HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So I hope that for today's episode, are we ready?
MARCUS PARKS
We're ready. And I'm ready to hear your hopes.
ED LARSON
I'm sitting here.
MARCUS PARKS
Your dreams.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hope because I know what I did today was that I kissed my puppies.
ED LARSON
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I had a big hot plate of food. And I turned up the heat. I made it 85 degrees in there.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just so that I could... Because this story, it freaks me out.
MARCUS PARKS
I'd imagine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It really freaks me out and I just hope the audience is hungry.
ED LARSON
Yeah, I was watching Alive and I literally ordered Postmates and I felt so guilty.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, how easy it was? Can you imagine the different tone of the movie if it was Alive! with an exclamation point like Fame!.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Alive!
MARCUS PARKS
Welcome to the Last Podcast on the Left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks, I'm here with Henry Zabowski.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm alive!
MARCUS PARKS
And Ed Larson.
ED LARSON
Partially alive.
MARCUS PARKS
Reasonably alive.
ED LARSON
And unreasonably warm to do this episode.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man, pop your shirt off, we'll get some ice in here.
ED LARSON
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Rob, let's get some buckets of ice. We can just pour it around that little place because things are about to get a little chilly.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah boys, we're talking about the cold because today we are talking about survival in the Andes, the story of the Uruguayan rugby team.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm alive! And it's rugby, not soccer, no matter what all of our childhood cartoons try to tell us.
ED LARSON
Yeah. I could have sworn it was soccer.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I think this might be another Mandela effect thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Called just being wrong?
MARCUS PARKS
It's called being wrong.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Never looking it up, never correcting yourself.
MARCUS PARKS
It's called one Simpsons writer remembering a movie wrong.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Well best known from the 1993 movie-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Alive!
MARCUS PARKS
The story of the Uruguayan rugby team who spent 72 days in the unforgiving heights of the Andes Mountains is one of the most harrowing tales of survival on record.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Can I... All right. So when we talked about with the Donner party where you went from oh no, is my shoe untied? to oh holy shit, there's a spider in my colostomy bag. What level of stress would you put this compared to the Donner party? I put this maybe only because of length of time spent surviving, it's like close to number two.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because when we covered the USS Indianapolis, that was just three days.
MARCUS PARKS
Very concentrated horror because you had constant sharks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All at once, right, a bunch of fucked up shit all happened at once. Same thing when we did the Essex. A lot of shit happened at once. Yes, they did turn out long. But I don't know, there's something about this, I don't know why, because cold vs hot.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd much rather be hot than cold.
ED LARSON
I'd go either way. Cold's good. I like it. I run hot so it'd help me sleep.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah I know, I'd just sleep so nice.
MARCUS PARKS
And I run cold so I'm not going to do well at all.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It'd be hell on earth. But what do you think?
MARCUS PARKS
Which one would I rather do Essex or Alive?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well just in terms of like-
ED LARSON
I'd much rather do Alive than Essex.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Worst survival story.
MARCUS PARKS
Worst survival story-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Either covered or we could cover.
MARCUS PARKS
I believe that this is up there, probably number two. The way that they describe the cold is one of the most I would say scariest things that I've ever read. Because I think the plane crash itself, all right. But the cold and cold for the length of time that they had to endure it, that I think would be the worst for me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're fine with the airplane crash.
ED LARSON
I'm fine with the airplane crash and I'm honestly-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're fine with the airplane crash.
ED LARSON
It happens. What are you gonna do? It's out of my control,
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It happens? It fucking happens?!
ED LARSON
Especially in the Andes with a fucking shitty ass plane!
MARCUS PARKS
Well the basic facts-
ED LARSON
Wait, before we get too far, I have to ask the hacky question. Who's most delicious?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We'll get there, we'll get there.
MARCUS PARKS
We'll get there, we'll get there.
ED LARSON
Certainly not you, I'll tell you that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, it's not.
ED LARSON
Not Marcus.
MARCUS PARKS
Out of the three of us?
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh no, I'm absolutely the most delicious. I'm the leanest meat.
ED LARSON
No, no, you're chewing gum dressed as a man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let's move on, uwe're gonna pick this back up. You're all incorrect, we'll pick this back up.
MARCUS PARKS
Well basic facts that on October 12th, 1972, a Fairchild FH-227 left on a charter flight from the South American country of Uruguay with 45 souls aboard. Their destination was an exhibition rugby match in Santiago, Chile, which meant crossing one of the largest mountain ranges in the world. But while the purpose of the flight was a rugby game, the majority of the passengers on board were not on the team.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like they were trying to travel, go play a rugby game, but instead all they found was nothing but trouble.
MARCUS PARKS
Nothing but trouble.
ED LARSON
Nothing but trouble. Yeah, nothing but trouble. Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Good.
ED LARSON
It's bad. Also for flying to an exhibition game? Just practice at home.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a long story.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a long story, I didn't wanna get into like the full story of...
ED LARSON
Sorry, sorry.
MARCUS PARKS
Well it's an exhibition game but they're the best fucking rugby team in all of Uuruguay so they go and play exhibition games against other countries. Well only 15 of the passengers were players while the rest were friends, family, or people who hopped on the charter flight last minute for a cheap ride to Chile. But as we all know, the plane never made it to its destination.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What?
MARCUS PARKS
16 of the 45 people who crashed in the Andes would leave the mountains alive. Although I hesitate to say only 16 when I talk about the number of survivors.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Talk about the number to the top 16 people-
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That you want on any one of your teams ever. Like these guys are, talk about survivors.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because they put the fucking-
ED LARSON
It does make them the best rugby team of all time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It does, I believe.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well put simply, it's an absolute miracle that anyone survived even the crash, much less what came after. These people spent nearly 2.5 months-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Months!
ED LARSON
Months.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes, months. They spent nearly 2.5 months near the top of one of the most unforgiving mountain ranges in the world. And the only certainty they had as far as their location went was that they were in the Andes and they were in South America.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And we're not talking about the Richters, because if you were inside of an Andy Richter, it'd be super warm in there.
ED LARSON
Yeah, and you'd be able to eat a lot more.
MARCUS PARKS
But since this was to be a short flight, relatively so, there was little food. And since the plane was colored white as most planes are, there was little to no hope that rescue planes would spot them. Therefore the survivors were infamously forced to eat the dead to sustain themselves throughout their ordeal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(metal guitar riff)
MARCUS PARKS
I know, just anytime I say eat the dead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Eat the dead.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I mean I feel like I'm doing a trailer for like a 1977 fucking horror movie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But these guys did it right, they did it classy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they did it very classy.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
It is however important to make a distinction here. What these people engaged in was not technically cannibalism, as cannibalism has a ritualistic element to it and usually involves murder.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you sick fucks! How fucking dare you?
MARCUS PARKS
Rather these men engaged in what's known as anthropophagy, which is the simple consummation of human flesh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's simple, that's it!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's just eating human flesh. You don't kill anybody, it's not a part of a whole thing. You just eat it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Does Carolina shop at Anthropophagie?
ED LARSON
I heard Ethan Hawke prepared for the role by eating his girlfriend's ass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah! White as hell in this is very, very Hispanic environment.
MARCUS PARKS
My god, we were watching Alive the other day and it's like if the cast members aren't white, they're Italian.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, that's not white.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Italy is the South America of Europe.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's controversial.
MARCUS PARKS
But that's why we can say that members of the Donner party were cannibals because some of them did kill in order to survive.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what ticks Donner party to the number one slot-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is the actual like human machinations against each other and the group get divided. But meanwhile this story is about truly the power of the human spirit.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that was fueled by human meat.
ED LARSON
Isn't the Donner party, correct me if I'm wrong, like they got in trouble because they were kind of stupid?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They definitely tried to take a shortcut.
ED LARSON
But these guys, this is totally an accident.
MARCUS PARKS
Absolutely. Well it is because one person was stupid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
But the rest of them are completely blameless.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But concerning the survivors, one of the biggest factors when it came to how they survived was the fact that they were already a team.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah!
MARCUS PARKS
And a rugby team at that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah! Grabbing and tussling. Big, thick ball. They got a big ball. That's gotta be fun.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm not playing rugby.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I bruise easy.
ED LARSON
I would love to play, I'm so sad I missed that train.
MARCUS PARKS
I know, me too.
ED LARSON
I much would rather have done that than football.
MARCUS PARKS
Rugby over football? Yeah, we used to play, that's the funny thing, we used to play a form of rugby when I was a kid but we called it caveman football. Man, people got so hurt.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I bet.
ED LARSON
Was it like 7 on 7 or something?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It was just fucking ripping into kids as hard as you could.
ED LARSON
They also get less concussions because they don't wear helmets and they don't have to hit each other's heads.
MARCUS PARKS
Yep.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
ED LARSON
Fucking rugby.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's all to say that these guys-
ED LARSON
Much of scrumbags.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cute. That's good merch. That's good rugby merch. If we had a rugby team, that'd be incredible.
MARCUS PARKS
But that's all to say that these guys were in competition shape, they knew how to work together, and at least the team were all between the ages of 18-26, they were young dudes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Tight.
MARCUS PARKS
But since these were young men, they acted like it, meaning they were sometimes petulant, annoying, and selfish in addition to being incredibly fucking heroic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think it's one of those beautiful/devastating things that like Nando talked a little bit about this in one of the documentaries, about how like they all talk about like a lot of people say if they were in this situation, they don't know if they could do it. And Nando was kind of saying the same thing being like you would never know-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you could do it or not unless you're put in this situation. And there was something about them just being boys that saved them. Because for some reason it wasn't as devastating. They literally just got up every day and came up with new plans and did new shit and they were constantly on the move. It sounded exhausting.
ED LARSON
I'd much rather do it with strangers and watch my friends die.
MARCUS PARKS
But the strangers aren't going to work together. I mean you see LOST? It took them forever and they were on an island full of food.
ED LARSON
That's true.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Did you ever see the show Survivor where the one guy got naked all the time?
ED LARSON
Talk about eating meat.
MARCUS PARKS
And yes, I know I got the numbers wrong on the last Side Stories. It's 4-8, 15-16, 23-42. I know that I know that. Now it bothered me for days.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Rob is throwing a fist in the air, apparently he was a part of the throng of people attacking us.
MARCUS PARKS
I didn't even hear of a throng, I just came off of the episode and I went fuck!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck!
MARCUS PARKS
It's 4-8, not 9-10. But because they were young kids, that also meant they could be fucking playful, they joked around, they were even cheerful at times if only to ease the burden of the situation. They were also jocks and they came from well to do families, not all of them but a lot of them. But all that's to say that these people were very human and this is a story of human survival at its absolute peak, if you'll excuse the pun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you.
ED LARSON
I will not, I love it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was like when Natalie and I went into a Twin Peaks restaurant thinking it was the David Lynch theme but it was just about tits.
ED LARSON
Oh my god. I'll have the pancakes, please.
MARCUS PARKS
But since there were a fair amount of survivors, the story is well known and well told, and those who talk about it are often brutally honest about what they and others did during those 72 days.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I do think that this is also one of the very rare occurrences where the Big Hollywood movie was actually pretty spot on when it came to the events that kind of happened in sequence.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like obviously the characterizations, they make it up for dramatic effect. But there are certain things that you watch them do where like they knew a lot about what actually went down.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now we of course used 'Alive' by Piers Paul Read-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Alive!
MARCUS PARKS
As our main source of this series. But the world is also fortunate enough to have two books from the two men who eventually got everyone rescued. Those books are 'Miracle In The Andes' by Nando Parrado and 'I Had To Survive'-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I had to survive!
MARCUS PARKS
By Roberto Canessa. Out of the two, Nando's is the higher recommendation because Canessa spends quite a few pages writing about his career as a highly successful pediatric cardiologist.
ED LARSON
I love to look at kids.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like to open them up, I like to get down in their ribcage. That's my favorite part of the job is seeing them hovering between life and death. It's kind of honestly, his book kind of sounds like the movie that they wanted to make about Freddie Mercury and Queen, that what's his name wanted to make, the guitar player.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh, Brian May?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Brian May wanted the movie or the original script apparently had Freddie Mercury die in the first quarter of the film and the rest was the resilience of the rest of Queen. It's like sorry buddy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
We call up the guy from Bad Company and talk him into a singing with us.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was easy.
MARCUS PARKS
And so without further ado, let's get into the story of the Old Christian Rugby Club and how they managed to survive the Andes Mountains.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(bird cawing)
MARCUS PARKS
There was no birds up there.
ED LARSON
Yeah, there was no birds.
MARCUS PARKS
It was fucking barren wilderness.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sorry. Whatever.
ED LARSON
Yeah, at least they didn't get attacked by wolves.
MARCUS PARKS
At least. Or birds.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But the they would have had something to eat.
ED LARSON
If the wolf came?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah, it would have been nice, you're right.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay. All taken back.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah. I like dogs.
MARCUS PARKS
Now while it may seem like it wouldn't be a large distinction, the fact that these guys were a rugby team as opposed to say a soccer team does have some bearing on how they were able to work together to survive.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The survivors definitely said that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. The Old Christian team, the best in Uruguay, was established by two Irish Catholic missionaries called the Christian Brothers who discouraged soccer in their school because they believed it promoted selfishness and egotism.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it made the women too horny.
ED LARSON
Use your hands already, you fucking idiots.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whatever, man. Soccer guys get enough.
MARCUS PARKS
Therefore they pushed their students towards rugby which taught self-discipline, devotion, sacrifice, trust, tenacity, and toughness.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
In other words, the principles and methods you learn in rugby are far more useful in a survival situation than say rolling around on the ground pretending that you're hurt.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah! Fuck yeah, shots fired! Coming for you, soccer.
ED LARSON
You fucking idiots.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because a lot of rugby really is like guys operating as a group.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's a lot of the big scrums.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well they also say like there's also a term of a man becoming grass. Like if a guy falls down, he's grass. But it becomes the job of the other players to sacrifice yourself to protect the guy who's falling down.
ED LARSON
Yeah. And you like push guys and lift them. You almost carry the dude and the ball to the fucking end zone.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
I don't know what they call it but I call it an end zone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's basically an end zone.
MARCUS PARKS
For lack of a better word.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well as Nando Parrado later put it, their rugby training was a big part of why they survived, especially when you consider that a lot of these guys had been playing on the same team for nearly a decade at the time of the crash. But in 1972, all of these guys were out of school and the team included guys who are relatively new. Now the flight had been chartered from the Uruguayan Air Force but the plane used for the flight was not what you'd call up to Air Force standards.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So why was it there?
ED LARSON
Because it's used to transfer rugby teams.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I guess you just decide you'll keep it instead of throwing it out.
MARCUS PARKS
Well they bought it from the United States government.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're welcome, Uruguay.
MARCUS PARKS
The team, their guests, and a few strangers had taken off in a Fairchild FH-227. And it was called in a couple of documentaries, it was called the lead sled.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not my favorite nickname for the plane I'm about to be on. Might as well be called the bobbing for body parts. You'd be like oh great.
MARCUS PARKS
Well out of the 78 Fairchild 227s built, 23 of them crashed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just feel like we gotta look at it.
ED LARSON
Yeah. Was it flown by Harrison Ford?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I gotta get back to Calista.
MARCUS PARKS
And it wasn't even like they crashed and they're like oh fuck, we should probably take these out of circulation. 23 of them crashed between 1960-2002.
ED LARSON
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
They didn't stop using these freaking things?
MARCUS PARKS
Killed almost 400 people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Jesus fucking Christ.
ED LARSON
Jesus Christ!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just don't know what, I guess what do they get out of it? I guess if you've already paid for it, they're just gonna let them go until they explode?
MARCUS PARKS
I suppose so. I mean I think just some people take what they can get. And flying used to be a lot more dangerous than it is now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
So much more dangerous than it is now. But the plane's safety record was only half of the equation here. While the pilot had flown the dangerous route through the Andes 29 times, the copilot was relatively inexperienced. In the end I'd say it was like an 80/20 split between pilot air and a shitty plane that resulted in the crash.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Now flying through the Andes is dangerous no matter what but it's more dangerous if you fly at the wrong time. That's because the air from the warm Argentinian planes mixes with the cold air of the Andes, creating incredible turbulence. If a plane got caught in a particularly bad pocket, they could easily lose control and crash into the side of a mountain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I did a little bit of research into plane crashes in general, which is bad for me, right.
ED LARSON
I can't believe you're actually scared of flights.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just anything.
ED LARSON
They don't crash in America anymore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're just killing hundreds of people. This is a great episode for the travel season by the way.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Yeah, I'm about to get on a plane like six days from now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Soon, yeah. But wow. Because normally if you have-
ED LARSON
Are you taking Delta?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Then you're fine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Most of the time.
ED LARSON
They're not gonna wanna pay out, you're not gonna die.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're not gonna die. Knock on the table again.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Knock on the fucking table again. All right? I don't care how Italian this is. But apparently rom what I'm reading, the main issue, because I've now read three different testimonies that talked about what you really want to look for, which it's not the up and down turbulence and it's not the side to side turbulence. It is a slow vibration that begins to increase in its strength.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is how you know you're about to die in an airplane.
ED LARSON
The straight down too is usually...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's the pilot running out with the other pilot's severed head in his hands.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah. With a parachute on.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Bye bye! Taking my friend Wilson with me!
MARCUS PARKS
Well the dangerous nature flying through the Andes was a fact well known to the pilots because once the charter flight got to the point where they had to decide whether or not to cross the Andes, they landed in the Argentinian city of Mendoza to wait out the unfavorable conditions. The team and everyone else on board however wanted their full five days in Santiago.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is the problem with being young.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is the main issue with being young. Because if you had landed it before we got to the mountains and everyone's gonna be like oh I don't know if we're gonna make it over and they're all talking about this. I would have been like let's stay here. Especially as a 39 year old man with a lot to lose.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd be like let's just stay right here. Okay?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We don't go over there. Because you're not 18, you're like yeah man, fucking cool, bounces are cool.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like no it's not, dog. It's scary as fuck.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
ED LARSON
Yeah, he just knows a chick over there or something.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, just being like she could die next week.
MARCUS PARKS
Actually that's exactly what it was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah!
MARCUS PARKS
There were a couple of dudes like man, I got some sweet Chilean tail on the other side of those mountains.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No you don't, bro! I've seen the movie, dude! You're not alive in it!
MARCUS PARKS
So after spending a night in Mendoza, the impatient and determined passengers were called back to the airport. There they discovered that the pilots still weren't sure whether or not it was safe to fly. Additionally, Argentinian law forbade international military craft from resting in their country for more than 24 hours. So the choice was to risk the Andes or go back to Uruguay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well instead what you do is you ask for forgiveness because if your troops are bordering another person's country, they send you a warning. And you're gonna say just passing through, that's also a good way to lie because then you start attacking a super vulnerable city.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow. You're thinking about Civilization VI again, aren't you? But after a cargo pilot who'd just flown in from Santiago told them that conditions were fine and after a lot of pressure from the passengers, the pilots decided to go for it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what? I think this is a bad idea and I'm completely in charge but fuck it. Literally they had to be like you know what? Fuck it. I'm horny too. Yeah, buddy. Can I watch you fuck? Can I watch you fuck? Wow, Captain Harrison's fun.
MARCUS PARKS
And so everyone boarded only slightly concerned that it just happened to be Friday the 13th.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(hums Friday the 13th theme)
MARCUS PARKS
The problem though was that since they'd spent so much time hemming and hawing, the plane took off at 2 pm. This meant that the plane would be entering the Andes during the afternoon which was the exact time that the aforementioned winds created the worst turbulence. Additionally the Fairchild couldn't handle flying the direct east to west route over the mountains because its maximum cruising altitude was lower than the highest summits, which sat at 22,831 ft above sea level.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That'll be a thing that you want to communicate to a couple of pilots.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. No, no, they knew what they were doing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They didn't know.
MARCUS PARKS
No, they knew.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They knew.
ED LARSON
But like if they knew, they'd still be alive.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They might.
ED LARSON
Or maybe not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Alive!
MARCUS PARKS
Well the pilots charted a path south to the Planchón Pass where they could fly through the mountains before turning north to Santiago once they reached the town of Curico on the other side. But even so the flight was only supposed to take an hour and a half. But for reasons that are still unclear, the pilot made the fateful decision to turn north in the middle of the mountain range as opposed to waiting until they were flying over Chile.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We couldn't really find any reason why.
MARCUS PARKS
No one knows.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Additionally, the pilot mysteriously radioed air traffic control and told them that they'd flown over the town of Curico long before they would have done so.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sidestorieslpotl@gmail.com. I know we have a lot of pilot listeners because I have heard of about this. The getting lost in the air sounds terrifying.
MARCUS PARKS
It's awful, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And this is before we had true like modern instruments inside of the plane, I believe, like they're not digitally connected. There's no GPS ping.
ED LARSON
No drum machine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, none of that. No, no sauna room. No cold plunge.
MARCUS PARKS
This is like 10 years before the 808 is out. No fucking heavy bass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So it's like all of this. So I believe you have to do it the old fashioned way. I believe it's by speed, angle with the maps, and you point to where you're supposed to hit at certain time periods. And it sounds like, and please email sidestorieslpotl@gmail.com if you know like what would that take to get lost like that? Because I know it's just visual. Sometimes you could just look up and you think you're going one way but if the plane's been kind of slightly pointed in the wrong direction going a couple of 100 MPH and then you're in a vastly different spot but you didn't know because maybe you weren't fully involved. Or like it sounded like the plane was kind of distracting.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like people were and screaming and shit. And the kids were like doing horseplay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, there was a lot of horseplay. But if you're a pilot, you need to be able to overcome horseplay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Settle down back there!
ED LARSON
Is there a door between them and the-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
So it should be fine.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's a regular plane. It's a charter plane. Yeah. It was owned by the military but it's a regular ass plane. Well air traffic control, therefore once the pilot said hey, we're over this town, they told the pilot to lower their elevation from 18,000 ft to 10,000. And that's where the turbulence began. Now it was light at first, expected even. But once the Fairchild entered a cloud bank, the turbulence became unbearable. The plane rumbled and shook, dropping hundreds of feet at a time. But since the rugby team was basically a bunch of shithead kids, one of the players in the back of the plane grabbed the flight attendant's microphone and told everyone to put on their parachutes because they were about to crash in the Andes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man, love that guy.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Got to.
MARCUS PARKS
Joke bombed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Nobody liked it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Been there.
ED LARSON
You gotta take a swing. I got no problem with this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is my one function in this group.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know I'm the funny one on the sports team because I'm not very good. But you guys like me around.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. If you had a shot at this joke, what would you say?
ED LARSON
Everyone, put your... I'd steal what's his name's joke. The great comedian, Redd Foxx. You put your legs between your head and kiss your ass goodbye.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now the joke bombed, as I said, but the team still wasn't taking the situation seriously. They tossed a rugby ball around the cabin, they did a bit of the Olé Olé Olé cheer. And because the plane was so up and down, up and down, they started chanting conga, conga, conga.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Conga, conga, conga!
MARCUS PARKS
Which is fun.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not when everybody dies.
MARCUS PARKS
Inappropriate.
ED LARSON
It's inappropriate but it's much better than screaming and jerking off.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(screaming) Because nothing is worse. Have you ever been like that on a plane where you've had like a dip and someone goes ah! Like screams real hard?
ED LARSON
I recently had the woman next to me was like having panic attacks the entire flight and I literally had to hold her hand for a while.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, then you're just like shut up.
ED LARSON
Yeah. You're just like it's fine, lady. Don't worry about it. I said the same thing to her, I'm like Delta will not let us die because they won't pay the money.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They don't wanna be sued. They don't wanna pay our families.
MARCUS PARKS
Suddenly though the plane emerged from the clouds and everyone expected to see the verdant green valleys of Chile. Instead, passengers looked out their windows to see a snow- covered mountain not 10 ft from the tip of their wing, as the plane kept bouncing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it felt sort of like the bit that we did from bees in Murderfest where it really feels like the guys were looking out being like huh, we supposed to be that close to the mountaintop?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then blam!
MARCUS PARKS
No, that's it. People were like turning to each other like hey, is this normal? And they're like no, it's not. Now the pilots were up front trying to take control but the turbulence and the periodic drops in altitude along with the fact that they were now flying in the mountains was too much for them to handle.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man, this ain't the fucking Death Star run.
MARCUS PARKS
Finally as everyone started praying, they felt the plane vibrate as the pilots desperately tried to pull up. They'd seen a pass far too narrow for the plane to clear. And with a deafening crash, the right wing hit the mountain, broke off, somersaulted over the fuselage, and completely cut off the tail.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, the plane just like fell apart in midair.
MARCUS PARKS
Immediately the flight attendant, the navigator, and three members of the rugby team, including the one who made the joke, were sucked out of the back and fell to their deaths.
ED LARSON
Karma.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The funny one always dies early.
ED LARSON
That's right.
MARCUS PARKS
Seconds later, the left wing also broke off along with its propeller which sliced the leg off of one of the passengers on its way through.
ED LARSON
God.
MARCUS PARKS
All that was left now was the fuselage which had become in essence a bullet hurtling towards the Andes Mountains at an estimated 230 MPH.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is probably where the lead sled part of it really kind of helped because it shot over the mountain, they all talk about it too. It's like there was this moment in time of like they're now flying with just air shooting all over them, around them, strapped in. And they're all like some of them have enough wherewithal to if they weren't strapped in already, it was just somehow just being sitting in the front of the plane where they were okay because it ripped off the back half first.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so they buckled up and they just watched it in total silence until it hits the fucking mountainside that just sleds like you'e fucking, what's it, from the fucking Rescue Rangers.
ED LARSON
TaleSpin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
TaleSpin.
ED LARSON
Please.
MARCUS PARKS
But in an extraordinary piece of luck, the fuselage did not spin nor did it crash into a cliff face. Instead it landed on its belly in a steep valley at just the right angle where it didn't tumble end over end. Because if it would have done that, the whole thing would have just fucking-
ED LARSON
Oh yeah, over.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Killed everybody.
MARCUS PARKS
Everyone's dead. But two more players were sucked out of the back when the fuselage hit the ground. But after it tobogganed 400 yards down the valley at 125 MPH, it finally came to a stop when it crashed into a snow berm.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What's a berm?
MARCUS PARKS
I think it's a pile.
ED LARSON
Like at Disneyland, they have a berm that's like what keeps you from seeing the outside world. It's like big, almost like a sand dune that keeps everything inside.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh wow. Yeah, the linear accumulation of a snow cast aside by a plow.
MARCUS PARKS
Nice. But the force of the impact ripped the seats loose and crushed the passengers in the front like a folding accordion, killing four almost instantly. The crash was over but the ordeal was just beginning.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now this is where you read a lot about for plane crash survivors. It's just gotta be harrowing. I don't know if you've ever seen that Werner Herzog documentary talking about the woman who fell from the plane-
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In her seat, she fell from something like 10,000 ft and she survived, like she managed to get caught in this tree, she like lived in her seat. It's fucked. And then she saw, like she looked around, she saw other people that were stuck in the ground feet up like literally like fucking javelins.
ED LARSON
Jesus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a crazy documentary. But they all say, everything I read was all about the silence after a plane crash is insane.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where you're just like what? Because you just went from 20,000 ft in the air, you're just like on the ground and you're a lot like... Because it's weird. A lot of these guys were like not hurt at all.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now once the passengers inside started getting some semblance of a bearing, they saw that the cabin was covered in blood. They looked forward to the seats that had been compressed together, all they saw was a jumble of arms and legs, just motionlessly sticking out. In the first of many miracles, a player named Gustavo Zerbino had stood up during the crash and held on to the luggage rack above him just as the seat he was sharing with a friend zipped out of the hole behind. Zerbino was still standing, totally uninjured, when the plane came to a stop. And from his recollection, his first thought was that oh it's true that you can still think after you're dead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude, that's what they're saying. It happened so fast and the shock is so intense. It's crazy because he literally just hung on for dear life.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
So fucking badass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I know. It's fucking crazy.
ED LARSON
Just like a paraglider.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We gotta work on that shit, dude. We gotta work on it because I can't really do many pull ups. I can pull myself up sorta. We gotta work on this, man.
MARCUS PARKS
But Gustavo was alive while everyone and everything behind him had completely disappeared into the mountains. And all seven people had been sucked out of the back of the airplane and fallen to their deaths when the tail of the airplane had been severed. Later some of these corpses would be found still strapped into their seats and one would be found burned to a crisp because he had been ignited by engine fuel mid air. Fortunately for everyone who survived though, Gustavo Zerbino was a first year medical student. So he began checking pulses.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he became doctor of the crew.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well he became one of the two doctors of the crew because in another piece of luck, the first living person Zerbino found was Roberto Canessa, who was a second year medical student. This also saved fucking everyone.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
They got to work freeing more people. But before long they became acutely aware of the scent of fuel. In fact survivor Roy Harley was completely blue because he was covered in airplane fuel. And to make matters worse for Roy, this was his first time on an airplane.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let's just say next time let's take a bus.
MARCUS PARKS
But it's also not uncommon in South America at all to fly between cities and to fly in between countries.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah of course. Like puddle jumpers.
MARCUS PARKS
Because it's through the mountains.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
It's very common.
ED LARSON
Because you're not walking, you're not bussing, there's no roads especially back then.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not through those huge mountain ranges like that, you have to find them.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But once they smelled fuel, those who were free fled the wrecked fuselage thinking that it might blow at any second. That however is when they realized just how much trouble they were really in.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they didn't realize they were trouble before. Now they're in more trouble.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. See since all this occurred in the southern hemisphere, their seasons are switched. So October in this section of the Andes still had a month and a half of winter to go with all of the blizzards and dangers that went along with that. Conversely, the winters in Uruguay and Chile are relatively mild. So most of the passengers were in t-shirts. At most, some were wearing blazers. So the passengers weren't even prepared for a chilly fall day, much less an environment where it was 10 below zero.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God.
MARCUS PARKS
Those who ran out of the plane found themselves thigh deep in snow, facing a cold that was so brutal, and this is what scares me, this is how Nando Parrado put it, how he explained it. The cold penetrated the bones and scalded the skin as if it was acid, making each moment seem to last an eternity.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not good.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Send me to Miami. I don't want to be here.
MARCUS PARKS
No, they said that there was at one point like one of the guys had a watch and they would ask him like hey, what time is it? And he'd tell them and they'd feel like hours had gone by, hours upon hours upon hours. And they'd say like okay, hey, what time is it? And two minutes would have passed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, very, very bad.
ED LARSON
Damn.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't like the cold.
MARCUS PARKS
To make matters worse, and that's a phrase I'm gonna use a lot over the next two episodes-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just keeps happening, man.
MARCUS PARKS
This winter in the Andes had been the most severe on record, below their feet was 100 ft of snow and more would come soon enough. Now the first person to take control of the situation was team captain Marcelo Perez.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And this is one of those things I find interesting about humanity in general is that he was just the captain of the rugby team. But it's interesting how when you're young-
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You fall into these like prescribed roles almost in a way, where you're like well he's captain.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So let's just follow what the captain says. And he just like got everybody in order in the very beginning.
ED LARSON
I remember one time I was on a Greyhound bus that got stuck in the snow and I like became the captain of the bus.
MARCUS PARKS
I see that. I can see that, yeah.
ED LARSON
Just like immediately I was like all right!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm captain of the bus!
ED LARSON
I literally was like all right! Because our wheels were spinning, I'm like someone grab a rug, stick it under the wheel! I was like you guys get in the back and push. I mean we couldn't get out of there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
But you tried.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You tried something.
ED LARSON
And the guy who kept snoring I wouldn't let go back to sleep.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You wake up!
MARCUS PARKS
Well once it became apparent that the fuselage wasn't gonna explode, Marcelo got the other boys to work freeing those who weren't trapped underneath the seats. This introduced another problem because even though these boys were the best rugby team in Uruguay, they struggled for every breath in the thin mountain air. But as they found more people, they realized just how badly some of them were hurt. Nando Parrado's sister for example had blood pouring from her head and blood pouring out of one of her eyes. While Nando himself was seemingly near death, his head had swollen to the size of a basketball.
ED LARSON
That's because he was full of himself.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's our hero! He's our guy! Nando's our fucking, he's a G, dude.
ED LARSON
I take it back, Nando. I'm sorry.
MARCUS PARKS
So Nando was carried along with the other severely injured passengers to the back of the plane basically to die. Nando had also brought along his mother who'd been one of the four crushed to death in the crash.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he brought his whole family on that one little flight.
MARCUS PARKS
The most incredible survivor was a player named Enrique Platero who approached med student Gustavo Zerbino and pointed towards his torso.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know it doesn't hurt here so much or here so much but it hurts like right here.
MARCUS PARKS
He had a steel tube sticking out of his stomach.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What do I do with this? I have a handle now.
MARCUS PARKS
Knowing that a doctor had to instill confidence in his patient, Gustavo told Enrique you're all right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're gonna be alright.
MARCUS PARKS
You're fine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Don't worry, buddy.
MARCUS PARKS
And surprisingly Enrique took Gustavo at his word. But when Enrique turned away, Gustavo grabbed the steel tube and just yanked it out and brought six inches of intestine along with it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, not good.
MARCUS PARKS
The other med student, Roberto Canessa, quickly tucked the intestines back inside the wound and wrapped the injury with a rugby jersey. Gustavo then told Enrique that you're not doing great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Something that's inside of you is outside you. And a lot of times we don't like that, right. Unless it's shit, cum, or piss, which we love. But if it's your intestine, if it's a part of the infrastructure... But apparently you can just live like that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Because that's the thing, he told him, he's like hey, you're not doing great but there's a lot of people worse off than you. So I need your help.
ED LARSON
So I'm guessing the intestines didn't rip as much as they just got yanked out a little bit.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean I'm sure they got nicked.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's not good.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. So moments after his intestines had been stuffed back into his body, Enrique bucked up, did what he was told, and started helping whoever he could.
ED LARSON
Fuck yeah, man. Rugby.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man. And to get his cardio up, he'd let out a length of it and he'd just starting jumping intestine, yeah, just to kind of work up. The entire time they would have hours counting his jumps.
MARCUS PARKS
Now a lot of survivors only had minor injuries but those who had broken legs or injured arms were sent outside to plunge their limbs into the snow to help with the pain and prevent swelling.
ED LARSON
I'm gonna dip my balls in it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Perfect statement.
MARCUS PARKS
The only woman to survive the crash without injuries was Liliana Methol. I think it's Methol. Yeah, it's a difficult name. There's a fair amount of difficult names.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Methol.
MARCUS PARKS
Methol.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But her husband Javier had survived as well. Tragically they were just fans of the team who decided to pair the exhibition match with a nice romantic vacation in Santiago.
ED LARSON
Nothing gets me horny like a bunch of scrumbags.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's my favorite, roll around with that big old ball.
MARCUS PARKS
But unlike the others, Javier immediately succumbed to altitude sickness and was vomiting and extremely dizzy as a result. This condition would not change for a long, long time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was trying to look that up about does your body get used to certain things? Because I guess you can get sort of used to altitude sickness. But my main thing was about sunburn. I've always wondered this and I really haven't found any direct sort of information about it. But the idea of like your body could eventually get used to the sun coverage.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then even if you're like super fair, you get burnt time and time again, eventually you do get tan but it's like I guess your chances of getting cancer is like 30% more or whatever. I'm not sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's gonna be bad. But the person who was in worse shape than anyone else out of the ones who had technically survived was Graziela Mariani, who was on her way to her daughter's wedding in Santiago. She'd been crushed by the seats, yes, but she had survived. Her chest was pressed against her knees and both of her legs had been broken when the seats crumpled together. The tangled mess of metal made it impossible to free or even move her. So all they could do was wait for her to die as she screamed in agony. But then the survivors heard moans from the cockpit where they discovered that the copilot had survived. Both him and the pilot had been pinned by the instrument panel when the nose of the plane crumpled and he was definitely gonna die, the pilot's already dead. But the copilot was at the very least conscious. And so after they removed the cushion from his seat back to relieve some of the pressure, he managed to give them an important albeit incorrect piece of information.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He should have just said nothing. He should have just been like (whispering) the combination of the safe... Like it could have been anything else.
MARCUS PARKS
Tell me, where is he? Where is he?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where is he? Who do you work for?
MARCUS PARKS
He's in the...
ED LARSON
Goddamn you, Dick Tracy.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he told them that they'd passed Curico. But now as we said, they'd never gone far enough west to pass that town. But it was possible that the copilot's inexperience meant that he took the pilot's word for it when he'd radioed the transmission saying that they had in fact passed the town to air traffic control. Or he might have also thought yeah, we passed it. But none of the survivors had any reason to doubt the copilot. So they operated on the assumption that they were much further west than they actually were the rest of their ordeal. The copilot of course didn't last the night but he did ask for one thing from his flight pack. He wanted his gun so he could end his life quickly. But the survivors figured they had other priorities.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I liked in the scene in Alive where they're like I will not be involved in this.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And then they just leave.
ED LARSON
So there was a gun amongst them?
MARCUS PARKS
No. Thankfully no one found the weapon. I can only imagine what kind of shenanigans would have gone on if there was a-
ED LARSON
That would have ruined everything.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, man.
MARCUS PARKS
If there was a gun in the mix?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Shoot the mountain! That's what I would have been like.
MARCUS PARKS
Now once the situation had been fully assessed to the best of their abilities, team captain Marcelo Perez began to realize that they were at best lightly fucked.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Lightly fucked? I don't know, buddy. I've been lightly fucked before and it's nice.
MARCUS PARKS
But that's the thing, I think that people use the term fucked way too often because for me like fucked is like things are... I might die.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're fucked.
MARCUS PARKS
But this is lightly fucked. Let's say relatively speaking lightly fucked. Since they crashed at 3:30 pm, nobody would realize they were missing until 4. And no helicopter could fly through the Andes at night. That meant that everyone would have to spend at least one night in subzero temperatures wearing light summer clothing with no coats or blankets. The best they could do to protect themselves from the elements was to build a wall of suitcases, airplane fragments, and loose seats to block the open end of the fuselage. Once that was done, the survivors took full account of who lived, who died, and who was near death. Five had died instantly when the plane crashed and two had died soon after. So those that could be reached were removed from the plane and laid outside face down in the snow. Eight more passengers were simply gone, having been sucked out of the plane while it was still in the air. One person had actually survived the fall but when the survivors spotted him walking on a mountain slope a few 100 yards away and yelled out, he turned around, stumbled, fell down, and was never seen again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't wanna die like Mr. Bean.
ED LARSON
Imagine living through that and then just tripping.
MARCUS PARKS
And then you go whoop!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's how thin life is and our chances are.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's all just a-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Crap-shoot.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
So the middle of the plane is the safest place to be.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Middle of the plane.
ED LARSON
So everyone who like fought for first class died.
MARCUS PARKS
Yep.
ED LARSON
And then everyone who was stuck in the back got sucked out.
MARCUS PARKS
next to the toilet things got worse, yeah.
ED LARSON
All right, middle from now on.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Always.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But despite the severity of the crash, 32 people were still alive when the sun set on October 13th, 1972.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(hums Friday the 13th theme)
ED LARSON
Mama!
MARCUS PARKS
Now remember, this was a relatively small chartered plane that only held 45 people and quite a bit of the cabin had been sliced off in the air. That left a space 20 ft long from the pilot's cabin to the rear fuselage hole and 8 ft across from window to window. Small space. And this was their only shelter. Smartly, those with relatively minor injuries decided that those with the lowest chance of survival would be placed near the suitcase wall where it was coldest. This practical decision however would inadvertently save the life of the man who would help save them all. If you'll remember, Nando Parrado's head was swollen to frightening proportions and his skull had been thoroughly cracked during the crash landing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Maybe I'm getting smarter.
MARCUS PARKS
But since he was sent to the coldest part of the plane, his brain did not swell and therefore he did not die.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is that real?
MARCUS PARKS
That's real. They actually use that now as a treatment. I saw an actual doctor-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They just put his head on ice?
ED LARSON
Walt Disney him!
MARCUS PARKS
In one of the documentaries I saw they talked to a doctor like actually today this is what we use partly to help people whose brains are swelling. Additionally a teammate decided on that first night to pull him just a little closer towards the mass of body heat and the balance of warmth and cold saved Nando's life and essentially saved them all. Now eventually Roberto Canessa, the other man who would take the final expedition with Nando, realized that the cloth covering from the seats could be unzipped and used as makeshift blankets.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
These guys were crafty as all hell.
MARCUS PARKS
They were.
ED LARSON
You turn crafty real fast.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Your brain just starts changing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I still feel like I'd die just from sheer I don't wanna.
ED LARSON
Yeah. We were talking about we probably would just straight up suffocate because of how much weed we smoke and stuff.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just from the lack of oxygen.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But while the covers were made from nothing more than thin nylon, they still heavily contributed to the survival of the passengers when it came to retaining body heat during the sub zero nights. And here in a bit, I'll get to why weed smoking wouldn't have had any bearing whatsoever on your survival chances.
ED LARSON
All right, thank god. All right, keep doing it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, cool. Yeah, sweet.
ED LARSON
Thank god they already loved hugging each other, all these rugby guys.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the thing, you better be already used to horseplay and grabass especially when it can save your life.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Pretty soon though the shock of the crash wore off and the panic set in. Almost everyone complained, argued, and raved throughout the night. Everyone's trying to one up each other when it comes to whose injuries were the worst. But the most terrible element was the woman who was still folded under the seats with two broken legs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah because she's just like you guys think your shit sucks?! I'm a human accordion!
MARCUS PARKS
She screamed throughout the night and only shrieked louder when anyone approached her to help. Strangely this was the reaction that a few of the injured had that night, maybe as like a sort of haywired survival mechanism. In one case the plane's mechanic began to believe that one of the rugby players was trying to kill him. And when the player approached him, the mechanic screamed that he wanted the player to show him his papers. And then he asked him to identify himself. Identify yourself! Identify yourself! I think it is some sort of survival thing where it's like if anyone comes near me, they are going to kill me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But you've lost your mind.
ED LARSON
Meanwhile he's already asked everyone to kill him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
No, this is just the mechanic.
ED LARSON
Oh the mechanic.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, the mechanic. Yeah. You know there's always a guy who goes a little loopy?
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
The mechanic was the one who went a little loopy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I feel that that's a process of shock wearing off sometimes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And all the while the woman stuck in the seats continued to scream. Finally someone lost their temper and told her that if she didn't shut up, he'd come over there and smash her face in. He later regretted that statement.
ED LARSON
I mean you need that to stop.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
I hate to be that.
MARCUS PARKS
This of course caused her to scream even louder.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
ED LARSON
Fuck!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It didn't work.
MARCUS PARKS
And that was mixed with repeated requests from the pilot for someone to find his gun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Man, he's still alive.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Alive!
MARCUS PARKS
As one player put it, the night was comparable to Dante's hell. And by the time the sun rose the next morning, four more people were dead. But mixed in with the panic and horror were bizarre moments of shock. At one point in the night, even through the screaming, one player stood up and told everyone hey, I'm gonna go to the store and grab a coke, anybody want anything? And one of the guys like responded and said like yeah, grab me a mineral water while you're at.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It actually reminds me a lot of the Dyatlov Pass story. Maybe one day we'll do a big update on it because there's been new stuff that's come out about it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know if I'm even saying it correct.
MARCUS PARKS
I think it's Dyatlov.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dyatlov?
MARCUS PARKS
I mean if anything so people could fucking stop yelling that I kept saying it wrong.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah. I said we could change it. We can change the past. But the idea of that kind of hallucinatory part of being super cold and panicked.
MARCUS PARKS
Now while most of the survivors were hesitant to even open their eyes and face the situation when the sun came up, team captain Marcelo Perez continued his established role as the leader and got people to work.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Burpees do incredible things.
MARCUS PARKS
One night of mass panic was all they allowed themselves. And while the panic would come in fits and starts, the survivors quickly realized that if they let the panic take over, all of them would die. First the four who had died in the night were removed from the plane. But when they tried removing the penned woman who they thought was dead, she screamed again but finally died later that morning. Wounds were then cleaned, dressings were changed, and instructions were given to the injured who could take care of themselves. For example the guy whose intestines had popped out, he had his wound disinfected with cologne and was told that if anything popped out again, just pop it back in.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, at least he's gonna fucking live being sexy.
ED LARSON
So not to be totally brutal and horrible, like you gotta kill that woman, right? Like she's gonna die. It's just bringing down morale.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There is a stripe through all of the survivors where they talk about they're pretty religious.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
They're very Catholic, very Catholic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very. It's embedded in. So a lot of them had to figure out a way of how to... Obviously later on what they ende dup kind of, not mental gymnastics but sort of the theistic math, they had to figure out how to handle the quote unquote "cannibalism". But in terms of killing someone, I think that they were not ready to do it. They're all young boys.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
These are all these young guys, they don't wanna kill anybody.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
ED LARSON
See I'm more likely to kill someone 20 years ago than I am now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dead.
MARCUS PARKS
Well these guys, some of them at least-
ED LARSON
They're good guys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're good guys.
MARCUS PARKS
They're good guys.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And some of them are like so Catholic, when it came to figuring out whether or not they were gonna eat people, some of them said to themselves if I don't eat them it's akin to suicide because I can survive and I'm choosing not to. So if I commit suicide, if I don't eat this person, that I'm gonna go to hell.
ED LARSON
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's intense.
ED LARSON
At least get some warmth.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well after... Oh, in hell.
ED LARSON
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is actually kinda nice down here.
MARCUS PARKS
Well after the wounded were taken care of, the empty suitcases were arranged into a cross so the rescue helicopters they were all banking on could see them. Because they very quickly realized that a white fuselage laying on white snow would be impossible to see. But even though they figured rescue was coming either that day or the next, they still accounted for what food they had. In all, this is it. They had eight chocolate bars, five nougat bars, an assortment of caramels, dates, and prunes, a tin of salted biscuits, two tins of mussels, a tin of salted almonds, and a few small jars of jam.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So you mean to tell me they had a year's worth of girl dinner?
MARCUS PARKS
When it came to beverages, they'd already drained two of the five bottles of wine that survived the crash. But they still had a bottle of whiskey, a bottle of cherry brandy, and a bottle of creme de menthe.
ED LARSON
No water.
MARCUS PARKS
No water.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No water.
MARCUS PARKS
None.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But hey, guess what they're surrounded by? Snow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. They only has liquor left. But while the hope of a quick rescue was the general consensus, team captain Marcelo Perez insisted on rationing just in case, giving everyone just a square of chocolate and a deodorant cap full of wine. Now seeing as how they only had a relatively small amount of liquid for 28 people, their immediate danger was death by dehydration.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, but the snow!
MARCUS PARKS
Technically they are surrounded by fresh water.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, snow!
MARCUS PARKS
It's frozen water.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you gotta do something with it.
MARCUS PARKS
The problem with eating snow is that it cracks your lips, cuts up your mouth, and quickly causes sores to develop.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Man, what the fuck? So you can't blow Frosty the Snowman? Yeah, that's what he says, that.
MARCUS PARKS
This was even more of an issue because the higher a person goes in the air, the more water they need. At their height in the Andes, their bodies dehydrated five times faster than normal because of the oxygen levels in the atmosphere. This is why mountain climbers carry small gas stoves so they can easily melt snow and drink the requisite amount of water. Mountain climbers are almost constantly drinking water on their way up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Man, there was this guy named Ueli Steck that I got into, he's this dude who's an alpinist. So he runs mountains and he just runs up this crazy fucking shit. And he doesn't bring anything.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He doesn't bring... And it's scary. Because he's like I travel fast enough, I do not need to drink, I do not need your waters. And you're like what? What the fuck, dude? You gotta be careful. Watch that Race to the Summit documentary, that's wild, dog.
MARCUS PARKS
Hell yeah. Well eventually though a player named Adolfo Strauch, Fito to his friends, came up with an ingenious solution. Well as a bit of a side quest, perhaps not surprisingly, Adolfo Strauch's family was from Germany. And while I don't know this for sure, I'd imagine the Strauches, who again named their son Adolfo, I'd imagine they arrived in Uruguay sometime in the mid 1940s.
ED LARSON
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think that maybe due to some of his genetics, he'd be very good at keeping things (German accent) in order.
MARCUS PARKS
We do talk in our Krautrock series about the wonders of German engineering. Additionally Adolfo and his cousin Eduardo Strauch, they were both blonde and Adolfo was nicknamed the German.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) I just feel like if we got together, we could figure out some kind of final solution to this issue.
ED LARSON
Adolfo!
MARCUS PARKS
No, they called him Fito.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Fito!
ED LARSON
That's good.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's better.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Ja.
MARCUS PARKS
It kind of tells me that people were uncomfortable calling him Adolfo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Do you have a problem with my name? What does it remind you of? Something bad?
ED LARSON
(German accent) I hate up here, I can't keep my mustache short.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Short enough. I hate having a full beard that hides my most stellar leader like mustache.
MARCUS PARKS
That's another crazy fucking thing about the movie Alive. Ethan Hawke, he plays Nando-
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very much.
MARCUS PARKS
Trimmed goatee the entire movie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He refused to grow a beard.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes, he refused to grow a beard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I read about that.
MARCUS PARKS
Or even put a fake beard on.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he's sexy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he said no, I must keep my sexy Ethan Hawke goatee.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm Ethan Hawke. I have a goatee. It's Ethan Hawke, Guy Fieri, the guy from Pawn Stars. These are famous goatees.
MARCUS PARKS
But regardless of lineage, Adolfo realized they could melt snow by taking aluminum from the wreckage to make somewhat of a hot plate that could be warmed by the sun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Yes. Yes, most ingenious.
MARCUS PARKS
The melted snow would then funnel into a wine bottle. And while it didn't produce enough water to keep everyone comfortable, it did hydrate them enough to stay-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Alive! (German accent) Just remember each sip as you take, you can thank the Nazis. Thank you?
MARCUS PARKS
I'd argue that you thank the Allies for driving the Nazis to South America.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Exactly! Reason for the season.
MARCUS PARKS
Now to keep everyone distracted and occupied while they waited for rescue, Marcelo Perez split the survivors into teams. One would be in charge of medical needs, another would keep the cabin clean and orderly, while the last would make water. But while water seemed like it was the easiest job, it was also one of the dirtiest because they had to find snow that wasn't polluted by blood, human waste, or airplane oil. It also came with its own challenges because they had to venture further away from the plane in thigh deep snow. Now on the third day everyone was starting to get a little nervous.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Because there was no sign of rescue. But that was also the day that Nando Parrado woke up from his mini coma, having no idea what happened. After he weakly asked where he was, someone bent down and whispered into his ear.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(whispering) Hey buddy, I just want you to know. Hey, okay. So like things aren't super chill, okay. We're not at the game right now. We're in the top of a mountain.
ED LARSON
(whispering) But you scored all he points.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(whispering) You scored all the points, you're number one. You're the number one guy.
ED LARSON
(whispering) Your head's turning into a rugby ball.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, but then he was told his mother was dead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ah.
MARCUS PARKS
And then he was told his sister was dying. And instinctively Nando then reached for the wound on his head and pressed it, making himself gag when he felt the spongy sensation of shattered bone pressing against his brain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God. Because your brain, I mean how does it feel? Sidestorieslpotl@gmail.com. Can you actually do that? Because your brain doesn't have nerves, it's the stuff around the brain. Am I correct?
MARCUS PARKS
I think so.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I might be just talking out of my ass.
MARCUS PARKS
I wouldn't say... Yeah, because yeah, because remember in Hannibal when Ray Liotta at the very end-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I remember Hannibal.
MARCUS PARKS
He's sitting there and Hannibal's eating his brains and Ray Liotta's still going blah, blah, blah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. You know what? That is fact.
MARCUS PARKS
But shortly after Nando woke up, the survivors finally saw a plane flying overhead and saw another a few hours later, then another. And these were the search planes that had been sent out to find at least the wreckage. And some of the survivors maintained that one of the planes had tipped its wing to signal that they'd seen them. But despite all their efforts, including riding SOS on the fuselage with lipstick and nail polish, it was impossible to spot the location that was rapidly becoming a hellish existence that would last far longer than anyone expected. Now after they realized it was likely that no one was coming, some of the survivors wanted to make an expedition to find civilization. But due to the copilot's statement that they had passed Curico, they were operating on faulty information.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is worse that he told them where they were not.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. Additionally the altimeter in the is a shit Fairchild aircraft gave the wrong reading. It read 7000 ft which made the survivors assume that they were on the western foothills of the Andes. They thought they were much closer to Chile than they actually were. In reality they were deep in the mountain range at almost twice that altitude. To make matters worse, walking in the snow was, as I said, extraordinarily difficult in their weakened condition, which made a trek even a few dozen yards away from the fuselage an incredible effort.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But this is also why when you jog in the wintertime you burn more calories.
ED LARSON
Interesting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, because your body's trying to keep you warm.
MARCUS PARKS
Yep. But again, Adolfo figured out that they could use seat cushions tied to their boots as snowshoes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) One more thank you to the fatherland. You can all remember who did this.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean maybe his parents weren't fleeing Nazis, maybe.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Maybe Adolfo from Uruguay-
MARCUS PARKS
Well the reason why the Germans went to South America, we learned in the Mengele series, is because there were already a lot of Germans there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
So it's possible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's very possible.
MARCUS PARKS
Maybe Adolfo was a family name.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Maybe he's just a fantastic.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah maybe.
ED LARSON
But he was younger than WWII. And his parents still named him after Hitler.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well I think it's different.
MARCUS PARKS
Maybe, I don't know. We don't know if his parents named him after Hitler.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We don't know.
ED LARSON
It's the same name.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a popular name.
ED LARSON
They put 'O' on it because your live in South America.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was a popular name and things changed over time.
MARCUS PARKS
And also Adolfo in Latin American countries, it doesn't have the same connotations as like Adolf does here in the rest of the world.
ED LARSON
Yeah, they loved it.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Adolfo's cousin Eduardo Strauch, who also was quite crafty, he made sunglasses to protect the survivors from snow blindness by cutting the sun visors in the cockpit and stringing them together with copper wire. But even though they were figuring things out, the situation still wildly swung from getting better to getting worse.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was always getting worse because the only way to get better it's not be there anymore.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
It's degrees. I argue it's degrees. On one hand, Nando's sister finally succumbed to her injuries and died in his arms on the eighth day. The people who were really hurt were starting to die. But on the other hand, some of the people who had injuries that seemed fatal were starting to heal and they were therefore able to help.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's about being young.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It really is about being young.
ED LARSON
Man, eight days it took for her to die.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
That's so awful.
MARCUS PARKS
And eight days conscious too.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very bad.
MARCUS PARKS
Like she was conscious, yeah. She would go in and out of consciousness but just begging for help.
ED LARSON
Honestly thank god Nando was there.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And that's what he said too.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I was glad. He said he was glad.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. That left only two with truly serious wounds. And I'm gonna do the best I can with these names here. Arturo Nogueira and Rafael Echavarren. Best I can. Both had serious leg injuries, so Roberto fashioned hammocks that hung above the rest of the survivors inside the fuselage. The trade off was that their wounds wouldn't be stepped on because that was a constant problem. But they were colder at night because they didn't have the warmth of the other bodies. But even still, Rafael began every morning by yelling, "I am Rafael Echavarren! And I will not die here!"
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Alive!
ED LARSON
I mean that's fucking awesome.
MARCUS PARKS
No, it was inspired everyone every fucking morning. Like yeah!
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Until of course Rafael died there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what's hard.
ED LARSON
Oh yeah. He became the worst rooster of all time.
MARCUS PARKS
But he lasted a long time. He lasted well over a month. Both of the guys did.
ED LARSON
That's so impressive.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Another source of morale was Gustavo Nicolich. This would be you, Coco.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The funny guy.
MARCUS PARKS
The funny guy. He was the head of the cleanup crew, he told jokes and stories, he led them in games of charades to keep their spirits up as much as he could amidst the terror and misery.
ED LARSON
Lose, lose, or draw.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah exactly.
MARCUS PARKS
Well eventually they even had inside jokes, they'd make light of the situation. Eventually that would come later.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah of course they would figure out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because the human spirit does seem to enjoy a couple of gallows humor style interactions.
ED LARSON
How could you not?
MARCUS PARKS
It was a lot of gallows humor amongst these guys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You've got to, you have to laugh.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause if not you're literally just going to... What happened to the Donner party. You become a crawling group of mountain creatures.
ED LARSON
This show is proof that gallows humor is great.
MARCUS PARKS
Of course. And that's how these guys fucking survive. Yeah, you are correct. Yeah because the Donner party was definitely like just fuckin ghosts, living ghosts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They were regular people by the time they even, not to spoil, but the time they survived, they were still kinda normal. Whereas at the end of the Donner party everyone's like (growling).
MARCUS PARKS
Well these guys were kinda normal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, sure, sure. It was traumatizing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they were traumatized. Like for some of the guys for a little while afterwards, like if they were eating and anyone came near their food, they'd be like get the fuck away from me!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh I understand.
MARCUS PARKS
It's natural.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm kind of like that now.
MARCUS PARKS
But from most accounts, what these guys said, the first 10 days were the hardest of the entire experience, partly because no one knew what the fuck to do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And so as the first 10 days dragged on, the situation got more desperate. The only things they had to burn was whatever happened to be on the plane. And after all the wood was gone from just two fires, they burned $7000 in cash for just the slightest warmth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And if that ain't a sign, that's like symbolic.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Just like what really matters.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Most of them however had lighters and a shitload of cigarettes. See Chile had a cigarette shortage and most of the people on board were smokers. So they'd brought literally thousands of cigarettes for a five day trip.
ED LARSON
Thank god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It gives you something to do.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're wearing a nicotine patch right now.
MARCUS PARKS
Right now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it's beautiful here.
MARCUS PARKS
I quit eight years ago. No, now it's almost 10 when I quit smoking cigarettes.
ED LARSON
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm still wearing step two.
ED LARSON
I hope none of these guys ever quit cigarettes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
ED LARSON
I hope they still smoke them today.
MARCUS PARKS
I hope so too. And I mean because that's the thing, I used to always smoke just because I was bored and nervous.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It gave you a thing to do.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And a lot of these guys chain smoked to the point where they had to ration everyone to half a pack a day. And even then some of them went beyond that and begged the others to share.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is probably why we could have survived.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In terms of lung capacity. Again, they're young.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But still, they're sitting there smoking. All right.
MARCUS PARKS
But as far as I know they never ran out of cigarettes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
ED LARSON
That's fucking good for them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's like Hanukkah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But the most pressing problem was of course food. After nine days, the food had all but run out and while the shock of the cold along with the fear and depression had curbed their hunger in the first week, survival instincts were starting to kick in.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So this is where the anthropophagy started?
MARCUS PARKS
Just wait, just wait. By Nando's memory, the last real morsel of food he was given was near the end of the first week when the team captain handed him a single chocolate covered peanut, which Nando ate over three days.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like he was Bob Cratchit.
MARCUS PARKS
First it was the chocolate, then it was half the peanut, and then it was the other half of the peanut. Now after the food was gone, they tried eating strips of leather torn from luggage because they'd all heard shipwreck stories where sailors ate their boots.
ED LARSON
I totally would have tried to eat the leather.
MARCUS PARKS
Yep. The problem was that the leather was chemically treated. So eating it would have done far more harm than good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's not like back and it was pure leather.
MARCUS PARKS
No. But as Nando put it, there are some lines that the mind is very slow to cross. When the thought finally did occur to him, it was with an impulse so primitive that it shocked him. That impulse of course was the urge to consume human flesh. Now the idea first came to him when he was staring at the leg wound of a young man lying next to him. The center of the wound was moist and raw. And as Nando smelled the faint scent of blood, he very simply realized that hey, that's meat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't wanna get there, man.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
ED LARSON
Why not drink the blood?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's bad for you.
MARCUS PARKS
I think drinking blood is bad for you. Because they had water.
ED LARSON
Oh you're right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
All right, let them keep the blood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The blood is what makes the meat good.
MARCUS PARKS
Nando then looked up and saw that there were several others staring at the wound who obviously had the same idea. But even though they felt shame at first, Nando nor any of the others could deny that when they looked at human flesh, they now instinctively recognized it as food. It really is the Looney Tunes thing of like seeing the other guy on the shipwreck island turn into a turkey.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because the biological imperative begins.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because your body wants to survive.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it does.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Your brain wants to survive.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's that hierarchy of needs. Your brain switches. Now out of all the survivors, Nando was the most driven. If you'll remember both his mother and his sister had died in the crash and he was determined that his father would not have three people to mourn instead of two. He was gonna get off that fucking mountain.
ED LARSON
See it's so cool because like it really could have just like sent him into like crazy depression.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He could have fallen apart, yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
No, no, he used it. And so Nando took his friend Carlitos aside and told him that there was food right in front of them if they were willing to go for it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're gonna eat the airplane? We'll eat the mountain rock by rock and then we'll be on the flat land. No, Carlitos!
MARCUS PARKS
Nando first suggested the pilot because as Nando put it, he was the one who put them there so he could be the one to help them out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
Fuck yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you see a pilot would actually be pretty delicious because they keep in shape.
MARCUS PARKS
But not as much as the other guys. Pilot's not gonna be in as good a shape as a rugby player.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
ED LARSON
You want a little fat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he also might be drinking less and smoking less.
ED LARSON
Pilots get hammered.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh I know.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah dude, pilots are a bunch of filthy drunks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sidestorieslpotl@gmail.com.
ED LARSON
Yeah. How often do you fly a plane drunk?
MARCUS PARKS
Well after listening to Nando's argument in silence, Carlitos finally admitted that my god, I've been thinking the same thing.
ED LARSON
Whoa.
MARCUS PARKS
And so after floating the idea to a few of the other guys over the next few days, they decided to call a meeting. Roberto Canessa took the lead and told the survivors that if they ever wanted to see their families again, they had no choice but to consume the flesh of the dead. And he was absolutely right in saying so, it was the only choice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now some put up a fight and others refused outright but eventually the justification outside of pure survival of course came from the New Testament. One survivor claimed that he had prayed to god and god had answered with this:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He who eats of my flesh and drinks of my blood will have eternal life and I will resurrect him on the last day. Take and eat, this is my body.
ED LARSON
Yeah, all Catholics are cannibals.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
They eat Jesus every fucking Sunday.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We believe in transubstantiation.
MARCUS PARKS
That was their exact justification. We eat the body of Christ, so therefore we can eat the body of our friends.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, Joe.
ED LARSON
The New Testament really is like the shitty sequel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well it's the fucking... I view it as the Temple of Doom.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And so it was decided that Roberto would take a piece of broken plastic from the windows of the fuselage and cut away the first pieces of meat. Y fue entonces cuando empezó el canibalismo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay.
ED LARSON
Marcuso.
MARCUS PARKS
O la antropofagia es que estamos siendo precisos.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh Spanish.
MARCUS PARKS
If we're being precise.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So basically so that is when you just said in a sentence in Spanish that is when the cannibalism started. But you actually meant the anthropophagy.
MARCUS PARKS
If we're being precise.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause we're being precise in Spanish. That's great.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm correct in any language.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sí.
MARCUS PARKS
So without a word, Roberto walked up to a body whose buttocks was protruding from the snow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Polish cemetery.
ED LARSON
I don't know about you boys but I've been staring at that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they're like all right, Carlitos.
MARCUS PARKS
He knelt and without knowing whose body they were about to consume, cut into the frozen flesh. Finally he came away with 20 slivers the size of matchsticks and laid them out on the fuselage to dry in the sun. He picked up a sliver, put it in his mouth, and swallowed without chewing. The flesh was grayish white, tasteless, hard as wood, and so very cold. But before anyone else took a bite, they joined hands and pledged that if any one of them died, the rest would have permission to use their bodies as food. The only people who were off limits were Nando's mother and sister who ended up being the only corpses that were not completely consumed by the time the rescuers showed up. That rescue was still 62 days away.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
62 days.
ED LARSON
Why not cook them in cigarettes?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because I feel like you didn't want to waste the cigarettes.
MARCUS PARKS
I feel like if I was on that mountain still as heavy of a smoker as I was and you gave me a choice and you said you can either have cooked flesh or cigarettes, choose.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You would have chosen cigarettes.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I would have chosen cigarettes. Every time.
ED LARSON
Really?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
That's why you're so thin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's true. But I chose fucking cigarettes over food in college all the time.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, as did I. That's why I started Parliament Lights because they had that two for one deal. That's how they got all of us smoking.
ED LARSON
I chose sleep over food.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you taught me that skill.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you're hungry, go to sleep.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Nando said that once he had eaten he felt a small glimmer of hope for the first time since the crash. From that moment forward, things were actually easier in spite of the horror, if only because something had calmed their minds. They were no longer out of their minds with hunger. They could think for the first time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but this next part is the worst part.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
I think I'd rather eat my mother than a stranger.
MARCUS PARKS
But that's the thing, nobody was allowed to eat the mother.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The mom was just like, I just feel like this is like an emotional line in the sand.
ED LARSON
But as far as like grossness goes, I would rather eat a family member than a stranger.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually feel like technically it might be worse for you.
ED LARSON
Oh you think so?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think it actually would be worse for you.
ED LARSON
Like incest in a weird way?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I think it might be-
MARCUS PARKS
No, absolutely not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think it might lead to more prion diseases. I do. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.
ED LARSON
What's a prion disease?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a thing that you can get from eating, it's a protein-based aberration. People get it from consuming certain parts, especially it can end up in your brains, it can end up in certain parts of your meat I believe.
MARCUS PARKS
No, I know because tomcats usually kill and eat the kittens that they are father to.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's tomcats.
MARCUS PARKS
They're able to eat the flesh of their offspring and that's fine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sidestorieslpotl@gmail.com.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't think it matters.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just wondering.
MARCUS PARKS
Emotionally it matters.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think emotionally, yeah, that's what it is.
ED LARSON
Emotionally. I'd much rather, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Eat your mom.
ED LARSON
Shout out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, How America Killed My Mother.
MARCUS PARKS
Now cutting meat from the dead was by far the most difficult and unpleasant job, while also being the most important. The trade off was that the butchers, for lack of a better word, got larger rations. A certain amount of pilfering was also allowed, say one piece in the mouth for every 10 pieces cut.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
One for you, two for me.
MARCUS PARKS
Guess who was the lead butcher?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who?
MARCUS PARKS
It was Adolfo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Yes, I would like to take the helm.
ED LARSON
(German accent) Interesting that we don't have any ovens but we still-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) I do like to see how they look very similar. Let's see if the insides of their butts are similar as well.
MARCUS PARKS
Now each corpse had to be dug out of the snow and thawed in the sun to be properly butchered. But since the cold had preserved the body so well, most, especially those crushed by the seats, were in horrifying poses.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Oh ho ho! You can't even believe how scary this face one is.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And their eyes were still open much of the time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh.
MARCUS PARKS
As far as how they did it, three survivors formed an assembly line of sorts to deal with the horror. Large pieces were cut off the bodies by the first guy, who then handed the chunks to another, who would then cut them into smaller pieces with razor blades. The further down one was on the assembly line, the easier it was to look at the human flesh as simply meat, which was a little easier for these guys because Uruguay is heavy on the beef.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, a lot of South American cultures are heavy on the them grilled meats.
MARCUS PARKS
And so every day around noon, everyone was given roughly a handful of human flesh, about half a pound which had to be consumed raw because again there was nothing with which to make a fire. But since there were still quite a few people, almost every part of the body was eaten. The liver, heart, kidneys, and intestines were particularly important because they contained the most vitamins. But the line was drawn at the lungs, the skin, the heads, and the genitals.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Or at least that's where the line was drawn at first.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because I wonder how you clean up the intestines. I wonder if you literally have to-
MARCUS PARKS
They squeeze them out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
They did say specifically that they would squeeze out all of the intestines to get whatever-
ED LARSON
It's like deveining a shrimp.
MARCUS PARKS
God, I guess it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God. It really is.
ED LARSON
I don't know why this surprisingly doesn't bother me at all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's cause you're a fucking cannibal. Because you've eaten a man, I'm certain you've eaten a man.
ED LARSON
I wish!
MARCUS PARKS
But since they had something substantial to eat, the survivors were now able to move beyond the mere act of basic survival. Searching through the wreckage, they found a small transistor radio. And after making an antenna out of copper wire, they were able to pick up Chilean stations. That unfortunately was how they got the worst news they could possibly get.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're doing a podcast on us.
MARCUS PARKS
Just as they were about to turn off the radio, they caught a news report saying that Chilean authorities had called off the efforts to find survivors of the lost Uruguayan charter flight that had disappeared in the Andes on October 13th.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(hums Friday the 13th theme)
ED LARSON
So how many days in is this?
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know exactly how many days in this is. It's been between 10-14, I think.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
So they started eating each other early.
MARCUS PARKS
Well no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's because they ran out of food in 10 days. Once they ran out of food, that was like their issue.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then the cold, I believe it ramps up the effects of starvation as well.
MARCUS PARKS
It does.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. They started eating bodies at 10 days because they ran completely out of food at like 8 or 9 days.
ED LARSON
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And they knew like if we don't eat, everyone's gonna die within like a day or two.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. At most, maybe three days if they were lucky. Perhaps a little tastelessly, the station followed the report with a song called Volver which was sung by two singers who died in a plane crash in the Andes 37 years earlier.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) We are spinning into the clouds and we are dying! Everyone's eating their cousin. And it's just like I hate this song.
MARCUS PARKS
It was even more inappropriate considering that Volver is a beautiful albeit spicy tango. Now while Marcelo didn't want to tell the group because he thought it would destroy morale, Coco argued that it wouldn't be too bad just so long as they framed it correctly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See?
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So Coco sat everyone down and said, and he actually said this, "All right, everyone. Great news!"
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yay!
MARCUS PARKS
"Great news, they've called off the search."
ED LARSON
Boo!
MARCUS PARKS
Boo, Coco!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Boo you, Coco!
MARCUS PARKS
But after everyone cried how in the living fuck is that good news? Nando stepped in and said that it was in fact good news because they now knew exactly what to do. If they were gonna survive, they were gonna have to save themselves.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Ironically though the only person who had his morale destroyed by this was the very man who said that the announcement would destroy morale, team captain Marcelo Perez. His spirit was entirely broken by the news because he'd placed his faith in god to save them. And that faith had been misplaced. He was also the one who had put together the match, chartered the plane, hired the pilots, brought their families aboard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but he also blames himself and it's got nothing to do with you, man.
MARCUS PARKS
It's got nothing to do with you. But his spirit never recovered.
ED LARSON
Yeah, I imagine. Worst party ever.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man, it's not fun.
MARCUS PARKS
Now once it was decided that they had to save themselves, they began small expeditions to test just how difficult it would be to get off the mountain. The first expedition of course almost resulted in the deaths of three survivors. After a single night, the explorers returned to the plane shattered by the elements. One had almost gone blind from the sun glare because his sunglasses broke, another felt his teeth coming loose from the first stages of frostbite, and all of them nearly lost their feet. The guy whose teeth were coming loose, this is like another fucking level of horror. One of the guys had to chew up human flesh and then baby bird it into the other guy's mouth.
ED LARSON
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh man! That's a fucking bad job, dude. Ugh.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But once they reported back what they'd found, it was nothing but bad news. First, they were totally fucked when it came to scaling the mountains. The slopes were far steeper than they seemed, every step was equal to 100 due to the thin air, and the cold in the fuselage was nothing compared to what they'd experienced out in the open at night. Lastly, one of the expeditioners said that when he looked down from the crash site from even just a few 100 yards away, they did not make it far, it was nothing more than an insignificant dot, meaning that rescue was without a doubt impossible unless they found a way off the mountain themselves.
ED LARSON
God, this is a nightmare.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This whole thing is such a horrible fucking nightmare.
MARCUS PARKS
And of course things were about to get a lot worse.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
In case you've forgotten, this was the Andes near the end of winter. That of course meant avalanches. And that's where we'll pick back up for part two of Survival in the Andes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) I hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting-tingling too. Come on it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you.
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) Together with you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) And you and you! This is a great Christmas story.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I wanted to give everyone a winter wonderland.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah and we really did.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Really frightening. And next week we're gonna get into the horrors of an avalanche. Not fun. Because it's also another thing that's very scary because there's nothing you can do.
ED LARSON
Yeah. You're supposed to spit, right?
MARCUS PARKS
Spit?
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's how you know if you're stuck inside the snow.
ED LARSON
Yeah, if your spit goes up, like up by your eyes, that means you're upside down.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
If you're in an avalanche, the first thing you're supposed to do is you're supposed to spit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Either way, you're fucked.
ED LARSON
Yes, yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's not good. It's not good.
MARCUS PARKS
So if you spit and it goes down then you know which way to go.
ED LARSON
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
You know which way to dig.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you know which way to go around.
MARCUS PARKS
Interesting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But guys, thank you so much. Yes, next week we're gonna complete this. I also wanna announce, number one it looks like our Classy Night Out show on the 22nd is sold out.
ED LARSON
Sold out.
MARCUS PARKS
Hey, that's great!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Can't wait to see you guys there, it's gonna be a lot of fun. I wanna do an announcement. I made an appearance on the Scream Dreams podcast as a guest with my friends Catherine Corcoran and Barbara Crampton. Barbara Crampton, horror icon.
MARCUS PARKS
Barbara Crampton.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're great, they're both honestly just a lot of fun, it's a really cool show, we had a good time talking about what makes people scared.
ED LARSON
Catherine's amazing. I interviewed her.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Yes. She's great.
ED LARSON
Yeah, in the Sub-A-Thon.
MARCUS PARKS
Barbara Crampton from Reanimator, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. She's incredible.
MARCUS PARKS
Icon.
ED LARSON
Very cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So go check that out. And what you got?
ED LARSON
I'm gonna be opening, featuring for Jermaine Fowler on January 4th in Ontario.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh, Onta-RIO?
ED LARSON
Ontario, California.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh.
ED LARSON
Yes, yes, yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh good. Good, good, good. This is a real bad time to go to Ontario, Canada.
ED LARSON
Yeah, I'm not trying to go there. But in California, it's only like an hour east. So check us out there, that's gonna be a lot of fun. Jermaine and I, I'm gonna do like 20 minutes, Jermaine's gonna do an hour.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's so much fun.
ED LARSON
It's gonna be a lot of fun. Also I just wanna shout out Kenny DeForest.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh our old buddy. We can talk, he got into a... It wasn't a car accident.
ED LARSON
It was a bicycle accident and he unfortunately passed away. He's an amazing comedian, one of the best friends of a lot of comedians. He has a GoFundMe up, it's sitting on my Instagram page, you can go there and send some money to his family if you want to. Or you know what? Go watch his stand up special on YouTube.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
It's amazing, I really loved it, it's so funny. He was one of the funniest dudes I knew.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And a good man, a very, very good man.
MARCUS PARKS
He was a great man.
ED LARSON
He was very close to Kevin Barnett, so it really hurts a lot. But go check out Don't You Know Who I Am? Kenny DeForest on YouTube.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. He's great. Yeah, also sad to do this afterwards but also rent my movie How To Ruin The Holidays. I'm currently in a Christmas movie so go check that out, it's on Amazon.
ED LARSON
Yeah. And this show is actually ruining the holidays currently.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is, that's our goal. That's our goal. Fuck Christmas. And I hope that we have a happy new year.
MARCUS PARKS
I like Christmas.
ED LARSON
I love it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good. I'm glad you both do. I'm glad. Hail Satan!
MARCUS PARKS
Hail Gein.
ED LARSON
Hail Henry.
MARCUS PARKS
Why?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's very sweet.
MARCUS PARKS
No, no, no, no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's not that you do that.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Why?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's nice that he did that.
ED LARSON
You'll get next week!
MARCUS PARKS
Okay, cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's nice that he did that.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay, as long as it's my turn next week, then I'm okay, then I'm fine with it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hail me! I'm alive!
MARCUS PARKS
For now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck.