bit of leadership, few would have lived to see the next day.

A long and brutal night ensued for the survivors, most of whom had never experienced any kind of cold, let alone the kind of bone-numbing temperatures found high in the Andes. As morning dawned, Marcelo was first on his feet, rousing the others to action. He coaxed the living to keep faith. He was convinced that rescue was no more than a day away, but he didn’t let that get in the way of his survival instincts. He directed the others to gather up any food they could find scattered about the craft, and began to carefully ration it among the survivors. Meals became little more than a square of chocolate or smear of jam washed down with a mouthful of wine. This was not an easy decision, but it was certainly the right one. As difficult as it may be to steel yourself against the pains in your stomach, the practice of rationing is one that should never stop in a survival situation.

Coco Nicholich was put in charge of the cleanup crew—another important early decision by Marcelo. It not only ensured that people remained focused and occupied, but ensured a tidy survival site. The Cree people of northern Quebec, when living in the remote northern bush in winter, meticulously clean snow off their clothing before coming in from the cold. Every snowflake is removed from their outer clothing and brushed from their footwear. The alternative is to see the snow melt, and getting wet in temperatures that can sink to nearly -60°F (-50°C) is a dangerous thing. The rationale is really quite simple: a clean and organized survival site (or camp, in the case of the Cree) is an effective survival site. You don’t waste time looking for things. You maximize usage of space. You are as comfortable as possible. Bottom line: it makes you feel better.

Coco also helped keep his friends’ spirits buoyed by telling jokes and stories, a great way to boost morale.

While on a six-day adventure race, my team and I were beginning to hit a mental and physical wall in the middle of the night as we pushed through thick forest. It occurred to me that it was my turn to bolster our collective spirits, so I began to sing. I soon stopped, thinking that I might have been annoying my teammates, but they called out in unison for me to continue. Whatever your party trick is, whatever skill you have, it may be employed to keep up the spirits of those caught in the ordeal with you.

Nando was among the most seriously injured in the crash. For three days he lay in a coma, the result of a head injury he suffered upon impact. Once he regained consciousness, though, it didn’t take long for stark reality to slap him in the face. As he opened his eyes for the first time in more than seventy-two hours, he put a hand to his injured head and was sickened by the spongy feeling under his fingertips: he was pressing pieces of shattered skull into his brain. As he looked around the plane, Nando observed that, while he and his friends seemed able to cope well enough with their situation during the brightness of day, with darkness came misery. As the survivors lay there cold, alone, and forlorn at night, some wept with grief, others screamed in pain. I believe it was only the strength of Marcelo that kept the others from losing their minds in the grim early days of the ordeal.

The agony of nighttime survival, particularly in the cold, is difficult to appreciate. For Nando, his first night of consciousness was sheer hell, a feeling he captured in his 2006 book,
Miracle in the Andes
:

Time itself seemed to have frozen solid. I lay on the cold floor of the fuselage, tormented by the icy gusts blowing through every gap and crack, shivering uncontrollably for what seemed like hours,
certain that dawn must be only moments away
[italics mine]. Then someone with an
illuminated watch would announce the time and I would realize that only minutes had passed. I suffered through the long night breath by frozen breath, from one shivering heartbeat to the next, and
each moment was its own separate hell
[italics mine].

I can’t claim to have ever experienced the terror that Nando and his friends did, but he magnificently describes many frozen nights I have spent trying to find sleep in the confines of a small survival shelter.

The survivors were also hampered by the thin air, something they had never experienced in the coastal city of Montevideo, which sits less than 150 feet above sea level. Even the strongest athlete struggles with thin mountain air. Imagine having your mouth taped around a straw and your nose pinched, then having to climb a set of stairs or jog. Most people eventually acclimatize to altitude, but it can take days, or even weeks. In the meantime, you have to deal with the nausea and dizziness that accompany it. During a ninety-mile walk (uphill all the way) in the mountains of Peru, where the altitude was between fifteen thousand and seventeen thousand feet above sea level, the air was so thin that I frequently had to stop and inhale vigorously to catch my breath. No matter how hard or how fast I sucked in air, I never hyperventilated or got dizzy, because there was so little oxygen in the air to begin with. Meanwhile a sixty-six-year-old Queros elder (a direct descendant of the Incan high priests) was happily scooting past me straight uphill. The Queros’ lungs and hearts have been proven to be a half-size bigger than those of people who live at lower altitudes.

Once Nando regained his wits, the stark reality of their situation began to wash over him. His mother had been killed on impact; his beloved sister, Susy, was still alive, though badly injured. Nando made his way over to where Susy lay, and spent every possible moment holding her in his arms, touching her skin, talking to her. During these quiet moments with his sister, Nando was able to fully comprehend the true nature of his situation. The immediacy of danger was everywhere; he felt it deep in his bones.