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In this lecture, the speaker recounts the harrowing story of the 1972 Andes plane crash involving a Uruguayan rugby team, focusing on the survival of Nando Parrado and others. After the crash, they faced extreme conditions and a moral dilemma of cannibalism to survive, leading to profound reflections on human resilience and the will to live. The narrative highlights the lengths to which individuals will go to preserve life, underscoring themes of survival, sacrifice, and the human spirit in dire circumstances.
Transcript (English)
0:00 Dear friends, assalamu aleykum.
0:02 Recently, I bought a book
0:04 by Steven Bartlett,
0:06 very interesting
0:08 the book Diary of a CEO,
0:10 which I found interesting and learned
0:15 very insightful things,
0:17 both about this author and some of his business ideas.
0:24 However, what fascinated me this morning, while reading at breakfast,
0:30 was a story I hadn't known before, about the same narration, about a plane crash
0:33 Years,
0:34 in the mountain range,
0:36 down
0:38 between Uruguay and Chile,
0:41 where
0:43 the plane crashed into that mountain peak or range.
0:49 the Andes, where it was really difficult to run. So, what was it about, and what is the message, and why am I telling you all this? In short,
0:58 this man named Nando Parado,
1:01 later to check, his name was actually Fernando Parado,
1:05 woke up,
1:08 The accident happened on October 13, 1972.
1:11 In the year I
1:13 he woke up
1:14 from a coma after 3 or 4 days in a state of confusion,
1:21 And that was after
1:22 that
1:24 crash,
1:25 so to speak in Bosnian,
1:28 that plane, or rather the impact of the plane
1:30 into that one
1:32 from the mountain peaks. Indeed, the cause was I
1:35 a mistake to ask, but at the same time, the weather disaster was a mistake in navigation I, and so on. Considering that it happened in 1992.
1:45 Year,
1:46 45
1:47 there were a total of passengers,
1:49 who were members of the Uruguayan
1:52 rugby
1:52 team,
1:53 and they set off for
1:56 Chile just to simply
1:59 they participate in a competition.
2:01 And what happens? So, there is a plane crash,
2:05 where it was actually mentioned
2:07 And his mother,
2:10 says the liquid that was 49
2:13 years old. They immediately mentioned this man named Nando Parado,
2:18 And now he is alive, and his little sister Suzi. So, she also survived the crash, but unfortunately, shortly after that
2:27 she changed, she passed away after
2:30 the accident. However, what is interesting,
2:32 from 45
2:33 members
2:35 of the total crew, how many were on the plane,
2:38 16 of them survived.
2:40 But their survival
2:42 was extreme.
2:43 And he actually records this case to show
2:47 the lengths a person goes to survive and what one is willing to endure,
2:53 to
2:56 essentially save their life.
2:58 Namely, what happens? After the accident,
3:02 His friends, his team members, thought he was dead, as he was unresponsive.
3:10 Here, the author notes that it was two
3:13 days or more. However, he says he was
3:17 there in an interview I watched for three to almost four days in a coma.
3:22 At temperatures that even dropped below 20.
3:27 When his friends saw he was showing signs of life, they placed him in the wreckage of the plane and
3:34 administered first aid, trying to revive him as much as they could,
3:39 as they tried everything to survive, both him and them. Considering that
3:45 this plane crash, pardon, occurred
3:49 high in the mountains, where the altitude is over 3,500 m,
3:53 where there is no living soul, where there is no
3:57 civilization,
3:58 where human
3:59 cities are tens,
4:01 or even hundreds of kilometers
4:03 away from them.
4:05 They actually had a radio or transistor through which they listened to news about their disappearance,
4:12 or about the disappearance of the plane they were on.
4:15 They say on the tenth day they heard the news that the need for them was suspended. And then they lost hope
4:22 for more reasons. First, because the need for them was suspended, as they fell into a situation where they could not be found by those who were flying over the area,
4:34 It is a vast area, thus it is the longest mountain range in the world, as far as I know.
4:41 And so, it was simply unconditional
4:43 for any help. That's one reason. The second reason was that they didn't have enough food.
5:01 They had certain amounts of food that expired quickly. So they had chocolate bars, peanuts basically,
5:02 and they tried to save it as much as possible to stretch it, as our people say,
5:05 As much as possible,
5:12 but of course that food ran out, because no one anticipated
5:20 such a long stay there. And then a really very difficult situation arises,
5:23 a tough decision, which was that they had the choice to either start eating the dead bodies of their companions or
5:29 die from hunger.
5:30 the passengers on that flight,
5:32 whose bodies were well preserved due to the cold that prevailed.
5:34 In this way, they hoped that someone would somehow find them,
5:39 that they would be noticed, and so on. First, they decided, he says,
5:49 to eat the pilots,
5:52 because they somehow considered them
5:55 responsible for what happened,
6:01 so they would simply prolong their lives as much as possible. After that, they would continue eating the bodies
6:08 of the other passengers. However, this Fernando or Nenando was not at all satisfied
6:10 with this and was truly horrified
6:17 As time passed, they say they were in such a situation,
6:22 staying for almost two months,
6:25 searching for a solution,
6:26 trying to climb some
6:29 surrounding hills, attempting to reach any civilization,
6:34 they found no
6:36 way. And what happens in the end? Then he would protect the body
6:40 of his mother and his sisters,
6:42 with
6:43 the other flowers,
6:45 he will embark on an impossible journey with his best friend,
6:50 thus, hiking over the highest peak,
6:53 without any climbing gear, unprepared in any way,
6:58 to face ice and snow, while they lived in tropical areas,
7:04 but no one is allowed to touch the bodies of his mother and sister.
7:11 It is said here that they traveled for ten days,
7:16 into the unknown, without any plan, without any idea,
7:20 not knowing where they were actually going, with no way to orient themselves,
7:24 so they traveled for ten days until they finally managed to reach
7:29 one
7:30 valleys where they actually saw rivers and signs of human civilization.
7:45 They quickly encountered a man on the other side of the river
7:49 and informed him that they, the members who had experienced an accident two months ago,
7:50 had been in distress, and then, they say, that man took 10 hours,
7:52 to reach the nearest city to notify the police and the rescuers.
7:53 After that, a helicopter came and rescued the first two people,
7:56 and then the rest, a total of 14 survivors. So, out of 45
8:16 passengers, 16 were lost in this fall.
8:17 This story highlights human efforts to survive,
8:21 and the struggle to make every possible effort to stay alive.
8:31 struggle,
8:32 to simply survive extreme
8:35 conditions, such as extreme cold of minus twenty and more,
8:40 such as
8:41 so much
8:42 high altitude where it is abnormal in some way to live,
8:46 to stay, walk, etc.
8:49 To remain, therefore, 72
8:51 days
8:52 without actually any
8:54 human
8:55 civilizations,
8:56 help, contact, and so on. These are all messages behind us today.
9:02 How can we actually learn something from this narration, this story? Here, Stevan Batlet extracts a message, which is 22.
9:12 The message he extracts in that business sense. He speaks about how important it is to be focused
9:18 on a single goal, and their only goal at that moment was to save their lives. This is because, as this man Nando says, he constantly had that thought in his mind,
9:31 because there is no turning back.
9:32 How can I go back? Because he says if I go back, there is certain death, then we will all die.
9:38 Then he will have to watch how they eat
9:41 the dead body of his mother and his sister.
9:45 So, he simply did not allow himself to lose hope and give up.
9:55 He continued forward until he ultimately reached salvation and human civilization.
10:05 This is one thing. The second thing that is very interesting to me is,
10:11 I found an interview with this man,
10:22 where he talks about how they were organized. He says that in some cases,
10:24 it was about a regular commercial flight, and there is no doubt that they would all have died.
10:42 Why? Because as soon as they experienced that tragedy,
10:46 those who were aware,
10:48 immediately organized themselves and had a leader, a man who guided them.
10:50 He was their rugby team captain. So, besides being physically fit and strong, they immediately helped those who were injured,
10:51 a living space to thrive even in such circumstances.
10:55 They even had,
10:56 but they always had unified leadership. They had one captain
11:01 of the team who led them,
11:04 cared for them, and simply,
11:06 from start to finish, they stayed together. This is a very important message that we all can learn.
11:17 on fulfilling
11:18 the task,
11:19 on fulfilling
11:20 the obligation,
11:21 It reminds me of our late Izet Ananč, who said you have two options:
11:31 either you will die or you will complete the task. There is no third option.
11:39 So, there is no third option. Just like in the historical case,
11:41 when the first Muslims came
11:44 to the Iberian Peninsula, the Spanish,
11:46 the Portuguese, that peninsula,
11:51 When they actually moved there, when the army lined up,
11:53 then their commander,
11:59 BUziat, actually ordered all their ships to be burned,
12:04 and simply told them, the enemy is in front of you and the sea is behind you. Choose.
12:09 uncompromisingly,
12:10 to face the
12:11 challenges,
12:12 to simply be responsible, to be strong, to be stable and steadfast in all of this. And the last message I will mention and conclude,
12:20 that truly fascinated me when I watched the interview with this Nando Parado,
12:25 is actually the fact that he says, of these 16 survivors,
12:30 so of the 16 surviving members
12:33 of that plane crash,
12:35 he says none
12:37 had
12:38 Something is called pTT,
12:42 what we call post-traumatic
12:44 stress
12:45 disorder.
12:46 So, after some trauma, people have a disorder,
12:50 whether it is war or an accident.
12:54 However, it was simply exclusive to them. Why is that?
13:02 It is simply because we have accepted
13:07 to live in the present, because we have learned the value of today,
13:12 because we have learned the value of the day given to us, the day we survived.