Carlitos Páez in Cagliari: "This is how I survived the Andes disaster."
The former rugby player, now 72, was aboard the plane that crashed in the Cordillera mountains in the 1970s. He survived after 72 very difficult days: "Without help, without discussion, you get nowhere."Landing, relapses, and rebirth are metaphors that, for Carlitos Páez, 72, a former Uruguayan rugby player and survivor of the Andes disaster—the plane crash that involved Vuelo 571 on October 13, 1972—are first and foremost a life experience. He is the Man with the iron spirit, who has not been crushed by the turbulence that was difficult to face and then overcome. Indeed, it has filled the pages of 26 books and the film stocks of nine documentaries and three feature films. From Montevideo, Carlitos and his team, the Old Christians, were supposed to fly to Santiago, Chile, to play a match, but the Uruguayan Air Force's Fokker F27 crashed in the snow and broke apart due to a miscalculated position by the pilots during a storm. Twenty-nine died. Sixteen, including Páez, survived after 72 days of isolation in the Cordillera, in the biting cold at 4,200 meters above sea level, awaiting rescue. And a strong and innate sense of humor helped him carry on and, later, overcome his addictions to alcohol and cocaine. How? "I pulled together," says Carlitos Páez, who on Friday evening, at the Lazzaretto, was a guest of Cagliari Calcio during an event organized by Tommaso Giulini and his wife, Ilaria Nardi, on the occasion of the Gigi Riva Memorial, in the presence of Minister of Sport Andrea Abodi and Prefect Paola Dessì.
"Without help, without discussion, you get nowhere. Certainly, when you have nothing left to lose and you cling to life with all your remaining strength." Paèz opens up in a long interview in L'Unione Sarda, available now and on the app.
Lorenzo Piras
