Читать книгу Extreme Survivors: 60 of the World’s Most Extreme Survival Stories - Collins Maps - Страница 25

The cruellest twist was that the survivors heard this news on a small transistor radio, which they had salvaged from the plane.

Remarkably, though, one of the men managed to turn this disappointment into a source of hope:

‘Nicolich came out of the plane and, seeing their faces, knew what they had heard… [Nicolich] climbed through the hole in the wall of suitcases and rugby shirts, crouched at the mouth of the dim tunnel, and looked at the mournful faces which were turned towards him. ‘Hey boys,’ he shouted, ‘there’s some good news! We just heard on the radio. They’ve called off the search.’ Inside the crowded plane there was silence. As the hopelessness of their predicament enveloped them, they wept. ‘Why the hell is that good news?’ Paez shouted angrily at Nicolich. ‘Because it means,’ [Nicolich] said, ‘that we’re going to get out of here on our own.’ The courage of this one boy prevented a flood of total despair.’

From Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read.