When Nando Parrado took off on a flight from Uruguay to Chile with his rugby team-mates, he was looking forward to an enjoyable weekend break, and had invited his mother and sister along for the trip. Then disaster struck, as their plane crashed into a mountain. Miraculously, many of the passengers survived, but Nando's family died and he was unconscious for three days.

Stranded 11,000 feet up on an inhospitable glacier, the survivors had almost no food or suitable equipment to withstand temperatures as low as -40C. Meagre supplies rapidly diminished, and soon they heard on the radio that the search for them had been called off. It was then that they realised the only food for miles around was the bodies of their dead friends...

In a final, desperate bid for safely, Nando and one of his friends set off on an impossible journey, climbing 17,000 feet-high mountains, facing death at every step. Finally, on the twelfth day of their journey, and 72 days after the crash, they saw a hill farmer and the survivors found rescue.

Read by Nando Parrado and Josh Davis

(p) 2006 Orion Publishing Group