I Had to Survive: How a Plane Crash in the Andes Inspired My Calling to Save Lives

Dr. Roberto Canessa recounts his side of the famous 1972 plane crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 in the Andean Mountains and how, decades later, the harrowing journey to survive propelled him to become one of the world’s leading pediatric cardiologists, seeing in his patients the same fierce will to live he witnessed in the Andes.

As he tended to his wounded Old Christians teammates amidst the devastating carnage, rugby player Roberto Canessa, a second-year medical student at the time,...