Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors

by Piers Paul Read

From the east, hot currents of air rose to meet the icy atmosphere at the snow line, which lay at between 14,000 and 16,000 feet. At the same time, the cyclonic winds which blew in from the Pacific roared up the valleys from the west and grappled in their turn with the hot and cold currents from the other side. If a plane was caught in such turbulence, it could be blown around like a leaf in a gutter.

Without either wings or tail, the plane hurtled towards the jagged mountain, but instead of being smashed to pieces against a wall of rock it landed on its belly in a steep valley and slid like a toboggan on the sloping surface of deep snow.

Another boy – Enrique Platero – came up to Zerbino with a steel tube sticking into his stomach. Zerbino was appalled, but he remembered from his lessons in medical psychology that a good doctor always instils confidence into his patient. He therefore looked Platero straight in the eye and, with as much conviction as he could put into his tone of voice, said, ‘Well, Enrique, you look all right.’