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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. 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 rescue helicopter just happened to be flying overhead. 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." Vocabulary canyon - a valley with steep sides - a good place for the sport of canyoning
dire straits/dire situation - a very difficult situation ingenuity - cleverness spiritual - to do with the soul and religiou
yank - pull futile - pointless, hopeless acid - chemical with low pH; opp. of alkali wrist - the joint that connects the hand to the rest of the arm 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 threeyear-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. Vocabulary blade - the sharp part of the knife used for cutting fist - a closed hand wound - cut in the skin capillaries - the smallest blood vessels harness - straps around the waist and thighs used by climbers to tie the rope to trance - dreaming while you are awake forearm - between the wrist and the elbow tourniquet - device to stop an arm or leg bleeding pliers - tool for pulling out nails or cutting wire tub - huge bowl or barrel