For Aron Ralston, every passing hour was a fight for survival.
The climber was pinned to the canyon wall by a 360-kilogramme boulder. No one knew about his stay, so he couldn’t count on help. If he wanted to think about survival, he had to amputate his arm.
In April 2003, Ralston set out on a solo expedition to Bluejohn Canyon in Utah. He was to spend several days exploring the picturesque place. He didn’t expect any problems.
He was an experienced climber, and the expedition seemed like an innocent trip compared to his goal of climbing every one of the 59 that were at least 14,000 metres high.
Aron Ralston had to make a dramatic decision
At the age of 12, he moved with his family to Denver, Colorado, where he fell in love with spending time outdoors. After graduating, he worked for Intel for five years and moved around Arizona, Washington, and New Mexico. In 2002, he returned to Colorado and settled in the popular tourist town of Aspen, where he could focus on climbing.
On April 26, 2003, he began a journey that changed his life forever. As he climbed into a narrow part of the canyon, a 360-kilogramme boulder broke off, fell on Aron’s right forearm and pinned him to the wall.
The situation was dramatic from the beginning. Aron did not inform anyone about his journey, so he had no chance of getting any help from outside. He had with him a small amount of water (approx. 350 ml), two burritos and some chocolate. For the first three days he tried to chip off parts of the boulder and pull out the massacred hand. His efforts seemed to be in vain and the situation was getting worse by the hour.
He tried to save water, but on the fifth day there was nothing left in his meager supplies. Dehydrated and delirious, the mountaineer drank his own urine, but he knew it would not help him for long. He was weakened and began to have hallucinations and visions. In one of them he was playing with his future child.
When he was relatively conscious, he took a camera from his backpack and recorded a farewell video for the family. Moreover, he used a penknife to carve his name, date of birth and… expected death on the canyon wall. On the morning of the sixth day after the accident, his crushed hand was in a state of decomposition. Inspired by the vision of his future offspring and having nothing to lose, the man made a dramatic decision. He realised that the only chance for survival would be to amputate his hand.
“It was a surreal conversation with myself. ‘Aron, you’re going to have to cut your hand off. I don’t want to cut my arm off! Dude, you’re going to have to cut your arm off.’
“I said it to myself. This little exchange. Then, ‘Wait a minute. Slow down. This is just crazy. You’re not talking to yourself, Aron.’ It’s just that I kept talking to myself in different ways just to avoid fainting,” he later recalled, quoted by the Guardian.
He had previously immediately ruled out suicide, although the alternative was also drastic. He first broke the radius, then the ulna, and then used a knife to cut off the limb. It took him an hour.
The pain mixed with adrenaline. And euphoria that you might be able to escape from the hellish trap. After the amputation, he managed to free himself, but that was not the end. He needed to get to civilisation to get the help he needed.
Aron Ralston has been called a hero
To make this happen, he first had to rappel about 20 metres to another part of the canyon and then walk about 10 km. That’s when he came across three Dutch tourists who notified the appropriate services. Four hours after the amputation, Ralston was already in a rescue helicopter. By the time he arrived at the hospital, he had lost 25% blood.
Aron Ralston was imprisoned for 127 hours. When he was hospitalised, park employees went to the place where the drama had been taking place for the past six days. Using a hydraulic lift, the crushed arm was removed from under the boulder, then cremated and given to the climber. Six months later, he returned to the crevice where he was trapped and scattered the ashes from his cremated hand.
His story received wide coverage in the American media. He appeared on David Letterman‘s Late Show” and later appeared on Good Morning America and The Ellen DeGeneres Show, among others.
His face appeared in GQ and Vanity Fair magazines. He was called a “hero” and a “tough guy,” although some accused him that the case would not have taken such a dramatic turn if he had informed his family about his plans earlier.
In 2004, Ralston published an autobiographical book, and a year later he became the first person to conquer all 59 peaks in Colorado that are at least 14,000 metres high.
In 2009 he got married and in February 2010 he had a son. The visions of fatherhood he experienced in the canyon came true.
The famous British director, Danny Boyle, directed the film 127 Hours about Aron Ralston’s accident. The production gained critical acclaim and received six Oscar nominations.
Ralston became a motivational speaker. During his generously paid speeches (he receives between $25,000 and $37,000), he talks about history when everything changed. As he says, that day he “lost his arm, but he regained his life.”
