(CNN Spanish) — “I thought they were people who were just sightseeing.” With these words, Sergio Catalan described the first thing in 1972 when he saw Roberto Canessa and Fernando “Nando” Parado, two survivors of the “Tragedy of the Andes”, who had climbed the Andes mountain range for 10 days. Help
Canessa and Parado were among the 16 survivors of the October 13, 1972 crash, when Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, bound for Santiago de Chile, crashed in the Andes mountains, with 45 people on board, including 19 members of the Christian Bros. School rugby team, in Uruguay.
In total, 29 of the passengers died (some immediately and others days later). The 16 survivors spent more than two months in the snowy mountains of the Andes, surviving on what little food they had and a diet based on human flesh.
But there was one more factor that was key to everyone’s survival: Chilean mule Sergio Catalan.
The character of Catalan makes a brief appearance in the film Snow Society, Based on the tragedy, from Netflix. After 72 days he is the first person the survivors meet in the bay and, although he rides away, he is responsible for the rescue, and a bond is formed between him and the survivors that lasts for decades. This is his story.
Sergio Catalán, the mule that saved 16 lives
When Canessa and Parado separated from the group in search of help, the survivors had been stranded in the Andes mountains for nearly two months.
They decided to separate themselves from the others as it was their only chance for survival, as they heard on the radio that the authorities had suspended search efforts.
After 10 days of climbing the ridge from where the group was, they reached the top of the mountain and passed it. Once there, they went from a snowy landscape to one teeming with life, according to Canessa at the Uruguayan event in 2020. Informal breakfast.
“He came from the mountain range, from the glacier, where there is no life. And you come back: first you see water, then you see grass, then you see lizards, then you see cows… but you lose the man.” said Kanesa, who was 19 at the time of the accident and is now a cardiologist.
“Have you really reached civilization? We were losing that man. And, when I saw that, I said: ‘We have a real possibility of him tomorrow,'” he added.
Sergio Catalan, who died in February 2020, was working when he saw two survivors of the “Tragedy of the Andes”.
The Chilean man was a mule driver and was with cattle when he saw the Uruguayans.
“At first, when I saw them, I was herding cattle, but I thought they were people who were just walking around. Later, when I saw them running close, almost to the point where they could shout at me. , then they made (signs). ) with their hands. , but I didn’t understand what they were saying,” Catalan said in a 1972 interview with Television de Chile, which was included in the documentary. muleteer From the YouTube channel Contacto.
Canessa and Parado could not get close to Catellan because of a natural obstacle: a stream that did not allow them to cross the side where the mule drove. Actually, it was not a huge current, but a rapid current blocking the passage. Also, the noise of the current was loud, so the Uruguayan’s words could not be heard.
“They had nothing to communicate. Nothing. They didn’t have paper, they didn’t have pencils,” Catalan told Contact in a 2011 interview that was included in the 2013 documentary.
Catalan went to a friend’s shelter for a piece of paper and a pencil, and he gave both items to Canesa and Parado so that they could write a note and thus find out what was going on.
And on that note the story he read is the incredible odyssey we all know now as “The Tragedy of the Andes.”
This note was written by Parado. Some of his words on paper were as follows: “I came from a plane that fell in the mountains, I am from Uruguay, we have been walking for 10 days, I have a wounded friend on top of me (Canessa, who did not go down. On the bank of the stream for injury), in the plane 14 People were injured. We have to get out of here fast and we don’t know how. We have no food, we are weak. When will they leave? Find us upstairs?”
Sergio Catalan quit his activities to help him. He traveled 120 kilometers on horseback to report that he had found two survivors of a plane crash.
The Catalan, who was on the Chilean side of the mountain range, traveled “a whole day and a night” to take the note to authorities, he told Contact. It took 10 hours on horseback to deliver the note to the carabinieri of the town of Puente Negro.
Sergio Catalan mounts a horse and is flanked by Roberto Canessa in the framework of the 30th anniversary of the Andes disaster on October 12, 2002. (Credit: Julio Castro/AFP via Getty Images)
At first, the authorities believed he was drunk, but “Nando” Parado’s note was conclusive proof that he was telling the truth, so they went in search of the two Uruguayans.
Catalan saw Canesa and Parado for the first time on December 21, 1972. The mule driver devoted the entire day to tipping off the authorities. On 22 December, helicopters arrived at the crash site where the remaining 14 survived. Rescue efforts took two days due to bad weather, contacts said.
Kanesa said Informal breakfast That, despite the years since the rescue, a good relationship with the Catalans was maintained, sharing many meetings and forming an unbreakable bond that lasted for decades.
For his part, Carlos Paez, another survivor of the crash and whose father organized expeditions to find survivors, said Sergio Catalan was like a father figure to the entire group.
“It’s a difficult moment because a chapter in our history is closing and he was like a father to us. We have had a permanent and periodic bond during these 47 years,” Paz commented to CNN Chile after the Catalan’s death at the age of 91.
Sergio Catalán, “A great man with a great family. We owe him our lives.”
With information from CNN’s Dario Klein and Karen Esquivel.
