Imagine that you are stuck in the middle of a chain of snowy, icy cold mountains. You are stuck with other people, which makes the situation a bit better, but you have no food, water, or enough clothes for this unbearable cold. What would you do to survive? Would you wait until someone came to rescue you? Or would you escalate the mountain to try to escape it? This is what an Uruguayan rugby team had to ask themselves, or at least what was left of the team. An Uruguayan rugby team was flying to Chile to play a rugby match. They had to fly over La Cordillera de Los Andes, which is an extensive chain of mountains. When they were flying over Los Andes, the plane fell, and unfortunately, not everyone survived the crash. They were stuck in the insufferable cold for a little over two months with little to no food or appropriate clothes. They had nothing but a piece of the plane to use as a shelter. When I finished watching “Society of Snow ”, a movie telling this very story, I asked myself what would I do to survive?
As I was thinking of this question I thought of an obvious answer; I would try to ration the little food that we have so it can last as long as possible and everyone can eat, and then climb the immense mountains to try to cross over to Chile or Argentina. But then looking back at the movie, it isn’t as simple as one thinks. This is why I interviewed ten people because I want to know if everyone thinks the same as me, or if the answers are vastly different.
After interviewing some people, I realized that not everybody would do the same. What I thought was obvious for me wasn’t for others. People had different priorities: some preferred shelter, others food, and others to get out of the mountain as fast as possible. The most common answer was to build a shelter. Many people said they would try to build a shelter with what was left of the plane and try to make a fire to keep them warm. Others said they would try to look in the luggage to try and find clothes and food. These are very interesting and logical answers. One of my interviewees said that he would try to find seeds and plant them, which I highly doubt is possible since it is very unlikely to find seeds and even more unlikely that crops will grow on the top of a snowy icy-cold mountain. Another interviewee said that she would try to take a piece of the plane and use it as a slide to slide off the mountain, which honestly surprised me because it isn’t a bad option. Some people didn’t even know what to do.which is completely normal because you don’t know what you would do unless you go through the situation.
In conclusion, everybody had different answers which made the interviews more interesting. Even though I thought people would have similar ideas. I also believe that if the people I interviewed had to go through something like this, they would probably do the opposite of what they said, or just do things they didn’t think of. At the end of the day, if you are stuck in a situation like this more things come into play. For example, would you change your religious beliefs to survive? What about friendships and relationships with the people around you? Would you be willing to give up something in order to get something better? And last but not least, would you consider giving up?
