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Topics: World News, TV and Film, Netflix
Joe Harker
Topics: World News, TV and Film, Netflix
A survivor of the real life plane crash which inspired the film Society of the Snow has spoken about his experience eating human flesh for the first time.
When a plane crashed in the Andes mountains in 1972, those who survived the impact were forced to turn to cannibalism to survive after the small amount of food supplies on board the plane ran out.
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Of the 45 people on board the plane when it crashed only 16 made it off the mountain, with the rest either dying in the crash, of their injuries or being killed by an avalanche which struck the fuselage of the plane the survivors were sheltering in.
After learning that rescue efforts had been called off and discovering they were unable to signal for help, the survivors decided to send people out to seek help and eventually a team were able to make it back to civilisation.
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The plane had crashed on 13 October, 1972 and the last of the survivors was evacuated off the mountain on 23 December.
Among those rescued off the mountain was Eduardo Strauch, who was among the first group evacuated on 22 December.
Speaking to The Sun, the plane crash survivor explained that after the group made the harrowing decision to eat human flesh to avoid starvation his body rejected it the first time around.
He said: "My mind was okay, I made all the process and I didn’t have any conscience problem at all, but my body rejected it the first time.
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"It was something unconscious because of the culture and all the taboos."
"It doesn’t taste, it’s like eating a piece of rice."
Eduardo then went on to explain that his cousin Fito, who also survived and was rescued on 23 December, was the one who cut meat off the bodies of people who had died and helped him eat.
The food supplies on board the plane, which consisted largely of wine and sweets, had run out by the time the survivors made the incredibly difficult decision to resort to cannibalism.
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Eduardo also said that eating human flesh wasn't the hardest part of his ordeal, as he was buried alive by the avalanche which killed eight people when it struck the wreckage of the plane 17 days into the traumatic events.
He said he 'felt sure I was dead' and 'had this experience of dying', explaining that in that moment he 'didn't want to get out' for a few seconds before struggling to get free of the snow.
He went on to say that the moment he saw the rescue helicopter arrive was 'the most beautiful moment of my life', and in 1995 he returned to the crash site to pay tribute to the memory of his friends who died on the mountain.