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(CNN Spanish) — “I thought they were people just sightseeing.” With these words, Sergio Catalan described what he imagined for the first time in 1972 when he saw Roberto Canessa and Fernando “Nando” Parrado, two of the survivors of the “Tragedy of the Andes” , who climbed the Andes mountain range for 10 days in search. help.
Canessa and Parrado were among the 16 survivors of the crash on October 13, 1972, when Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, bound for Santiago de Chile, crashed into the Andes mountain range, carrying 45 people on board, including 19 members of the Christian Bros. . School rugby team in Uruguay.
In all, 29 passengers died (some immediately and some as days passed). The 16 survivors spent more than two months in the snowy mountains of the Andes and were able to survive with what little food they had and even a diet based on human flesh.
But there was another factor that was key to everyone’s survival: Chile’s mule Sergio Catalan.
The character of Catalan appears briefly in the film. The Snow Society, From Netflix, based on the tragedy. He is the first person the survivors meet in the bay after 72 days and, although he escapes, he is responsible for the rescue, and a bond was formed between him and the survivors that lasted for decades. This is his story.
Sergio Catalan, the mule driver who saved the lives of 16 people
When Canessa and Parrado separated from the group in search of help, the survivors had been stranded in the Andes mountains for nearly two months.
He decided to isolate himself from the others as it was his only chance of survival, as he had heard on the radio that authorities had suspended search efforts.
Mule driver Sergio Catalán with Roberto Canessa on 12 October 2002 for the commemoration ceremony of the 30th anniversary of the Andes tragedy. (Credit: Julio Castro/AFP via Getty Images)
After 10 days of climbing the mountain range from where the group was, they reached a mountain peak and crossed it. According to Canessa at the Uruguay event in 2020, once there, they went from a snowy landscape to a landscape full of life Informal breakfast.
“It has come 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 see man. Remembering,” said Canessa, who was 19 at the time of the accident and is now a cardiologist.
He added, “Did you really reach civilization? We were missing that man. And, when I saw him, I said: ‘We have a real possibility of that tomorrow.’
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 just sightseeing. Later, when I saw them running closer, almost to the point where they They could yell at me, they made (signs) with their hands, but I didn’t understand what they were saying,” Catalan said in a 1972 interview with Televisión de Chile, included in the documentary Was mule beater From YouTube channel Contacto.
Canessa and Parrado could not get closer to the Catalans because of a natural obstacle: a stream that did not allow them to go to the side where the mule driver was. In fact, it was not a wide stream, but a strong current had blocked the way. Furthermore, the noise of the stream was loud, so the words of the Uruguayans could not be heard.
“They had nothing to communicate. Nothing. They didn’t have paper, they didn’t have a pencil,” Catalan told Contacto in a 2011 interview, which was included in a 2013 documentary.
The Catalan went to the refuge of a friend for a piece of paper and a pencil, and he gave both things to Canessa and Parrado so that they could write a note and thus find out what was happening.
And the story he read in that note is the incredible odyssey we now all know as “The Tragedy of the Andes.”
This note was written by Parrado. Some of his words on paper were as follows: “I came from a plane that fell in the mountains, I am Uruguayan, we have been walking for 10 days, above I have a wounded friend (Canessa, who did not go down) (injured Being on the banks of a stream), 14 people were injured on the plane. We have to get out of here quickly and we don’t know how. We have no food, we’re weak. When are they going to go up and find us?”
Sergio Catalan gave up his activities to help them. she visited 120 km on horseback To report that he has found two survivors of a plane crash.
He told Contacto that 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. It took 10 hours on horseback to deliver the note to the Carabineros in the town of Puente Negro.
Within the framework of the 30th anniversary of the Andes tragedy of October 12, 2002, Sergio Catalan rides on a horse and Roberto Canessa is next to him. (Credit: Julio Castro/AFP via Getty Images)
At first, the authorities believed he was drunk, but “Nando” Parrado’s note was conclusive evidence that he was telling the truth, so they both set out in search of the Uruguayans.
The Catalans saw Canessa and Parrado for the first time on 21 December 1972. The mule driver devoted the entire day to informing the authorities. On 22 December, helicopters arrived at the crash site with the remaining 14 survivors. Contacto says rescue efforts took two days due to bad weather.
Canessa said informal breakfast That, despite many years having passed since the rescue, good relations remained with the Catalans, to the extent that they shared many meetings and formed an unbreakable bond that lasted for decades.
For his part, Carlos Paez, who was one of the survivors of the crash and whose father led the campaign to find survivors, said that Sergio Catalan was like a father figure to the entire group.
“It is a difficult moment because a chapter of our history is closing and to us he was like a father. These 47 years there has been a bond between us that endures and transcends time,” Páez commented to CNN Chile following the Catalan’s death at the age of 91.
Sergio Catalan, “A great man with a great family. We owe him our lives.”
With information from Dario Klein and Karen Esquivel from CNN.
