Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors

By Piers Paul Read

First Edition 1974 hardcover with dust jacket.

Lost in the vast snowy wastes of the high Andes... all official rescue efforts abandoned ... no food...  inadequate clothing for subzero temperatures ... no medical supplies to ease the suffering of the dying. So began a terrible ordeal for the young men and women who had set out from Uruguay in high spirits for a series of rugby matches in Chile. Their chartered airplane had entered a cloud bank, lost altitude in a series of downdrafts, and crashed into a mountain peak.

Realizing that what little chance they had to live lay in their own hands, they planned their escape. Rather than die of starvation, they made a difficult decision: they would use the bodies of their dead companions for food.

This is the remarkable true story of survival that captured headlines in 1972.