The Mountain Rescue
In the morning of the day when the rescue started, those remaining at the crash site heard on their radio that Parrado and Canessa had been successful in finding help and that afternoon, 22 December 1972, two helicopters carrying search and rescue climbers arrived. However, the expedition (with Parrado onboard) was not able to reach the crash site until the afternoon, when it is very difficult to fly in the Andes. In fact the weather was very bad and the two helicopters were able to take only half of the survivors. They departed, leaving the rescue team and remaining survivors at the crash site to once again sleep in the fuselage, until a second expedition with helicopters could arrive the following morning. The second expedition arrived at daybreak on 23 December and all 16 survivors were rescued. All of the survivors were taken to hospitals in Santiago and treated for altitude sickness, dehydration, frostbite, broken bones, scurvy and malnutrition.
Read more about this topic: 1972 Andes Flight Disaster
Famous quotes containing the words mountain and/or rescue:
“I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride;
Of him who walked in glory and in joy
Following his plough, along the mountain side:
By our own spirits are we deified:
We poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“When in the sea-light every early game
Was played with love and, if death’s waters came,
You’d rescue me. How I would take you from,
Now, if I could, its whirling vacuum.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)