Fernando "Nando" Seler Parrado Dolgay (born 9 December 1949) is a Uruguayan businessman, producer, motivational speaker and television presenter, and former rugby player and racing driver. He is one of the sixteen survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 which crashed in the Andes on 13 October 1972. After spending two months trapped in the mountains with the other crash survivors, he, along with Roberto Canessa, climbed through the Andes mountains over a 10-day period to find help.^[1]

He was portrayed by Ethan Hawke in the 1993 feature film Alive and by Argentine actor Agustín Pardella in the 2023 Spanish feature film Society of the Snow.

Background

Early life

Parrado was born in Montevideo on December 9, 1949, the second of three children of Seler Parrado and Xenia "Eugenia" Dolgay, a Ukrainian immigrant who arrived in Uruguay at the age of 16.^[2] Raised in the Carrasco neighborhood, he attended Stella Maris College, and played for its alumni rugby team, Old Christians Club.^[3]

At the time of the Andes crash, he was a university student. In his 2006 book, Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home,^[1] Parrado described his life in the days immediately prior to the Andes:

When it finally came time to choose a college, I decided to enroll in agricultural school, because that was where my closest friends were going. When my father heard the news, he shrugged and smiled. 'Nando,' he said, 'your friends' families own farms and ranches. We have hardware stores.' It was not hard for him to talk me into changing my mind. In the end, I did what made sense: I entered business school with no serious thought about what school would mean for me or where this decision might lead. I would graduate or I would not. I would run the hardware stores or maybe I wouldn't. My life would present itself to me when it was ready. In the meantime, I spent the summer being Nando; I played rugby, I chased girls with Panchito, I raced my little Renault along the beach roads at Punta del Este, I went to parties and I lay in the sun, I lived for the moment, drifting with the tide, waiting for my future to reveal itself, always happy to let others lead the way. (p.30-31)

Parrado also states in Miracle in the Andes that after he returned from the mountains, he gave up his studies. Still coping with the loss of his sister, Susy, and their mother, both victims of the same plane crash, Parrado drifted for a period of time. Initially, Parrado helped out in his father's business, though he was interested in the field of sports car racing and for many years developed a career as a professional race car driver. After his marriage, he gave up professional racing and took over his father's hardware business alongside his older sister and brother-in-law. He also developed additional businesses and became a television personality in Uruguay. In 2020 a racehorse named after Parrado won the Coventry Stakes at the Royal Ascot meeting. Parrado has given his consent for the horse to be named after him.^[4]

Conferences

In addition to his work in business and television, Parrado is a motivational speaker, using his experience in the Andes to help others cope with psychological trauma.^[1]

Miracle in the Andes

Parrado co-wrote the 2006 book Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home, with Vince Rause. The book references Piers Paul Read's account of the accident and aftermath, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors, which was written two years after the rescue (and based upon interviews with the survivors). Miracle in the Andes, however, is told from Parrado's point of view 34 years later.

Filmography

Publication

• Parrado, Nando; Rause, Vince (2006). Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home. Perfection Learning Corporation. ISBN 978-0-7569-8847-0.