Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors

by Piers Paul Read

‘It’s like Holy Communion. When Christ died he gave his body to us so that we could have spiritual life. My friend has given us his body so that we can have physical life.’

The count was now correct: six bodies at the top of the mountain, eleven down below, Valeta, twenty-four alive in the Fairchild, and the three of them there. All were accounted for.

what they missed now showed them what they had had.

Marcelo Pérez was dead; so too were Carlos Roque and Juan Carlos Menéndez, crushed beneath the wall; Enrique Platero, whose stomach wound had healed at last; Gustavo Nicolich, whose courage after the broadcast had saved them from despair; Daniel Maspons, Canessa’s closest friend; and Diego Storm, one of the ‘gang’. Eight had died

It’s just that I thought that since you’ve been looking for those boys of yours for so long, you might like to come and see them.’

‘There are times when the will of God cannot be understood by our human intelligence. There are things which in all humility we must accept as a mystery.’

For Dr Francois it was a resurrection which, as a man of science, he had neither asked for nor expected.

solidarity, courage and discipline