Aaron Ralston's Story rescue helicopter just happened to be flying

overhead.
Aaron Ralston, a 27-year-old mountain sports
fanatic from Colorado in the United States,
found himself in dire straits* alone in a
canyon* in the desert when a 500kg rock
came crashing down the canyon to smash
his right hand and trap it against the canyon
wall. A terrible accident, but the situation
was made all the more serious because on
this occasion Aaron had failed to tell anyone
where he was going. At the last minute the
plans for a trip with his climbing partners
had fallen through, and on the spur of the
moment he decided to head out on his own
to cycle up a long mountain trail, leave his
bike and then walk down the Blue John
canyon. No one had the slightest idea where
he was.
After three days of not seeing or hearing any
sign of life Aaron realised he would die there
if he didn't do something drastic. The course
of action was horrific, but there was no other
way. He would have to amputate his right
hand. Fortunately he had a small multitool
knife with him and he had some straps that
he could use to make a tourniquet to stop
himself bleeding to death when he cut the
arteries. The knife had two blades. When he
tried with the larger blade he found that it
was too blunt to cut the skin.
One of the doctors at the hospital recalls
being impressed to see Ralston walk into the
hospital on his own, in spite of his injuries
and the gruelling experience of being in the
desert for six days with almost nothing to eat
and only a couple of litres of water. He
describes the amputation as remarkable.
"It's a perfect example of someone
improvising in a dire situation*," he said. "He
took a small knife and was able to amputate
his arm in such a way that he did not bleed
to death."
Slim and pale with short reddish-brown hair,
Ralston believes that his story was not
simply about an isolated individual who rose
to a formidable challenge. For him there was
a spiritual* dimension to the experience. In
his news conference he said, "I may never
fully understand the spiritual aspects of what
I experienced, but I will try. The source of the
power I felt was the thoughts and prayers of
many people, most of whom I will never
know."

The following day he found the courage to

try the shorter blade, and with that he
managed to cut through the skin. Only when
he had made a large hole in his arm did he
realise that it was going to be impossible to
use any of the little tools on his knife to cut
through the bones. After another 24 hours of
pain and despair the idea and the strength
came to him in a flash on the sixth day. With
a final burst of energy he broke both bones
in his arm and freed himself.

The ordeal was not over, though. He was still

a long way from help. He had to carefully
strap up his right arm and then find a way of
lowering himself down a 20m drop in the
canyon with a rope and only his left arm, and
then walk the 10 km back to his car. Despite
his ingenuity* and all his efforts he would
have bled to death if it hadn't been for a
very happy coincidence: the moment he got
out of the canyon into the open desert the

Aaron's own account of his ordeal
DAY ONE: SATURDAY, APRIL 26, 9 A.M.
Under a bluebird sky out in the desert, I
leave my truck where the trail begins for
Horseshoe Canyon. My plan is to make a 30-
mile circuit cycling up Horshoe Canyon,
leaving the bike at the top and then coming
down Blue John Canyon on foot.
The trip was a last-minute decision after
some friends had called off a mountaineering
trip. Usually I would leave a detailed
schedule with my roommates, but since I left
without knowing what I was going to do, the
only word I gave was "Utah."
Though the Blue John circuit will be only a
day trip, I'm carrying a 13 kilo pack, most of
the weight taken up with climbing gear for
descending the steep canyon system, food,
and four litres of water.
By 2:30, I'm about seven miles into the
canyon, at the midpoint of my descent,
where the canyon is not more than 1 metre
wide. To get down a steep drop I try to hang
off the edge of a boulder* which is stuck
between the walls of the canyon. Just before
I let go of it I feel it move and I know this
isn't good. As soon as I land on the floor of
the canyon I hardly have time to look up
before the boulder comes crashing down. In
the narrow space I cannot avoid the boulder.
Before I have time to realise what is
happening it bounces against one wall and
then smashes my right arm against the other
wall and stops there.
The agony throws me into a panic. "F***!" I
yank* my arm three times in a futile attempt
to pull it out from under the rock. But I'm
stuck. There is no way I can pull it out or
move the boulder.
There is no feeling in my right hand at all
and it is already turning grey.
My immediate worry is water. The average
survival time in the desert without water is
between two and three days. My next
thought is escape. Eliminating ideas that are
just too dumb (like breaking open my AA
batteries on the boulder and hoping the
acid* eats into the stone but not my arm), I
decide to try to chip away the rock around
my hand with my multitool knife. This proves
to be a terribly slow process.
Even if I wanted to sleep, I couldn't. My hand
is trapped too high up so I can't lie down,
and as soon as my knees bend and my
weight pulls on my wrist* the pain is
agonizing. Using a rope and some of my
climbing gear I manage to fix a kind of seat
with my left hand. That helps me take the
weight off my feet although I soon realise
that the straps restrict the blood supply and I
c DAY FOUR
Stress turns into pessimism. Without enough
water to wait for rescue, without a tool to
crack the boulder, without a system to lift it,
I have one course of action. I speak slowly
out loud: "You're gonna have to cut your arm
off."
I take my multitool and, without thinking,
open the long blade*. I hold it with the blade
against the upper part of my forearm.
Surprising myself, I press on the blade and
slowly draw it across my forearm. Nothing
happens. Huh. I press harder. Still nothing.
No cut, no blood, nothing. Back and forth, I
vigorously saw at my arm, growing more
frustrated with each attempt. Exasperated, I
give up. Sh*t! The damn blade won't even
break the skin. How the hell am I going to
saw through two bones with a knife that
won't even cut my skin?
DAY FIVE
Slowly, I become aware of the cold stare of
the second shorter blade of my knife.
Gathering my courage, I take the handle in
my fist*, I pick a spot on the top of my
forearm. I hesitate. Then I violently thrust
the blade down, burying it in the meat of my
forearm. "Holy crap, Aaron," I say out loud.
"What did you just do?"
I am suddenly curious. There is barely any
sensation of the blade below skin level. My
nerves seem to be concentrated in the outer
layers of my arm. I open an inch-wide hole
and note that there is remarkably little
blood; the capillaries* must have closed
down for the time being. Fascinated, I poke
at the wound* with the tool. Ouch.
I lean back in my harness* and slip into
another trance*. Color bursts in my mind,
and then I walk through the canyon wall,
stepping into a living room. A blond-haired
three-year-old boy in a red polo shirt comes
running across a sunlit wooden floor in what I
somehow know is my future home. The boy
is my own. I bend to lift him up with my left
arm, using my handless right arm to balance
him, and we laugh together as I swing him
up to my shoulder.
Then, with a shock, the vision disappears.
I'm back in the canyon, although there are
still echoes of his joyful sounds in my mind.
Before this I had thought that I would die
where I stood before help arrived, but now I
believe I will live.
That belief, that boy, changes everything for
me.
DAY SIX:
With five days of desert dust on my contact
lenses, my eyes hurt at every blink, and I
can no longer see properly. Sip* after sip of
acidic urine has left my mouth sore. I can't
hold my head upright; it leans against the
canyon wall. I am a zombie. I am the
undead.
Miserable, I watch another empty hour pass
by. The boost I felt from my vision of the boy
has vanished entirely. I have nothing
whatsoever to do. I have no life. There is
nothing that gives even a slight hint that this
awful stillness will break. But I can make it
break.
Out of curiosity, I poke my thumb with my
knife blade twice. The second time the blade
breaks the skin as if it were cutting into
butter, and there is a hiss of gas escaping.
The rot has advanced more quickly than I
guessed. Though the smell is faint it is the
unmistakeable smell of death.
I react in a fury, trying to pull my arm
straight out from under the rock, never
wanting more than I do right now to
disconnect myself from this rotting limb.
I don't want it. It's not a part of me. It's
garbage.
I thrash myself forward and back, side to
side, up and down, down and up. I scream
out in pure hate, shrieking as I hit my body
against the canyon walls. And then I feel my
arm bend unnaturally. This is when I
suddenly see the light. Something like a holy
intervention brings me to a halt.
If I bend my arm far enough, I can break my
forearm bones. My God, Aaron, that's it,
that's it. THAT'S F***ING IT!
There is no hesitation. I barely realize what
I'm about to do. I put my left hand under the
boulder and push hard, harder, HARDER! to
put a maximum force on the bones above
my wrist. As I slowly bend my arm down to
the left there is a sudden snap like a distant
gun shot.
Sweating and euphoric, I touch my right arm.
Both bones have broken in the same place,
just above my wrist.
I am overcome with excitement. Hurrying to
get to work with the shorter and sharper
blade, I place it between two blue veins and
push it into my wrist.
The skin hurt quite a lot but the muscles
don't hurt as much. As I cut them I have to
be careful not to sever the arteries until I get
the tourniquet* on my arm. A really tough
part is the tendon because the knife just
won't cut through it. There are no nerves in
the tendon so I don't hesitate to put the
blade away and take out the little set of
pliers* on the multitool to grab and tear the
tendon to pieces bit by bit. Then I come to
the nerve, which I know is going to be the
most painful part of it. Little do I know just
how agonizing it is going to be. I try to cut
through it as fast as possible and I suddenly
feel as if my entire arm has been thrust into
a tub* of boiling water - the sensation of
burning shooting up my arm.
Now there are only a few more sections of
muscle, a little bit of skin left. I stretch my
body tight against that last piece of skin and
chop it with the knife, and at last I am free. I
have liberated myself. I drop back against
the canyon wall and for the first time in six
days my feet are in a different part of the
canyon than where I had been trapped. And
my body, all of a sudden, is evercome with
euphoria. It is as if I am recalling all of the
happiest moments of the past 27 years and
tasting in them the promise of at least
another 27 years of life. I am reborn. Having
been standing in my grave, writing my will
and scratching "Rest in peace" on the wall of
the canyon, all of that is gone - I am alive
again. It is undoubtedly the sweetest
moment that I will ever experience.an't sit in
it for more than 20 minutes.