Would you do this to survive? (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Central/0....ap/index.html

Yikes!

 

[Travis Olson]

Yeah when your in that type of situation you do what you have to. It's amazing what you'll do under that kind of pressure. I don't know if I could do it or not.

 

[Patrick_S]

Losing an arm does beat the alternative. It's amazing what one can endure when survival is at stake.

 

[ChrisMatson]

I don't know if I could do it, but I would like to think that I could. The amputation is only part of the story. After cutting off his own arm, he set up some rope, rappelled down 75 feet, and then hiked for help. The CNN article states that the boulder was 200 pounds. I heard on the Today show from a ranger that was involved in the rescue that it was more like a 1,000 pound boulder. This makes more sense because I would think that as an avid climber, Mr. Ralston would routinely lift his own body weight like it was nothing. This would make shifting a 200 boulder a few inches to free his arm seem relatively simple--but not 1,000 pounds. I guess it depends on what position he was in and what sort of leverage he had.

An amazing story of the will to survive to be sure.

Edit:
Here's the MSNBC story that mentions a 1,000 pound boulder:
http://msnbc.com/news/908232.asp?0cv=CB20

 

[Jay H]

I hate when that happens.

Amazing story, one never knows one's limit until it happens. Some hiking forums are smirking if he had a cell phone (assuming any kind of reception anyway) he might have been able to call for help.

Jay

 

[MarkHastings]

I'm sure if you asked that guy (before the incident) if he'd cut off his arm to survive, he'd probably be just as skeptical as all of us are.

Not that I've had to do anything THAT drastic, but I can think of a few times where I've been in a situation and done something I thought I'd never do.

 

[Ryan Wright]

Not that I've had to do anything THAT drastic, but I can think of a few times where I've been in a situation and done something I thought I'd never do.

It's ok, Mark. After a few drinks they all look pretty...

 

[MarkHastings]

After a few drinks they all look pretty

I'd be cutting off MORE than my arm if I were to do THAT!

 

[Henry Gale]

Eccept for the rappelling part I grew up hearing these stories. It was always farmers getting caught in combines, alone in a field. They'd pull out the knife and take care of business.
How do you get through the bone?

 

[Jay H]

How do you get through the bone?

Hopefully NOT how I've seen my father dice a full chicken, head included...

Have you read exactly where on the arm he cut it off, at the elbow or literally through bone (which may have been crushed anyway, I've heard anywhere from 200lbs to 800lbs to 1000lbs on the news. I guess he must have been on some kind of ridge or ledge since if he was bivying on the side of a rock wall, the boulder couldn't pin his arm against the wall but if he was bivying on a ridge, then the boulder could easily crush his arm at which he had to cut it off and rapel down the rest of the climb to the base.

Jay

 

[Kevin M]

At the end of the day when the chips are all down & the philosophical civilized rhetoric is rendered meaningless, the name of the game is survival....

 

[Brian Perry]

I wonder how he would he have felt if the searchers found him five minutes after he did it. (I'm not saying he made a bad decision...just that it would be a bummer if it turned out to be unnecessary.)

 

[James Edward]

 

[Ted Lee]

i give this guy full props. he had to do what he felt he had to do. could you just imagine how that must have felt?

all i can say is...whoa.

i sometimes tease with my girlfriend (a strict vegetarian) if she would eat a human body to survive. she tells me no way...no day! but i suspect if it came down to it...she'd pull up a chair.

i know i would...wouldn't even think twice about it.

 

[Bill_D]

I am in the camp that thinks a 200lb rock is manageable but I wasn't there. I also have to believe that if he could have found another way without sawing his arm off with a pocket knife he would have.

 

[Malcolm R]

could you just imagine how that must have felt?

I'm sure the arm crushed by a huge boulder hurt plenty too. After several days, it was probably numb and dead flesh anyway so perhaps he didn't feel much of anything when the cutting started. Must have been a hell of a pocket knife to cut bone.

I wondered if he was able to move the rock after he got himself free and tossed his arm in his backpack for the hike out?

 

[Jay Heyl]

The stories I read said he cut the arm just below the elbow. If he still had his wits about him, he would have cut through the skin and muscle just below the elbow and severed the tendons right at the joint. The lower bone should slide out of the socket. The skin left below the elbow should give the doctors something to sew over the amputation.

I'm sure it's small consolation at this point, but the guy will make a bundle selling the rights to his story. I'll bet he's already been contacted by several of the networks.

 

[NickSo]

This reminds me of an article i read in Maxim about amputating your own arm...

 

[Gregg Shiu]

Give this goddamn guy his props. Me in that situation: *staring at my arm, then my knife* "Well.... at least I've led a decent life!"

 

[Steve_Tk]

Amazing story. Anyone remember the one in Maxim a while ago how a guy cut off all his fingers, then his hand, then tried his joint at the elbow, passed out, then tried at the shoulder and passed out. Rats were eating his dead fingers off the ground.

It might not be as bad as everyone thinks. The guy in maxim said that his hand was so lifeless and dead that he did not even feel it when he cut his fingers off.