Going To Extremes–Aaron Ralston: Remember this guy? Went bouldering in Utah in April 2003, without telling anyone where he would be…Gets trapped when a boulder shifts and rolls onto his right arm…Survives six days on hallucinations and urine…Hacks arm off with multitool and escapes death…Becomes media darling, lands fat publishing contract. Well, his book–“Between A Rock And A Hard Place” (how predictable was that?)–is finally in boosktores and Outside has a long excerpt. Here’s the moment of disaster:
“Right in front of me, just below the ledge, is a second chockstone the size of a large bus tire, stuck fast in the three-foot channel between the walls. If I can step onto it, I can dangle off the chockstone, then take a short fall to the canyon floor. Stemming across the canyon with one foot and one hand on each wall, I traverse out above the chockstone. With a few precautionary jabs, I kick down at the boulder. It’s jammed tightly enough that it will hold my weight. I lower myself from the chimneying position and step onto the chockstone. It supports me but teeters slightly. Facing upcanyon, I squat on my haunches and grip the rear of the lodged boulder. Sliding my belly over the front edge, I hang from my fully extended arms.
I feel the stone respond to my adjusting grip with a scraping quake. Instantly, I know this is trouble, and instinctively I let go of the rotating boulder to land on the round rocks on the canyon floor. I look up, and the backlit chockstone consumes the sky. Fear shoots my hands over my head. I can’t move backwards or I’ll fall over a small ledge.
The next three seconds play out in slow motion. The falling rock smashes my left hand against the south wall; I yank my left arm back as the rock ricochets in the confined space; the boulder then crushes my right hand, thumb up, fingers extended; the rock slides another foot down the wall with my arm in tow, tearing the skin off the lateral side of my forearm. Then, silence….
Good Christ, my hand. The flaring agony throws me into a panic. I grimace and growl a sharp “Fuck!” I yank my arm three times in a naive attempt to pull it out from under the rock. But I’m stuck.
“Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit!” I shove against the boulder, heaving against it, pushing with my left hand, lifting with my knees pressed under the rock. I brace my thighs under the boulder and thrust upward, grunting, “Come on … move!”
Nothing.
I’m sweating hard. With my left hand, I lift my right shirtsleeve and wipe my forehead. My chest heaves. I need a drink, but, sucking on my CamelBak hose, I find my water reservoir is empty.
I still have my full Nalgene bottle, but it takes me a few seconds to realize I won’t be able to sling my pack off my right arm. Once I shrug my left arm free of the pack strap, I expand the right-side strap, tuck my head inside the loop, and pull the whole thing down my left side, to my feet. Extracting the water bottle, I unscrew the top and, before I realize what I’m doing, gulp three large mouthfuls, then halt to pant for breath. Then it hits me: In five seconds, I’ve just guzzled a third of my water supply.”
Oops. The story continues and you can follow Aron’s tortuous mental journey to the place where it actually makes sense to hack his own arm off. But–sorry–if you want to read about what it is like to saw off a limb, you’ll have to buy Aron’s book (I guess his publisher thinks there is only one reason people will buy this thing). Instead, if you thirst for more stories of human agony and survival, you can read Outside’s ghoulish and gripping sidebar–10 Scariest Survival Stories. Happily for anyone frustated by Ralston’s coy excerpt, it contains yet another “amputate or die story,” in which one William Jeracki parts with an even larger limb (hope you already ate your breakfast):
“He had to make a choice: amputate his leg or wait for help and risk dying of exposure. After three hours he pulled a pocketknife from his tackle box, tied off his leg with fishing line, and began sawing through his flesh at the knee. He sliced through tendons, nerves, and his patellar ligament until his femur slid out of the knee socket.”
Okay. That’s enough self-dissection for one day. But the moral of these stories is obvious: always carry a very, very sharp knife…
Ripsaw Ralston: “What? Jeracki sawed off a LEG!? Wonder why he didn’t write a book…”
(Photo: Kurt Markus/Outside)
The Earthist Chronicles 