How a Plane Crash in the Andes Inspired My Calling to Save Lives
October 26, 2015
Canessa was a 19-year-old medical student and rugby player at Stella Maris College in Montevideo, Uruguay, when he became famous as one of 16 people who survived a 1972 plane crash in the Andes for 72 days by eating the frozen flesh of their deceased companions. While the survivors’ collective story was captured in Alive, Piers Paul Read’s iconic 1974 book, Canessa—who went on to became a world-renowned pediatric cardiologist at the Italian Hospital of Montevideo—now draws parallels between the life-altering decisions he made on the mountain and the hope he provides to desperate parents by performing lifesaving heart surgeries on newborn infants and fetuses in utero. In this inspirational book, he recounts in breathtaking detail his harrowing journey across a harsh, uninhabited region of the Andes with fellow crash survivor Fernando Parrado to find help. Canessa references the life-and-death decisions (choosing cannibalism was his idea) that prepared him to become the most delicate of doctors. Coauthor Vierci interviewed Canessa’s family members, patients, and rescuers to connect the dots between the doctor’s survival ordeal and his medical work. The approach doesn’t result in a smooth narrative, but it makes for riveting reading.