Roberto Canessa

Roberto Jorge Canessa Urta (born 17 January 1953) is a Uruguayan paediatric cardiologist, motivational speaker, and former rugby player. He is one of the 16 survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which crashed in the Andes mountains on 13 October 1972. He was portrayed by Josh Hamilton in the 1993 feature film Alive and by Argentine actor Matías Recalt in the 2023 Spanish feature film Society of the Snow.

Early life and education
Canessa Urta was born in Montevideo on 17 January 1953, the son of physician Juan Carlos Canessa Montero (1928-2009) and María Mercedes Urta Stagnero (died 2011). He is of Italian descent, tracing his ancestry to Rapallo, Liguria. He attended Stella Maris College, located in barrio Carrasco, and was part of the school's alumni rugby club, Old Christians. In 1971 he began to study medicine at the University of the Republic.

13 October 1972 plane crash
At the time of the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, Canessa was a 19-year-old medical student. Between 1971 and 1979, he played eight matches with the Uruguay national rugby union team, and was also selected for the 1980 South American Jaguars rugby union tour of South Africa.

Canessa suggested to his fellow survivors that to stay alive, they should eat the flesh of the deceased victims of the crash, which they did after days of "agonis[ing]" over having to resort to such a means. Together with Fernando Parrado, he spent 10 days trekking through the Andes in search of help for the survivors.

Career
After returning to Uruguay from the Andes, Canessa graduated from the University of the Republic with a medical degree, and later specialized in cardiology and pediatric cardiology. He serves as vice president of the Fundación Corazoncitos, which provides care for children with congenital heart disease. Throughout his career, Canessa has worked as a pediatric cardiologist and researcher at the Italian Hospital of Montevideo and the Hospital Pereira Rosell. He has also taught classes in graduate courses at the University of the Republic. In 2019, he was conferred the title of honorary fellow of the American College of Cardiology. In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, he led a group of professional volunteers to create respirators for ICUs.

In the 1994 general election, Canessa ran for President of Uruguay for the Blue Party. He got 1645 votes, 0.08% of the vote, lagging far behind former President, Julio María Sanguinetti, whose party returned to power with 30.83% of the public vote. In 2012, he joined Sergio Abreu in founding the National Dignity faction within the National Party. In 2019, Open Cabildo presidential candidate Guido Manini Ríos offered him the vice presidency, but Canessa turned it down.

Book
In March 2016, Canessa published his memoir, Tenía que sobrevivir: Cómo un accidente aéreo en los Andes inspiró mi vocación para salvar vidas, co-written with the Uruguayan author Pablo Vierci.


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Filmography
Canessa was portrayed by Josh Hamilton in the 1993 feature film Alive, directed by Frank Marshall and based on Piers Paul Read's 1974 non-fiction book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors. In 2023 he was portrayed by Matías Recalt in the survival thriller film Society of the Snow directed by J. A. Bayona and based on the book by Pablo Vierci.

Personal life
Canessa began dating Laura Surraco in her adolescence and early youth, and they were a couple at the time of the accident. They were married in 1976 and have three children: Hilario, Roberto Martín, and Laura Inés.

On April 11, 2024, after a conference organized the previous day in Torreón, Mexico, two videos went viral on Twitter accusing Canessa of inappropriately groping several attendees at the event. The incident was condemned among netizens and feminist collectives, some of whom urged Canessa to issue a public apology. On April 12, El País reported that they had tried to contact Canessa to talk about what happened and he refused to comment, stating that the remarks on social networks had been made in "bad faith".