Aug. 20, 2024

When Tragedy Strikes: The Untold Stories of the 1972 Andes Disaster by John Guiver

Show Notes
Transcript

Send us a text

In this episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, host Curveball sits down with John Guiver, an author who transitioned from a career in artificial intelligence and high-tech software to writing. John shares his deep dive into the 1972 Andes disaster, a tragic event that he has meticulously researched and documented in his book "To Play the Game," released on the 50th anniversary of the disaster in 2022.
https://johnguiver.org
Please follow, rate, review, and share this episode to as many people as possible.

WEBVTT

00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:28.379
> Curtis Jackson>Welcome, to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. if you believe you can achieve Chee Chee, welcome to the living a Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire.

00:00:28.920 --> 00:01:05.945
> Curtis Jackson>Today we're going to be talking about the, Andes disaster as I am joined by author John Guyver. John turned to being a writer after a career in artificial intelligence and high tech software, he started researching the Andes disaster. He first started as a hobby. Now it's full time, so we're going to be talking about his book to play the game that he released in 2022 on the 50 year anniversary of the Andes disaster. So, John, thank you so much for joining me today.

00:01:06.365 --> 00:01:09.022
> John Guyver>Well, it's a real pleasure to be on your show. Thank you very much.

00:01:09.054 --> 00:01:13.225
> Curtis Jackson>Curtis, why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself.

00:01:14.846 --> 00:01:19.426
> John Guyver>Well, my name is John Guyveregh, based in the UK.

00:01:19.725 --> 00:01:27.626
> John Guyver>I'm 69 now. I spent, I had a career in technical, research and development.

00:01:29.525 --> 00:02:11.126
> John Guyver>spent many years in the field of artificial intelligence. I have a family, three kids, a wife. And I was always very interested in the 1972 Andy's disaster. It was a story that struck, a deep chord. And in 2013, I, started researching it in earnest. And 2019, I started, writing a, history of the event. did many, many interviews. And, as you say, the book came out in December, 2022, on the 50th anniversary.

00:02:12.825 --> 00:02:21.126
> Curtis Jackson>So, first of all, what inspired you to want to get involved in researching Andy's disaster and what inspired you to write about it?

00:02:22.545 --> 00:02:58.306
> John Guyver>Well, I'd written, I'd read the, authorized account of the, event, of the tragedy. I probably read the book alive in mid eighties, I think. and it was written by an english author, Piers Paul Reid, who spent, a long time interviewing the survivors in a couple of months after, they returned from the mountain. And there were many things I found fascinating about the story.

00:02:58.394 --> 00:04:12.737
> John Guyver>They were a very close knit group. They'd all come from, a community where family was important, they had big families, it was a catholic community, it was a rugby playing school. all of that, resonated with me. and then all of a sudden, they were plunged into this tragedy. and Piers Paul Reid, who wrote alive, he did a very good job of really, allowing us to get to know these young men. But, I always felt, there was, a gap in the story and that was we didn't really know too much about those, who died, in the accident, who were also from the very same close knit community. and that was really one of the big focuses of my book and got me going. And the thing that sort of triggered my connection with the community was a trip to the site of the accident in 2013. I went there, it's a six day trip.

00:04:13.288 --> 00:04:21.759
> John Guyver>you go up on horseback in the summer, not in the conditions that the victims and the survivors were in.

00:04:22.069 --> 00:05:14.360
> John Guyver>and through that I met one of the survivors and through him I met some other survivors and gradually I became a quite embedded in the community. I translated a couple of memoirs of survivors. and I also had contacted Piers Paul Reid who wrote the book alive. And he was very supportive of my interest and my project, my thought to write a more complete history. and he made his archival material, available to me. So I became very knowledgeable about the story and also connected through my contacts, with the survivors and with the families of those who didn't return.

00:05:16.579 --> 00:05:21.970
> Curtis Jackson>So for listeners who don't know it, explain what the Andy's disaster actually is.

00:05:22.480 --> 00:06:03.927
> John Guyver>so this was a group of a rugby team, and their friends, some family members. They're from Uruguay, which is in the eastern part of south America. they'd all gone to the same school and they were old boys, as it were, of alumni of this primary and middle school. And they formed a club and the club had become one of the most successful in Uruguay. It hadn't been going for many years, but they were a close knit group and they chartered a plane to take them to ah, play a ah, team of similar standing in Chile.

00:06:07.117 --> 00:06:26.415
> John Guyver>to get to Chile you crossed the Andes. The pilots took a ydezenhe a wrong turn in the mountains. the plane dropped out of the clouds in an air pocket and the pilots saw they were heading towards a 15,000 foot ridge. they desperately tried to clear the ridge, weren't able to.

00:06:26.471 --> 00:06:29.192
> John Guyver>The wings got clipped, came off.

00:06:29.279 --> 00:06:53.658
> John Guyver>The tail of the plane came off. Some of the passengers were psyched out by the decompression, but the fuselage without its wings and without its tail miraculously landed on the other side of the ridge and tobogganed down about a mile, into a valley high in the Andes, a remote valley that no one visited.

00:06:54.327 --> 00:07:01.358
> John Guyver>and remarkably there were 33 people still alive after the initial impact.

00:07:02.778 --> 00:07:08.389
> John Guyver>A few died within, within, the next ten hours.

00:07:08.810 --> 00:07:11.672
> John Guyver>but there were 29 survivors.

00:07:11.735 --> 00:07:20.579
> John Guyver>After the first day. They, of course, believed they would be rescued within a day or two. But time went on and it was clear that they weren't going to be rescued.

00:07:21.610 --> 00:07:45.980
> John Guyver>they had made several abortive attempts to walk in different directions. it was too cold, the snow was too deep. Eventually they had to. They didn't have food. They had to resort to using the bodies of their, of their friends, their close friends. there were many incidents on the mountain, but they were, they were lost for 72 days.

00:07:46.990 --> 00:08:10.250
> John Guyver>eventually two of them managed, to trek out. They had a ten day trek out of the Andes. They were spotted high in the chilean side of the Andes, by, a cattle, a cattle man who had gone to, ah, take his flocks up to the mountains for their summer past, you know, summer pasturage.

00:08:10.670 --> 00:08:29.790
> John Guyver>And, the rescue force, you know, he alerted the rescue forces and they, and they rescued the, by that time, 16 survivors. And it was, course, a massive story, ah, that became. There were many books written and there was a film and more films have come out about it.

00:08:31.329 --> 00:08:38.429
> Curtis Jackson>Well, speaking of books, why do you feel that your book is different than all the other books that were written about this tragedy?

00:08:39.529 --> 00:08:45.049
> John Guyver>Well, my initial, and, overwriting goal was to balance the story.

00:08:45.440 --> 00:08:55.991
> John Guyver>We have this iconic story that will be remembered hundreds of years from now. a unique story. the survivors, the 16 survivors have been very high profile.

00:08:56.056 --> 00:10:11.638
> John Guyver>They've written memoirs, they've been interviewed countless times, especially in Latin America, and they do corporate conferences and so on. but it's just a twist of fate that it was, you know, a survivor versus a victim, depending on where they were sitting when the. When the plane crashed. and because this was such a close knit community, I felt it was very important to not only tell the stories of those who didn't, who died on the mountain, but also of their families and their families experience during, the episode when their sons were lost, when the 16 survivors were found and came back into the community in the years afterwards. and to tell that story. So that was my sort of goal. but I also wanted to provide, context for the whole story. So I wanted to provide a little bit about the, the historical and political and social, context, that this close knit community came from.

00:10:11.693 --> 00:10:18.610
> John Guyver>So I provide a little history of Uruguay and of the community they came from.

00:10:19.070 --> 00:10:46.620
> John Guyver>I also do an air crash investigation which has never really been thoroughly, investigated. So I have a section in the book on that. And then I have, I talk about the years, since the accident, the way the rugby club recovered, the way the families recovered, and so on. The 50 years since that, tragedy.

00:10:47.799 --> 00:10:55.659
> Curtis Jackson>Well, kind of talk about, expand on the aftermath of the tragedy. You know, how did it cut, affect the close knit community?

00:10:57.879 --> 00:11:35.840
> John Guyver>Well, it was, first of all, for the, families who lost people, they were really extraordinarily generous in their support of, the survivors because, you know, their sons had died twice. Effectively they'd been given up for dead in the original accident. Then there'd been this moment of hope when they thought, well, maybe my son is still living. And then they find out, well, they're not on this list of 16.

00:11:36.809 --> 00:11:59.413
> John Guyver>but many of the parents felt that the survivors were going to have a very difficult time because of what they'd done. And they expressed their, immediate support for the survivors, saying that they. You know, what one of the fathers said, it was good that there were, 45 people on the plane, so 16 people could have their sons back.

00:11:59.542 --> 00:12:07.980
> John Guyver>And it was so there was this extraordinary outpouring of generosity from, several of the families who lost people.

00:12:12.590 --> 00:12:41.265
> John Guyver>The event itself tended to be talked about less in Uruguay than in the rest of the world. Uruguay was undergoing a very difficult period, in its history. it had come to a point where it was on the cusp of a military dictatorship. And Uruguay had been a country that was, a very liberal and, democratic country within South America.

00:12:41.655 --> 00:12:58.659
> John Guyver>there were, you know, parties from all sides were allowed to prosper and publish, you know, have publications. but it had come to a point, where a, ah, military. The military took over the government, and that. So this all happened against the backdrop of that.

00:12:58.707 --> 00:13:24.384
> John Guyver>And so the. The whole attention on the story was a little bit of, muted within Uruguay itself, within the community itself. the survivors really didn't like, to talk about what had happened because they didn't want to open wounds for the families who'd lost people. And these were friends of the survivors who'd been lost.

00:13:24.440 --> 00:13:26.956
> John Guyver>Their dear friends had been lost on the mountain.

00:13:27.255 --> 00:14:49.259
> John Guyver>So for many years, the story really wasn't a. Talked about. Now. There were a couple of activities that sort of helped the community stay together and sort of help them through the aftermath of the tragedy. One of these was the rugby club. so not everyone was part of the rugby club, but there was a good portion. They were part of the rugby club. And the rugby club, prospered after the accident and it rebuilt and actually became one of the most successful sides in uruguayan club history. And that whole activity was not just a ropey club, it was a social club. They tried to do good within the community. so that provided a support mechanism. Another support mechanism that happened was that 13 of the mothers of who lost their sons got together, and they said look, we're just going to, we need to stop grieving. We need to do something positive. So they started a library with the purpose of Through membership of the library. The money would be used to help poorer communities around in the neighborhood of the community that the survivors were from.

00:14:49.388 --> 00:14:54.535
> John Guyver>That community was quite a prosperous one. But around there were various poor communities.

00:14:54.875 --> 00:15:09.422
> John Guyver>There were schoolchildren who couldn't afford school books. And so there's this program put together to try and provide, to give to these poorer communities. and they did that in memory of their sons who died, on the mountain.

00:15:09.470 --> 00:15:41.238
> John Guyver>And that library is actually still going strong. It's been going for more than 50 years now. the daughters, the sisters of those who died on the mountain have taken over the running of the library. It now provides scholarships, it provides computer classes, and so on again to help these poor communities. So a lot of good actually came out of this. And these activities helped be those who were suffering this tragedy to recover from it.

00:15:43.577 --> 00:15:47.398
> Curtis Jackson>Well tell us why you decided to name the book to play the game.

00:15:49.057 --> 00:16:40.398
> John Guyver>Right. So the rugby team, the school that the passengers had gone to was run by a it was run by a ah, ah, group of christian brothers. The Irish christian brothers, who came from Ireland. And the rugby was this sort of vehicle to not only provide sporting activity but also to provide a way of living. So the values of rugby such as discipline, ah, teamwork, respect, and so on, these are all part of the values that the christian brothers wanted to teach.

00:16:40.857 --> 00:17:06.258
> John Guyver>So when they played rugby they had this prayer, these christian brothers, and it went like this. It's all in this to play the game, to win or lose and be the same. To take the blame, to smile the while. Oh help me Lord, to play the game. For when the one great scorer comes to write against your name, he'll ask not if you won or lost but how you played the game.

00:17:06.998 --> 00:17:42.688
> John Guyver>So there are people who won and there are people who lost on the mountain. People who didn't come back. But the way they responded to this tragedy, the way the families responded to the tragedy was the important aspect of this. It's how you live your life that's important. We all suffer, some of us, from tragedies, some of us not so much. But, it's how you respond to that and how you continue your life. that's the key, key takeaway here.

00:17:44.067 --> 00:17:58.448
> Curtis Jackson>Well, speaking of those who didn't come back, in your book, you have a big focus on telling their story, too. So why was it important for you to focus on them and talk about them as well as the survivors?

00:18:00.347 --> 00:18:20.528
> John Guyver>Well, I think, first of all, it was a close knit community and, it could easily have been those who died who were actually survivors and were raised to this high profile. I think in such an iconic story, I think it's very important to understand the full breadth of the story. Yes, there was.

00:18:20.607 --> 00:18:59.400
> John Guyver>You know, it's a fantastic thing, these survivors coming back, but it was also a tragedy. And I think we have to reflect on that tragedy. We have to understand that people went through great suffering and we have to understand that suffering. So when I tell their stories, you know, I talk about their families, their, childhood, the build up to the trip, their friends and incidents from their friendships with some of the survivors, and the whole period during the accident. So I think it's very important to tell those, to, tell those stories. It's important to provide a balance.

00:19:00.539 --> 00:19:58.094
> John Guyver>My own. I, was thinking there's a story, about, Ernest, Sir Ernest Shackleton, who was, an explorer, in the Antarctic, and he was stranded with his men for many, many, weeks in the south Atlantic. it's an incredible story and there have been many, many books written about it. And when I read those books, I love reading about the story, but I always wonder about some of the people who are just names and, we don't really know about them because history doesn't record about them, much information about them. So what I wanted to do was to record for history some of these, information about some of these people, that just appear as names in most of the books and to, bring them to life, in a sense, for the reader and for history.

00:20:00.394 --> 00:20:05.453
> Curtis Jackson>Well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

00:20:06.874 --> 00:20:49.531
> John Guyver>Well, we spent a long time doing, a translation into, Spanish because this story is actually, more popular and more well known in the spanish speaking world, both in Spain and in Latin America. And so that came out, late last year and is available, for if you have any spanish listeners currently I'm working on, a family project. I'm documenting the travels of my great grandmother, who traveled by herself, through, West Africa, north and West Africa in, 1931 and 1932.

00:20:49.708 --> 00:21:11.114
> John Guyver>And, so, as a single traveler traveling through many, remote villages and speaking to lots of people, her diaries and her photographs are, I think, a very important record of that time, that time of colonial time in colonial, French Africa.

00:21:12.054 --> 00:21:22.713
> John Guyver>And, so that's taking up a lot of my time. Whether that will get published, you know, outside the family yet is still to be determined.

00:21:24.374 --> 00:21:28.874
> Curtis Jackson>Well, throw out your contact info so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.

00:21:31.314 --> 00:21:32.498
> John Guyver>Sorry, can you ask that again?

00:21:32.546 --> 00:21:38.213
> Curtis Jackson>Curtis, throw out your contact info so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.

00:21:38.993 --> 00:21:49.955
> John Guyver>Okay, my. The best way to find out, information, about my book and any future projects, is my website. It's jongiver.org.

00:21:50.099 --> 00:21:55.453
> John Guyver>that's j o h n g u I v for Victor e rdez.

00:21:56.223 --> 00:22:01.584
> John Guyver>And there you have, a link to books, digital and, physical.

00:22:02.104 --> 00:22:11.983
> John Guyver>and you have some context, for the story. And you have links to, interviews, podcasts, documentaries, and so on.

00:22:13.364 --> 00:22:21.023
> Curtis Jackson>We'll close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if there was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

00:22:22.753 --> 00:22:51.112
> John Guyver>I think there are some very important lessons, to be learned from, the story. And perhaps, what I'll do is my book doesn't concentrate a lot on the survivors, except as part of the overall flow, of the book. Obviously, I talk about them throughout the book, but I I don't have a chapter on each of the survivors like I do with those who didn't survive.

00:22:51.288 --> 00:23:24.428
> John Guyver>But what I did do was I asked them the question, what lesson from the story would, you pass on to your grandchildren? And I want to read you, maybe some of those. so this one's from a survivor called, Pedro Algorta. what lesson from the story would you pass on to your jan children? Simply that life has to be lived, and it is hard. There are no easy roads, but no matter how many difficulties we encounter, we can always get, ah, up, and keep walking.

00:23:26.008 --> 00:23:27.347
> John Guyver>here's another one.

00:23:29.528 --> 00:23:37.557
> John Guyver>Never tire of doing good. We complain that things are not getting better. But before complaining, ask yourself, what can you do to make things better?

00:23:37.857 --> 00:23:51.907
> John Guyver>We all have something to contribute, to give. And here's another one, to value, enjoy life that we are fortunate for everything. We have, to be respectful of people, to be independent.

00:23:52.928 --> 00:24:17.397
> John Guyver>here's, one he says, I would speak to my grandchildren about happiness, about how you have to merit it, and then find peace in life and not just the abyss of death. Living in peace ensures health, and you become free and live without fear and live in truth. This is the meaning of life. And it starts with giving and giving yourself to others, and then you will be worthy of happiness.

00:24:20.528 --> 00:24:27.028
> John Guyver>and there are many other little, things like that, that I think are very, very important.

00:24:29.488 --> 00:24:31.794
> John Guyver>So, let me just finish there, Curtis.

00:24:32.453 --> 00:24:37.493
> Curtis Jackson>All right, ladies and gentlemen, John Guyver.org comma. Please be sure to check out the book.

00:24:37.653 --> 00:25:00.723
> Curtis Jackson>Follow rate Review share this episode to as many people as possible. If you have any guests or suggestion topics, Curtis Jackson 1978 Dot Net is the place to send them. Jump on your favorite podcast app. Follow us leave a review thank you for listening and supporting the show. And John, thank you for bringing this tragedy to light and all that you're doing.

00:25:01.503 --> 00:25:04.243
> John Guyver>Well, thank you very much for having me on your show, Curtis.

00:25:04.943 --> 00:25:12.832
> Curtis Jackson>For more information on the Living the Dream podcast, visit www.djcurvefall.com.

00:25:13.008 --> 00:25:17.546
> Curtis Jackson>until next time, stay stay focused on living the dream.

00:25:17.609 --> 00:25:17.834
> John Guyver>Dream.