Epitome of Survival

“Trapped climber amputates his arm, hikes to safety
Friday May 02, 2003
MOAB, Utah (AP) A Colorado climber amputated his own arm Thursday, five days after becoming pinned by a boulder, and he was hiking to safety when he was spotted by searchers.
Aron Ralston, 27, of Aspen was in serious condition late Thursday at St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction, Colo.
Ralston was canyoneering Saturday in Blue John Canyon, adjacent to the Maze District of Canyonlands National Park and about 38 miles west of Moab in Wayne County, when he became trapped, the Emery and Wayne county sheriffs' offices and the park said.
He was in a 3-foot wide section when a 200-pound boulder fell on him, pinning his right arm.
He ran out of water on Tuesday and on Thursday morning, he decided that his survival required drastic action.
Using his pocketknife, he amputated his arm below the elbow and applied a tourniquet and administered first aid.
He then rigged anchors, fixed a rope and rappelled to the floor of Blue John Canyon.
He then continued hiking downstream into Horseshoe Canyon, and was spotted about 3 p.m. by a Utah Public Safety Helicopter. The search for Ralston had begun the same morning, after authorities were notified he was four days overdue reporting for work.
Ralston was described by the authorities as an avid outdoors person in exceptional physical condition, and he was known to have climbed 49 of the 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado.


http://kutv.com/utah/UT--Climber-Amputatio-en/resources_news_html”

“JESUS H CHRIST IN A BUCKET!”

“Apparently the guy was training for a climb in the Himalayas.

What an animal !!!!!”

“G-- D#*@!!!
That takes some serious guts.”

“How the he!! did he saw through bone with a POCKET KNIFE?! Wow. What a will.”

“Damn.....

Thats gonna be a movie.”

“he's batman....”

“ole lefty is one tough sumbeetch[spit]”

“Swiss Army knifes have the small saw blades.
Could you imagine sawin through your bone without at least Whiskey?

Arrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhh!”

“ok, thanks for the nightmares i'm gonna have tonight griz, olllllllle buddy...”

“Just be careful when ya come to Utah bud! :)”

“how do you make that open-mouth emoticon? (:o holy freaking cow. ouch, just ouch ouch ouch!”

“I've been to Horseshoe Canyon floating on the Green River before, and that place is incredibly desolate. It's amazing they found him in the first place.

I tell ya.... That guy has some serious guts....or a REAL strong will to live.”

“I saw a tv show/simlilar story (while in Mammoth) where a guy got pinned by a boulder, out for a few days, cut his leg off at the knee with a fishing knife, wrapped it, crawled down some hills to his truck using arms and let, and drove to a hospital. They had a narrator going thru what the guy did. It was amazing what you can do if you have to. I don't watch tv, but that story got my attention. All I could say was "SHEEET!!!"”

“I was bushwhacking once & couldn't find the intersecting trail in the dark. I hiked down a gorge & this HUGE rock I was standing on started sliding. I was way off the trail & if that rock had pinned me, I'd still be there. I was so late (even though I left a note saying I'd be late) my wife was seconds away from calling her friend who's husband was the ranger for the area. He would have jumped at the chance and never let me live it down (if he ever found me).”

“DANG!!! I guess you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes.

My parents had a cat that tried to do the same thing when caught in a muskrat trap. Apparently the dood did not check his traps every day like you're supposed to, and when my mother found the cat you could see the bones in it's paw where it tried chewing it's way out.”

“That must have been one ugly rock.”

“Now them's some SERIOUS balls!”

“bacpac nailed it; Coyote ugly!”

“LMAO!! that was like the worst movie ever made. too funny!

i bet i would have laid there and died...that is just a nasty story! but good for that dude.”

“That's pretty impressive. I'm not sure I could have done that.

I can't help imagining how I'd feel if I was in that situation and was found right after I'd finished taking off my arm.”

“He used a knife? He rappelled? What a #&%!$. If he was a real man, he woulda chewed it off, then jumped.
”

“Umm... He left his arm on the mountain. If he would have waited another 12 hours, he would have been rescued. Too bad he didn't know that!”

“That guy is a ninja. I hope he as a sound recovery.”

“Phaedrus, I doubt he'd be rescued. He was in a 3ft. wide slot in the middle of BFE. He'd been without water for 2 days already.

It will be interesting to see the interview with him after he recovers.”

“and then being discovered...Pheadrus...he repelled down the canyon wall...then hiked down canyon before being spotted...had he remained up and pinned under the rock, he might not have been found.

I'd like to think that I would be able to do something as drastic to survive. I recently acquired a full first aid kit. It isn't a light weight item, by any stretch, but I hiked with it the entire time I was in Death Valley. I will hike with it all the time now. And, I'm gonna start carryin my pocket knife again...I started to leave it home recently cause I carry my multi-tool on my pack, but, what if the pack is taken off for a break, you walk to a streem to get water, and something like this happens...the knife and pack are out of reach...yep, Im gonna keep the swiss army knife in my pocket on a cord and carabiner from now on.

Great story, thanks for posting it...crap happens...thats why they call it the "WILDERNESS". always be prepared.”

“My question: Did anybody go get the guy's arm afterward?”

“I don't think I have ever gone into the wild with the thought that a boulder would roll on top of my a$$.”

“A long time back on TT, there was a discussion of what knives to carry, if any, in the back country and some folks were skeptical of the need for any, and especially for something more than a small jack knife. I had recommended something like a USAF survival knife as a good all around tool -- that saw-back on the blade looks more reasonable now, doesn't it.

A good knife -- the number one tool in the bush.”

“Wounded, you crack me up, dude!”

“Yeah, the number one tool that you hope you'll never have to use.


This guy has got to be one of the toughest human beings I've ever known of. What a decision that had to be. I hope I'll never be in a position where I'd have to make a decision like that. I wonder if they recovered the arm?”

“I guess I'm going to start carrying my knife!”

“It's just horrific, I can't even imagine what it muct take to do that, the danger of bleeding to death must be quite severe. The worst story I heard before this was ranulph fiennes, the polar explorer, who decided to get rid of the forstbitten ends of his fingers by clamping his hand into a vise and sawing them off.

nasty”

“I wonder how many times he passed out while performing the surgery?”

“Reminds me a while back, some farmer got pinned under his tractor and had to cut off his arm with a pocketknife to free himself. Said he had to try to sharpen it on a rock before he started cutting. Then he walked like a mile back to his house.”

“Ever hear of the Polish coyote that had chewed off three legs and was still caught in the trap?”

“Some guys went back to try to get the arm and learned that the boulder was actually 1000 pounds, not the 200 previously believed. I'm guessing he probably cut the arm off at the joint, where he'd only need to cut through muscle, ligaments and tendons. That way he'd avoid having to saw through bone.”

“Wow, talk about a will to live.

On a lighter side, imagine the facial expression if someone just happened to hike up there shortly afterwards.”

“We'll never know what we'd do until we get into that situation. Desparate circumstances sometimes leadto desparate actions.”

“yeah when i first heard the story and they said the boulder was 200 pounds wouldn't he be able to just move it, i mean if he was in good enough shape to rappel down a cliff and then hike a few miles after lobbing off his arm.”

“this one time, while me and teddy rosevelt were on an african safari, we found ourselves surrounded by headhunters. just as the medicin man was about to burry his spear into.......oh wait, this isn't about me....sorry, lost my head....”

“we were talking about this at work. I determeinded that to cut off his arm, "below the elbow" he had to have started cuting in an already crushed part of the arm. Probably as close to the rock as possable. In the that spot the bone would be like splintered wood and the nerves would have been dead anyway so feeling would not have been an issue. Thats my guess.”

“Tea, I dont think crushing a limb causes nerves to die or become less sensitive.

This fella has a will of iron.”

“Yeah I'd guess that crushed bone probably hurts quite a bit. With the first reports of a 200 pound boulder, I thought certainly most people could push, pull or drag that much weight, even in excruciating pain. Half a ton makes much more sense, especially with how damn tough this guy is.”

“I once had to cut off my head. I sued the doctor and won a malpractice suit--he sewed my head back on backwards.”

“Thanks for the link bitpusher.”

“Man that takes so big nutz to cut your own are off!

8o”

“I feel sorry for the guy but...the epitome of survival would have been to let someone know his plans and route and expected time back!”

“He couldn't cut thru the bone, he had to break it! OWWWWWW!

another update ”