Aron Ralston – Cut off his own arm

Time stranded: 4 days

Distance traveled: Under 10 miles

Terrain types: Desert

Deaths: 0

Situation ended: Escaped and found help

Location: Blue John canyon, eastern Wayne County, Utah

This is one of the most well known survival stories as in 2010 a film named “127 hours” was filmed about the experience of Aron Ralston, a hiker who had to cut off his own arm to survive.

The story starts with Aron going on a hike in April of 2003 across Blue John canyon in eastern Wayne County, Utah. He was used to being outdoors and knew the type of landscape well, which gave him the confidence that he would be fine which proved to be his downfall as he didn’t tell a single person where he was going.

He was descending a narrow slot canyon when a boulder became dislodged out the rock face and smashed into his left hand before falling on to his right hand and wrist, at which point it lodged itself between the two canyon walls.

The boulder itself weighed around 800 pounds and when park authorities moved it to retrieve the arm and hand, it took 13 men, a winch and a hydraulic jack to finally shift it, so there was no way Aron would have been able to budge it with one injured hand.

He was now in a situation were he was trapped at the bottom of a slot canyon with a heavy boulder pinning down his right hand and a meagre amount of supplies. His total food and water rations amounted to a small 350ml water bottle and 2 burritos.

His supplies lasted for a total of 5 days before running out, at which point the tiny amount of water he had drank was not nearly enough, making him so dehydrated he became delirious.

He carved his date of birth, name and the date he thought he would die into the canyon wall and made a short video to his family on a camera he had and prepared to die, going to sleep on the 5th night of being trapped without expecting to wake up.

However he did wake up and on doing so discovered that his hand and wrist had started to decompose due to the lack of blood, and so Aron had an idea. He believed he could break the 2 bones in his wrist and then cut through the flesh using a small multi tool he had with him. He has never named the brand of tool he used but a quote from him sum’s up its quality.

“it was not a Leatherman but what you’d get if you bought a $15 flashlight and got a free multi-use tool”

After spending about an hour cutting through his arm with a small dull blade he was finally free. Aron climbed out the slot canyon and had to rappel down a 65 foot wall to escape the area.

Four hours after cutting off his arm he ran into a family on holiday from the Netherlands who gave him food and water and called the authorities. When he was rescued he had lost 40 pounds of weight, which included 25% of his total blood volume.

He later claimed that if he had not cut his arm off at all he would have surely died, but if he cut it off sooner than he had he would have bled to death. At the point of the amputation his hand and forearm had stopped receiving blood for long enough for the body to stop circulating to it, greatly slowing the loss of blood after the cut.

So what went wrong?

This is probably the best example out there why you should “BE PREPARED”. He didn’t even have half a litre of water with him and his food supply was 2 burritos, great if your watching a movie but not exactly emergency food.

Not telling anyone where he was going was the biggest mistake, followed shortly by not bringing a phone. If he had what he should have had with him he could of simply called for help, or if phone reception wasn’t available he could have waited for rescue with sufficient supplies, with the search team being dispatched much faster if he told someone when he’d be back and where to look if he wasn’t.