Lost & Found: 5 Heroic Stories of Survival in Latin America

Lost in the Andes

One of the most famous and harrowing tales of survival started when Uruguayan rugby players and friends and family flying from Montevideo to Santiago, Chile for a friendly match crashed into the snowy Andes in 1972. Of the 45, only 16 were left after some survivors died from cold and others in an avalanche. After hearing radio reports that rescuers had given up hope of finding them, starving survivors began to eat their dead companions, who had been preserved in the snow. They were finally rescued when two of the players walked for 12 days and were found by a Chilean cowboy, who alerted authorities. The survivors had been lost for two-and-a-half months.