127 Hours Without Sleep, Food or Water. The climber who survived by having his arm amputated.
127 hours – a lot or not a lot? In the scale of a lifetime, it’s nothing. And if every moment of those seven thousand six hundred and twenty minutes you are in danger of death? One April day in three years, South American amateur climber Aron Ralston could not dream that after one hundred and twenty seven hours he would have to cut his hand with a blunt penknife not to die of thirst. It’s a mind-blowing survival story that is still hard to believe.
Day 1, Saturday. The Mummy.
The desert canyons of Utah near the town of Moab. Aron is just 20, seven years old, and has a lot of energy, which he enjoys wasting on adventurous, solitary journeys through the mountains and other inhospitable terrains. And now he’s off to wander Blue John Canyon.
It wasn’t supposed to be a long walk. So I packed only the bare essentials: a cupcake, a few chocolates, a couple of burritos, some water, some climbing gear, a flashlight, a CD player with a few CDs, a camera, extra batteries, and a Chinese knife I got at a yard sale. To the car, which remained at the beginning of the route, at least twenty five km. About thirteen kilometers Aron rode a bike, but now it is a long way.
At some point the traveler gets bored walking under a bright and very hot sun and he just goes down into the canyon. There is no way back, but there is shade and fantastic views. And here’s another ledge, now not so good. To jump, you have to climb over that rock which is stuck between the canyon walls. Aron grabs the boulder and hangs on it. But after a moment the rock is released from its rocky captivity and slowly but inexorably begins to roll downward, right onto the climber who has time to open his arms and jump.
My instinct rightly commands me to push the stone away from my head! The next few seconds are stored in my memory as a long sequence in slow motion. The boulder pins his left hand against the canyon wall. Aron, with some indescribable effort, manages to pull it out. The boulder rebounds off the wall and hits his right hand, locking it firmly between himself and the wall. The boulder drags the crippled arm along with Aron for ten centimeters until it is completely stuck between the walls. That’s it.
“My God! My arm! I’m panicked, I’m furious. I grimace in pain and growl shrilly. My brain commands my body, “Get it out now!” I yank my arm three times in a trusting desire to pull it out. But my hand is jammed. Aaron remembers.
Despite the shock and panic, somewhere in the recesses of my memory there are flashes of a once-read story about a lady who, under the influence of adrenaline, flipped over a car to save a baby. Counting on something like this, Aron, like a trapped animal, tries to break free. He pushes, he kicks, he struggles with the stone. All to no avail. Miracles don’t happen – a man’s strength is not enough to move the stone plug from its place.
Having used up all his strength to try and free his hand, Aron feels a sharp attack of thirst. There’s a liter bottle of water in his knapsack. After a while he takes off his backpack, he reaches the desired bottle and in three gulps empties it to the third part… It’s time to slow down and think.
Here you can see the fingers of his hand pressed against the mountain. They are twisted at an unnatural angle, grayish, and completely desensitized. Most likely, the hand is one hundred percent isolated from the nervous system and blood supply. Virtually dead. Hopes of salvation are illusory, since the place is deserted and, apart from the rarest of lonely adventurers, there is no one here. On this April day, Aron himself was the seeker.
An hour later the prisoner realizes that the best way out of the situation would be to amputate his arm. On the other hand, there is neither the equipment, nor the abilities, nor the moral strength. The option of cutting off the hand has been postponed. Maybe it would be better to crack a mountain with a knife, or to pick off a piece of a pebble..? The next few hours showed that the rock and walls of the canyon are much more solid than the iron of his knife.
By evening, the hand, a dead piece of flesh, becomes a chain holding the man in a trap. One blade of the folding knife had become useless in an unequal battle with a rock, and here the wind came up, sprinkling little sand in my face. At night, the accumulated lethargy makes itself felt. All this time Aron is obliged to stand on his feet, unable even to sit down, let alone lie down. I have had to take out a climbing harness, make a “knot” out of mountain climbing carabiners and throw it into a rocky crevasse a dozen times. Eventually, you manage to hang in a typical hammock and give your legs a rest. Though we can’t sit for a long time anyway – the bindings squeeze the blood vessels in the legs and that’s why they flow over all the time.
That’s how the first day and the first night pass. In unsuccessful attempts to unscrew the stone, in the cold and the constant change of the body position, in order not to get cold and not to let the remaining extremities get numb…
Day 2, Sunday. Hope.
On a Sunday morning, with the first ray of sunshine, there is hope. After all, the parents must be missed, they will probably call the police, who will trace Aron’s movements through the bank card payments. But then common sense kicks in: if the search is announced, then at least a chance to find a poor fellow will not appear before Friday.
Half a liter of water left. Aaron knows he’ll die of dehydration. His kidneys will most likely fail. If his body is strong, then he could last until his heart stops. I’d like to freeze to death! Or better yet, drown! But in Blue John Canyon, the nights are cold, but not cold enough to die of hypothermia. And there’s no flood in sight.
But no thoughts of doom! A new day, a new thought. Instead of spoiling the knife on the stone, Aron decides to design a lifting system, with the help of which he could move the boulder and free his hand at last. A man pressed against the wall, in fact, completely dehydrated and with only one free hand, he manages to make such a system out of the means at hand, rope and carabiners. Unfortunately, both she and Aaron himself are very weak to do anything with the unfortunate stone.
- Help me! – for the first time since the disaster happened to him, Aron really loses it and calls out for help as much as he can. No one answers. Panic-stricken, the boy pulls himself together and resolves to call for help no more than once a day.
The idea of amputating his arm comes up again. A piece of rope can be used as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. You can cut the flesh with a knife blade, but you can’t saw through the bone? And even if it works, it’ll take at least four hours to get to the car.
“I shudder just thinking about it, my eyes lock, my mouth falls open. I imagine blood stains on the canyon walls, scraps of flesh and muscle hanging in bloody shreds from two snow-white bones… The horror of my imagination compels me to put the knife down on the rock. I feel sick.”.
Then comes the turn of anger and despair. Why drink water and prolong your torment??! Wouldn’t it be better to hasten the process and cut open my veins for myself?? To escape into eternity from this damned canyon, damned rock, damned wind and darkness!
By the middle of the day, Aron decides to end his fruitless attempts to crush the stone. Now it is only appropriate to count on help from the outside. To do this, you have to hold out as long as possible. Means to keep warm, keep water under control, and keep your wits about you.
So, what else is useful in a knapsack?? Um, a camera?
Day 3, Mon. Couldn’t be worse.
My thoughts are confused, I can’t sleep a wink, I keep seeing incomprehensible images in my brain which may or may not be water-related… At least it’s not as much of an issue with food – it turns out that two burritos may be enough to last forever.
It’s harder with the cold. No snow and severe frosts, but from the hypothermia at night is getting worse. Aron uses the same Chinese knife he tried to use to crush a boulder, to cut through all the covers, bags, and slings. Wraps his exposed arms in them, wraps a rope around his legs, making typical pants.
I can’t get a peaceful rest anyway. Every 15-20 minutes I have to wind the ropes around my legs again and again, slipping down because of the invariable cramps. The trembling builds up, my jaw keeps tapping out in uncontrollable spasms, and I think my teeth are about to crack.
Finally it’s time for the water. Aron makes BODENPLATTEN from German to English do with just one gulp, as he wants to drink it all! To occupy his body with some work and give it more warmth, he turns to picking at the stone with his knife. In a few hours you develop this ritual: fix the ropes on your feet, scrape the stone, rest for fifteen minutes, and the whole cycle over again.
The worst thing is the head. He has nothing to occupy his brain, which is weary from monotony and mental idleness. Then Aron introduces his colleagues and friends. There’s someone trying to reach him, and at work after the morning tea party they must be getting worried. They’ll call for help? And you can also do arithmetic! What happened two days ago? It’s been great. The last forty hours have been insomnia, thirsty agony and hallucinations.
Maybe it’s time to think more carefully about amputation after all? Aron ties a self-made elastic tourniquet around his unfortunate arm just below the elbow. He’s ready for the next step. He takes a knife, opens the long blunted blade, slowly, as in a dream, guides it to his hand and makes an incision… Bloody hell, nothing comes out! There is not even the tiniest cut – the blunt blade is sliding across the skin, unable to tear through it!
Exhausted by failure, the hapless Aron pulls out his camera again:
Day 4, Tuesday. Without food or water.
Aron can’t sleep, nor can he be considered awake. He is on the edge here and there, his feverish brain still accepting reality, but adding a mix of images from the past, popping music tracks and who knows what else. His eyes are bloodshot and sunken, his resting pulse reaches a hundred and twenty beats a minute, there’s no water in his system even for crying.
Only one strange question helps to stay sane, the climber asks himself: to drink or not to drink urine, carefully gathered in a bucket in the knapsack..? It’s not a question of smell or taste. Aron is worried about more pressing issues. For example, if his urine has a higher salt level than his blood, he will only become more dehydrated. And then there are the toxins that are removed from the body by the kidneys. What happens if you bring them back??
There are a few more sips of undrinkable water, but at night the poor guy decides to “urinotherapy”. “The liquid tastes sharply salty, disgustingly bitter in a way that makes my cheekbones cramp. But at least I don’t feel sick or vomit,” Aron later recalls from his own experience. For now he decides to stretch out the remainder of the water for the next twelve hours and only then return to the matter of water extraction.
No one responds to another feeble cry for help. Aron is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The man thinks that even if he is found at the last moment, there are still a lot of worries. How to remove the stone? How soon he’ll be taken to the clinic?
An unexpected flash somewhere in the depths of consciousness: “You’re dying!”Struck by the clarity of the realization of this thought, Aron grabs the knife and drives it with all his might into his right hand. There is no pain, no terror, only a low grinding sound as the blade scratches the bone as you twist it back and forth. There’s surprisingly little blood. Damn, what to do with the bone after all?
Aron pulls the knife out, grabs the water bottle and drinks all the drops left in it. Followed by the last bite of a burrito, and some chocolate wrappers to lick off. That’s it: the amputation attempt has progressed, but as before, it’s no closer to freedom. No food or water, only the urine diet now.
Day 5, Wednesday. Hallucinations.
Aaron isn’t going to play doctor anymore. He honestly tried to cut off his hand, but it didn’t work. All right, let it go. He’s done all he can. Another sleepless night of hallucinations. Here is Aron traveling through some organic reddish tunnel, with unfamiliar white faces smiling at him from the walls. Here is his soul soaring above, just above the canyon where this bag of bones is stuck. There’s still a lot of memoirs about water in all its manifestations. From whence, from what recesses of my memory come images from fifteen years ago? Here’s eight-year-old Aron at his grandparents’ house, taking a two-liter bottle of water out of the fridge. Mmm, it’s delicious! Twelve years old, autumn soon, hay harvesting and a red and white thermos of iced tea.
No energy for anything else but absurdity and memoirs. Hallucinations give peace. You can meet friends and relatives there, it’s wonderful, better than the desert, where there’s no water, no salvation.
Dawn, ninety-six hours without sleep, twenty-five hours without water. The whole day passes in a semi-delirious state. Between fits, Aron tries to think up some completely crazy methods of escape. Why not, for example, try cracking a cobblestone with other, smaller stones, which are in abundance around him?.
He realizes that the next night will be his last. It’s relaxing to think it’ll all be over at last. There’s nothing more to worry about. Aron scratches his name on the wall of the mountain, his date of birth and death – April 30, two thousand and three years.
Day 6, Thursday. Amputation.
Aron survived the night. Perhaps because it was the first time in that period of time that he had dreamed. In it was a house and the climber himself, with a stump replacing his right arm. And there was his unborn three-year-old offspring.
In order to do something, Aron begins to peel the pebbles from his clenched hand. In an instant the blunt blade just goes into his palm, gangrene sets in, and the limb is practically rotting.
“In a feral rage I rush forward, trying to wrest my hand from the stone handcuffs. I have never wished for anything so much in my life as I do at this moment to get rid of this decaying appendage by any method. I don’t want it. It is no longer a part of me. It’s garbage.”.
The young man loses what little self-control he has left, he paces his stone dungeon with all his might, screaming and pounding against the walls of the mountain. In a helpless rage, Aron has an epiphany: he does not need to saw the bone, all he needs to do is break it! He bends his arm and with all his weight presses on the radial bone. Crunch! A dry cracking sound, like a gunshot, indicates success. ! Ready with the elbow.
Stirred by the fortune, Aron completely forgets about the tourniquet, without any preparation or hesitation drives a four centimeter long blade of penknife into his hand, just between the broken bones. It takes about an hour to cut through all the arteries, sinews and muscles. Did it hurt?? At some point sensation returned to my tormented arm, and a feral, unbearable pain pierced my entire body. Especially when it came to the nerves. But the adrenaline and the first real chance of salvation forced not to pay attention to such “trifles”.
The concept of “freedom” for Aron opened with a new wonderful side May 1, two thousand and three years at eleven hours and thirty-two minutes.
One last look at the decisive stone, the shreds of his hand and the spatter of his blood. Aron flees away from captivity. Mind-bogglingly, even now he had little chance of escape. To walk thirteen kilometers to the pickup? Decidedly unrealistic. Bumping into people? Practically unrealistic. In the end, even making it out of the gorge was like a miracle.
But Aron managed to climb out of the gorge, went down, walked ten km and met the tourists. Later there was a helicopter, an outpatient clinic, a kaleidoscope of surgeries and indescribable relief expressed in a common phrase:
Aron Ralston is now forty and two years old. In place of his right arm he got a multi-functional prosthesis, and as before he is fond of mountain climbing. About his own misadventures he wrote a book, on which in two thousand and ten years was filmed the movie “127 Hours”. A couple of years after the accident Aron got married, and soon the couple had a scion. Later there was a divorce, a new family, problems with the police because of physical abuse, but that’s a completely different story.