Survival of the Fittest

The folklore of the American West brims with tall tales of superhuman strength and heroism. So the extraordinary story of mountaineer Aron Ralston’s escape from a Utah canyon last week almost makes you wonder if the 27-year-old outdoorsman is a dashing 21st century Paul Bunyan–more legend than man.

Local authorities found Ralston in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park on Thursday, after less than a day’s search. Ralston had been reported missing when he didn’t show up for work at a mountaineering store in Aspen, Colo. He told his rescuers he had been hiking and rock climbing alone through the canyon, 40 miles from the nearest paved road and on a trail rarely used by others. But five days earlier, a boulder had crashed down on his right arm, pinning him in a 3-ft.-wide space. Ralston fought hard, but the rock wouldn’t budge. By Day 3, he told the rescuers, his water had run out. As Day 5 dawned, Ralston was badly dehydrated and knew he must free himself by any means. So he reached for his pocketknife and began cutting off his arm. He severed it just below the elbow.

At some point, the 6-ft. 2-in. climber fashioned a tourniquet to stanch the blood. After the amputation, he told rescuers, he used his remaining arm to rappel 50 to 75 ft. to the canyon floor. He had to hike another seven miles to find help. Bandaged and bleeding profusely, Ralston was walking with two other hikers who had encountered him when Sergeant Mitch Vetere of the Emery County Sheriff’s Department spotted the group from a helicopter. Once aboard, Ralston asked for water but was remarkably stoic. “He was drained but coherent,” says Vetere. “He seemed pretty calm for a guy who had just cut his own arm off.” Authorities tried to retrieve the arm later that day, but they had no more luck moving the boulder than Ralston; the rock is said to be big enough to fill the bed of a pickup. Ralston, now hospitalized in serious condition in Grand Junction, Colo., hasn’t spoken publicly of his ordeal. His family has issued a statement attributing his survival to Ralston’s “strong physical and mental condition.”

He isn’t the first unlucky outdoorsman to have to resort to a quickie self-amputation. In 1993 Bill Jeracki cut off one of his legs after becoming trapped under a boulder in Colorado during a fishing trip. “I cut through the knee joint like you separate your chicken,” he says. “It’s all soft tissue. It took maybe 15 or 30 minutes.” But Jeracki is stunned that Ralston endured days of pain. Jeracki didn’t expect to make it through the night; he waited only three hours before slicing himself.

Ralston’s adventuring has nearly killed him at least once before. According to the Aspen Times, he has made more than 40 solo winter climbs of Colorado’s Fourteeners (peaks taller than 14,000 ft.), bringing just water, candy bars and an ice ax–no cell phone, no GPS, not so much as a rope. In February, while skiing near Vail, Colo., Ralston was buried to his neck in an avalanche; a friend was completely submerged for 10 minutes. When an Aspen Times reporter came calling in March for a story on Ralston’s climbing feats, the outdoorsman told the paper the ski trip was “one of–no, I can’t even say one of–the stupidest things I’ve ever done.”

While an engineer at Intel in the late ’90s, Ralston told the Times, he saw the IMAX movie Everest, which tells the story of a team of climbers whose attempted ascent turned deadly. Ralston was intrigued. He told the paper he quit the Intel job when he couldn’t take three weeks to go climbing in Alaska. Since then, he has made a life of exploring the outdoors and following the jam bands Phish and String Cheese Incident while working at Ute Mountaineer in Aspen.

After the avalanche, a friend pulled Ralston aside, according to the Aspen paper, and said, “Aron, I think you were headed for trouble; if this hadn’t happened now, it could have been–or will be–deadly.” It seems Aron Ralston has cheated death again, but at quite a price. –Reported by Rita Healy/Denver and Peta Owens-Liston/Salt Lake City