People.
In the difficult journey of human survival, the choice of one ‘ s own kind as food is indeed a survival strategy of some kind. And there are many examples of early forms of human society, such as the Aztecs or Polynesians, where some psychological purpose is achieved by eating the same flesh in the context of religious rituals in the original community.
However, in modern societies, does something like “like eating” reach the bottom line of human ethics? In the dilemma of survival and morality, what choice should be made — to die with the last dignity of humankind, or to become a real Hannibal in order to survive?
How much psychological struggle does it take to overcome a modern human being to muster the courage to swallow a fellow human being?
One.
On October 13th, 1972, a group of young and dynamic men and women who were ecstatic at thousands of metres above sea, would never know that a nightmare like a human prison was coming.
Most of these young people belong to a team called Old Christian Football in Uruguay, which is heading for an international competition in the Chilean capital, Santiago. In order to avoid a journey, the team decided to rent a small UFO FH 227D passenger plane from the capital, Montevideo, flying over the Andes to its destination.
Access to chartered aircraft is limited for old Christian teams that are not well funded. As a result, both the players and the team members were very excited and, given that the plane was not full, they specifically invited some of their friends to accompany them.
Shortly after the plane took off from Carasco International Airport, the players removed their seatbelts and started laughing. Some members of the team sing loudly, some play relays in small cabins, and others roll out snacks and drinks in the kitchen, eat, drink and enjoy the trip.
The movie “The Life of Heaven”
The capital of Uruguay, Montevideo, is at the eastern end of South America, while the capital of Chile, Santiago, at the western end, is theoretically sufficient to cross the continent from east to west, and it takes just over two hours.
A few minutes later, however, there was a sudden bump, and the clouds were rolling out of the port window, and there were lightning thunders in the clouds. Bad weather left the captain helpless and had to choose the Argentine city of Mendoza on the way.
If, on the map, Mendoza is less than 300 kilometres from Santiago, and the Andes between the two places are scattered, it is only through this geographical barrier that it can reach.
Unfortunately, Fairy FH-227D is just a small propeller passenger, up to 9000 meters. Thus, the aircraft could not take off from Mendoza and travel directly across the Andes to Santiago.
So the captain came up with a plan for a “curve saver”: after taking off from Mendoza, he flew south in parallel to the Andes, laterally at low altitude across the lower range, to Chile’s Curico on the other side of the mountain, and then north from Curico to Santiago.
He gave the team an example, and the Andes were like a line of defense for a bunch of big, big football players, and it was very hard for you to face up to the end of the line, and you could only find a skinny player in the line and open a break from him.
So the plan was quickly accepted by the team.
In the afternoon, the weather turned slightly, the fairy boy FH-227D took off again and crossed a low-altitude area south of the Andes, as originally planned. However, the mountains remain cloudy and low-visibility, and the captain can barely estimate the time required to cross the mountains by means of a space scenario.
Unfortunately, not knowing if it was inexperienced, the captain ignored the strong counter-winds in the mountains, which significantly reduced the speed of the voyage — he mistakenly thought he had flown enough time to pass through the mountain areas, and then began to turn north and descended in high readiness to land in Santiago.
There is no doubt that this was an extremely serious mistake.
The plane is still actually walking through the mountains at this point, and the premature turn and fall has caused the whole plane to crash into the mountains …
“Are we too close to the mountain? It’s gonna hit! “Someone on the plane already felt something wrong and screamed at the port window. He saw the mountains of the Andes, rushing towards him at an unimaginable rate.
With the sound of a huge metal impact, the strong shock caused everyone to bounce out of the rear, and they could only pray in their hearts…
Next, there was another loud sound, when the plane fell down in a weightless state, and the cold air of stabbing came in, and the cabin was turned from wailing and crying to desperate and terrible silence.
Two.
It is not clear to the witnesses of these tragedies that the loudspeakers were the result of the two successive collisions of their planes on two peaks, which destroyed the right and the left wings.
There was only one bald and bald fuselage, with a spear thrown out in the air, flying through inertia and finally hitting a hill, and after a few parts of it had broken into pieces, it rolled over for a while before it ended up on a valley slope called The Valley of Tears.
Fortunately, the heavy snow in the valley has provided an excellent buffer, saving many lives.
The Fairy Boy had a total of 45 crew members, 12 of whom died in the crash (including the captain and co-pilot) and 6 died the next day and shortly thereafter.
The rest of the population, while still dying, was facing an extremely serious test, such as the large number of casualties.
Following the crash, many people suffered fractures as a result of the impact, while others were caught in the aircraft chair and their legs were broken.
A young boy shouted that he couldn’t see anything, and when someone helped to move his head, he found his skull fractured and revealed the brain — and a sharp piece of metal stuck in his abdomen.
Fortunately, there are some medical professionals among the crew (although the only team of doctors, Nicolas Nicolas, was killed on the spot), such as 19-year-old Canesa, who was only a medical student at the time, but who contributed tremendous medical assistance to the whole survival team.
Many years later, as a survivor, he became one of Uruguay’s most famous paediatric cardiologists.
Canesa removed the seat on the aircraft, put snow shoes on the bottom and built a simple stretcher for the wounded with broken legs. He also treated the wounds for the wounded and fixed the fractures with bandages made of wood and pieces of clothing.
Dealing with the bodies was also a task for Canesa, as others could not afford to see the tragedy.
In order to prevent snow blindness, another medical student, Adolfo, produced some goggles using the cockpit panel.
In addition to the casualties, the extreme cold weather of less than 30°C in the Andes, deep into the thighs, coupled with unpredictable storms and avalanches in the high-altitude mountains, can be said to be worse off than Hokkaido know the seafloor.
This is an extremely serious test for all survivors, after all, Uruguay is a country that never snows, where it is warm every year and hardly more than 500 metres above sea level.
On the day of the incident, they were wearing thin shirts, jeans and soft leisure shoes.
They were unprepared for the sudden crash and the cold.
In order to keep warm, survivors removed the aircraft’s seat, removed the stuffed fabric and cut the skin off the surface into blankets. A section of the remaining cabin served as a safe haven for all persons, who used suitcases and wooden boards to block the wind as far as possible in order to prevent cold air intrusion.
Paper products on board the aircraft, including newspapers, paper towels and even bank notes, are used to heat and heat.
At night, even a piss can be removed from open football, and if it’s done outside, it’ll freeze to ice.
After a few days of hard work, the greater threat gradually surfaced — the lack of food — and became a mountain over everyone’s head.
There is no vegetation in the Andean mountains, which have been snowed all year, and very few wildlife can harvest food. As a result of short flights, there are so few foods on board: eight chocolates, one mussels, three cans of jam, some nuts and nuts, some lollipops and a bottle of red wine, all of which are all here.
All food is strictly distributed, with a small amount of food per person per day, in case these insignificant supplies are quickly consumed and cleared. It is well known that the need for heat in a cold climate is enormous, but some people eat only one peanut in three days…
Twenty-seven survivors suffered from hunger and after nine days of maintaining their minimum intake, they ate all their food reserves.
They tried to go through every crack of the fuselage, to remove the wrinkles of their seats and to find any leftovers of food.
Next, they ate most of the seat leather, leather shoes and belts — apparently the leather suitcases were not spared. After the straw in the mattress was eaten up, the hungry people started eating the foam inside the cabin…
At the same time, more desperate news came.
3
After the disaster, a transistor radio was found in the wreckage of the aircraft and used to listen to the latest developments in the search.
After 11 days, they learned from Chilean radio that the search and rescue had been terminated, in other words, that they had been abandoned… There’s a reason for that — this fairy airplane is white, it’s hard to find in the snow many times.
At this dark hour, a middle-aged man named Gustavo smiled.
People think he’s crazy, and Nicolaisch laughs and explains: “Maybe that’s good news. It makes it clear to us that no one can be expected at this moment and that we are destined to rely on ourselves! I’m sorry.
Human beings tend to unleash their greater potential when they are desperate and cannot be relied upon to face daunting challenges.
So Nickelic’s words, which seemed to be a mockery of despair, actually played an inspiring role, amounting to a dose of spiritual supplementation.
It is only that the consequences of food shortages are increasing, and people have begun to starve to death because of undernutrition.
At this time, all survivors are aware of the terrible fact that they must accept that it is only by eating the bodies of those who have died that they will be able to walk alive.
However, most of the dead were not strangers, but relatives, teammates and good friends. Everyone faced the ultimate torture of humanity, and the moral dilemma determined the fate of all.
Live or die? If there is no more determination, all people will die from hunger and organ failure; but if there is a real chance of eating the body, how can we face the guilt that surrounds us?
Medical student Canesa is also trapped in this moral dilemma.
As a medical student, he understood that his body was now almost out of fat, supported by the last bit of protein, and that if he did not eat enough energy, he would lose consciousness in two days and die of organ failure.
And look at the survivors around us, they’re exhausted, they’re seriously wasting their bodies, and they’re all swollen.
No! No! To survive, we must eat these bodies! Vanessa made an extremely difficult decision with her last strength — he took the lead in persuading everyone to eat the body.
Canesa found a sharp piece of broken glass and carefully cut a small piece of meat off a frozen body and placed it on a metal plate.
And then he cut another piece, and then three and four… and he cut it, and he said to everyone, “I’ll leave the meat here, and let’s not make it to ourselves, and eat it if we can’t bear it.” I’m sorry.
The sharp glass cut out the cold body and seemed to cut the demons of the survivors. One of them murmurs: God, I hope you forgive me… I just want to live and go back to my family…
He frowned and picked up one of the strips, and quickly shoved it into his mouth, and swallowed it without much chewing.
After him, several others took a piece of meat in turn and hid in the corner. When he saw this scene, Canesaro had a smile and he continued to cut more meat on the body.
It should be noted that the body that was first cut belonged to the pilot, as the survivors were not familiar with him and were more emotionally acceptable.
Many years later, Vanessa explained her own internal fluctuations: “I know that I have to come forward, after all, the identity of a medical student determines that I am familiar with this medical scene. I can take this step more than anyone else to cut those people’s meat. I know that they must be relied upon to survive, but I still cannot face my friends, and I have violated their bodies and their dignity. I’m sorry.
“But I finally convinced myself, because I thought that I shared not only my friends materially, but their spirit, their will to live, also through the body. I would also be happy to share the hope that my body will give life to others if I suffer the next day. I’m sorry.
Ultimately, most survivors, including Canesa, finally received food in this extreme way. In fact, survivors later reached a consensus that if any of them dies one day, others can eat his body. Maybe that’s the only way they can be a little more honest.
Although it is rationally understood that eating a corpse is the only way to survive, it is not easy to accept it emotionally…
4
At first, Adolfo Strauch, the brother of Adolfo Strauch, was completely unable to accept the consumption of the same body, whose body would innately repulsive, but when he tried to persuade himself, tasted a little bit of it, he let it go.
There’s nothing to taste about frozen human meat.
He became more and more accustomed to eating after it continued, as the source of the meat would almost no longer be connected to food.
However, not all people accept the consumption of human corpses, and a few initially strongly resisted it, but the desire for survival eventually prevailed, and they could only accept this “unattainable food” when they were desperate: “I want to go home, I want to see my family, and I can convince myself to endure anything when I think that I may never see them again. I’m sorry.
The food problem was finally solved in an unimaginable way, but on the night of October 29, when the survivors were resting in the cabin, an avalanche came, and this sudden second disaster caused eight deaths again. A further 16 survivors were trapped in a snow-covered cabin, with no snow in their necks that prevented them from moving, and they did not escape until after a little melting three days later.
As previously agreed, eight dead people have also become new sources of food.
After two months of trying to survive, on December 12, Nando Parrado and Canesa decided to venture out of their place to look for help.
They do not have any maps, supplies or even even the most basic climbing experience, but they are still able to descend into low valleys.
At the edge of a river, they saw several men on horseback, and Canesa called out to them with all his might and drew their attention.
And that’s it. The fate of the people has finally been saved. Three Chilean military helicopters flew, and 72 days after the crash, search and rescue personnel finally rescued the remaining 16 survivors.
They were taken down the hill for treatment for fractures, freezing injuries, the highland response, dehydration, malnutrition and sane haemorrhagic disease.
The news of the Andean air crash had shaken the entire country, but when it was discovered that they had survived by eating corpses, many had challenged, condemned and even verbally called upon the Government to bring the group to justice.
But there are many others who believe that they are real heroes and that they have created an incredible miracle. It was not until the decision of the Government of Chile to acquit all of them that the two groups were able to free themselves from the scourge of suspected crimes.
Moreover, the Chilean government has approved a football match every year on December 22, the day of rescue, to commemorate the game that was cancelled, as well as the memory of the unfortunate victims.
For the rest of their lives, most of these survivors struggled for their cause, some of them came to see the relatives of those killed by their own consumption, apologized and explained their actions, and finally got an understanding; some of them spent their whole lives trying to save those who went out of their way, and they continued to prove through their own experience that there was no real difficulty in defeating a person.
Tragic stories have at last a happy ending, and it is difficult not to stimulate our thinking: is it true that eating human beings in a desperate situation is at the bottom of human morality?
From an anthropological point of view, human beings have long lived in the early stages of the evolution process, but with the development of human civilization, scientific and technological advances in agriculture, fisheries, livestock and so on, it is no longer necessary to acquire food sources in such a cruel manner. The highly developed humanist ideology has derived from a series of ethics, religions, laws and customs, which, from the standpoint of the norms of behaviour, binds the same kind of eating, creating a sense of aversion to eating human flesh.
In the sense that there is a health risk to eating the same kind of food, as also mentioned in my article on thorium venom, the elimination of such behaviour becomes a consensus among large social groups.
However, when ancient human beings suffered from severe food shortages, and when modern human beings were trapped in ice freezes like the Andes, those moral and psychological constraints were no longer meaningful at these critical moments of life and death, and the food bodies that did not involve killing were understood as the last resort to survival.
After all, living in the face of the cruelty of nature is always the instinct of humanity. Record number: YXA1ZGDXa5ytxJrdb0cbEb1
I don’t know.
Keep your eyes on the road.
