Yes, of course, the pain of sawing off his arm was terrible, said Ralston, 27, a mechanical engineer-turned-adventurer. Im not sure how I handled it. I felt pain. I coped with it. I moved on. ...
I did what I had to do.
GOING THROUGH EACH OPTION
I began laying plans ... and the next five days until I was rescued
I spent going through each option, he told reporters Thursday at St. Marys Hospital in Grand Junction.
He threw himself against the boulder, over and over, to shift it.
He used the rope and pulleys in his climbing gear to rig a hoist to lift it.
He used a multiuse tool similar to a pocketknife, but with multiple blades for different tasks to try to carve the rock away where it was pinning his arm, just below the wrist.
No dice.
Finally, by April 29, his third day in the canyon, his food and water a liter of water, two burritos and crumbs on a couple of candy wrappers were running low. Ralston concluded that he would have to cut off his arm if he were to survive. By then, he said, the courage became more about pragmatics.
Before beginning, Ralston prepared a tourniquet, pulled some bicycling shorts out of his backpack to put on the wound and packed his other belongings so he could quickly leave after he was done.
Essentially, I got my surgical table ready, he said.
But his initial attempt to sever the limb was sobering. He was using the same knife with which hed tried to carve away the boulder, a folding device that typically has knife blades, pliers, screwdrivers and other gadgets.
It was what youd get if you bought a $15 flashlight and got a free multiuse tool, he said. It was so dull by then that I couldnt even cut the hair off my arm.
The next day, after finishing the last sips of his water, he tried again. This time, he was able to puncture the skin, but he found he couldnt cut the bone beneath.
By Thursday morning, he concluded that he had only one more chance.
I realized that it was the last opportunity that I could have and still have the physical strength to get out where help would find me, he said.
This time, he twisted his arm, torqueing the bones until they broke.
I was able to first snap the radius and then, within another few minutes, snap the ulna at the wrist, and from there, I had the knife out and applied the tourniquet and went to the task, he said.
It was a process that took about an hour.
But Ralstons ordeal was by no means over. Blue John Canyon is as remote as it gets in Canyonlands National Park, and he had many miles to navigate, bleeding and dehydrated, before he could hope to find help.
With the stump of his arm wrapped in the makeshift tourniquet, Ralston still faced a 150-foot crawl through a rock-clogged fissure. Then, one-handed, he had to rappel down a sheer face of rock. Then came a hike of about six miles. Only then did he run into the Dutch tourist family who went for help.
Now, after reading that, I can honestly say if I was in his place I would have died there. There's no way in hell I could do what he did. That's a lot more than just cutting an arm off.
Do any of you still think you could do it?
.
I love it.
