I Had to Survive
How a Plane Crash in the Andes Inspired My Calling to Save Lives
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4.4 • 7 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Dr. Roberto Canessa recounts his side of the famous 1972 plane crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 in the Andean Mountains and how, decades later, the harrowing journey to survive propelled him to become one of the world’s leading pediatric cardiologists, seeing in his patients the same fierce will to live he witnessed in the Andes.
As he tended to his wounded Old Christians teammates amidst the devastating carnage, rugby player Roberto Canessa, a second-year medical student at the time, realized that no one on earth was luckier: he was alive—and for that, he should be eternally grateful. As the starving group struggled beyond the limits of what seemed possible, Canessa played a key role in safeguarding his fellow survivors, eventually trekking with a companion across the hostile mountain range for help.
No one could have imagined that there were survivors from the accident in such extreme conditions. Canessa's extraordinary experience on the fine line between life and death became the catalyst for the rest of his life.
This uplifting tale of hope and determination, solidarity and ingenuity, gives vivid insight into the world-famous story that inspired the movie Alive! Canessa also draws a unique and fascinating parallel between his work as a doctor diagnosing very complex congenital cardiopathies in unborn and newborn infants and the difficult life-changing decisions he was forced to make in the Andes. With grace and humanity, Canessa prompts us to ask ourselves: what do you do when all the odds are stacked against you?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
