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They waited. And waited.

They cut slivers of frozen flesh with a shard of glass. They held their noses. They swallowed. And they did not die of hunger.

On October 13, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 was a ribbon of metal and hope cutting through the Andes. Inside, the Old Christians rugby team, their friends, and family laughed, sang, and tossed crumpled paper balls at each other. They were young. They were invincible. Nando Parrado was showing a photograph of his mother and sister to a friend. Roberto Canessa, a medical student, was dozing, dreaming of the sea.

A wave of nausea and silence. Then Nando Parrado, his skull still fractured from the crash, said slowly, "If my mother… if she could give her body so that I live… she would. I know that."

The pilot had miscalculated. The plane, a Fairchild FH-227D, flew into a cyclone. Turbulence shook the fuselage like a dog with a rat. Passengers gripped armrests. Then, a sickening lurch —the altimeter spinning backward. The mountains had appeared out of nowhere.