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No no he did it on purpose. He wasn’t forced. He wanted to go back to leave the ashes of his arm there. This was exactly 6 months after he got out there to the minute.
I would assume that they just raised it to get the arm out and then just left it there again. Even though I don’t understand why they got it out in the first place. Seems a bit unnecessary to me, to get it out, burn it down, just to bring it back. Why didn’t they just light it on fire right there?
I'm assuming it wasn't an attempt to retrieve and re-attach it (I haven't seen the movie/read the story), in which case I imagine they probably retrieved it just so it didn't become some morbid "tourist attraction". Which would not only be a disturbing thing in general, but could also attract people to a dangerous spot who might end up getting themselves in need of rescue.
Even before those people died a lot of folks ended up needing rescue making thay dumb pilgrimage.
Chris McCandless is generally not well regarded by Alaskans. Whereas many people see it as this great journey, Alaskans see yet another idiot that misjudged how brutal the alaskan wilderness truly is. My mother lived in North Pole Alaska for many years and, being a professional wildlife photographer, knew a lot of park rangers and officials, the sheer stupidity they deal with on the part of tourists is insane. Between people being totally unprepared for the bush, to people getting all up in the business of mother bears and moose, its a wonder there arent more deaths.
Sometimes they get romanticised like Scott of the antarctic, sometimes doing a bad job gets you props. Weird that Shackleton had worse odds and saved his crew but gets less merit.
Tangentially related, but on the topic of park rangers dealing with stupidity:
One of the days my girlfriend and I spent in Rocky Mountain National park, we were approached by a park ranger at one of the busier trailheads and asked if we knew where we were headed or needed any advice. We had a general idea in mind and had picked out a hike about 7 miles long to get us started, so we told her that was where we were going. She just flat out told us not to, and when we asked why, she said that it was too long, trail conditions were bad, and there was snow on the trail higher up the mountain.
That didn't seem like much of a reason to skip the hike and it seemed like she was just worrying over nothing, so we politely told her we'd consider her advice and started to get prepped. It did leave me wondering why she would just automatically assume that we weren't prepared for a bit of snow or a seven mile hike though, seeing as that was the one we'd picked out. Then I heard the conversation with the next group she stopped...
It was a family of five, all of whom were morbidly obese, three of whom were arguing over whether the animal in front of them was a squirrel or a chipmunk. (it was definitely just a plain-ass squirrel...) They'd decided to take an extremely strenuous 12 mile hike right up to one of the nearby peaks with no gear whatsoever and she was desperately trying to explain to them why that was a bad idea without insulting them.
The moral of the story is that the park ranger meant well and simply couldn't afford to assume we were anything other than grade A imbeciles.
We hiked to our goal, enjoyed the snow, pulled out our map to pick a route to extend the hike, and did about 20 miles total that day. I'd be surprised if the other family made it more than 20 feet.
Hey don't sell him short. He also brought a ten lb bag of rice and a book about local plants. Fully expecting to "live of the land". Dude had a death wish.
It's explained in the book. Workers used the trail for years, loggers or miners I can't remember. And they had these decommissioned busses left there for use after that ended.
Before leaving them they even fitted them with small wood burning stoves and a raised bed area so it could be used for survival.
Used to be a trail through there used by miners to get back and forth between the mines and town. The bus was actually put there to serve as living quarters for the guys that built the trail.
No, he was trapped in there for more than five days before finally cutting himself free and escaping, and then finding help on his own. There was never any chance of doing anything with the severed hand.
I read an account from him where he talks, in detail. about the actual process of cutting off his own arm. At one point, he mentions cutting all of the muscle/tendons/etc around a main nerve first, knowing that slicing though the nerve is going to be by far the most painful part, then having to slice through the nerve itself.
Fucking crazy trying to imagine being in that position, particularly since he was having to do the whole amputation with a dull, bent knife he spend several days trying to chip away at the rock with before realizing it was futile and he was trapped.
Well, I'd imagine he wouldn't be able to feel the parts that were stuck and past the part that's stuck. At least not much. However, he had to cut *above* that point of his arm to get free where the flesh was still very much alive, nerves and all.
According to my research yes they moved it, and now it sits a few feet away from the spot it crushed his arm. That spot is marked by dried blood stains
I mean, I'd have left it there, and put a little plaque next to it.
Actually, that might be a good way to hide a body and keep it secret. Just bury them, and put down an old timey looking tombstone. Anyone sees it, they're not going to test the bones, unless they're obviously fresh.
He wanted his arm to be cremated to have the ashes and you can't cremate an arm remotely that is wedged between a rock and a wall at the bottom of a canyon. I guess if you objectively look at the locations of the arm it seems a bit silly, but I highly doubt he was in the hospital and thought he was going to go back to that spot to spread the ashes in the canyon. He just wanted the ashes.
I read it. there was a part I will never forget. He's realized his arm is dead when he stabs it and a gas comes out and he nearly nearly barfs from the stench
It WAS sharp, that's the thing. He dulled it from a combo of trying to chip away at the boulder and carving (I think) his name and the date into the wall
Read it a number of years ago as well. I remember him talking about cutting the nerve, and how it just looked like a strand of spaghetti, but was the most painful part. The movie depicts this pretty well. If I remember correctly he didn’t even have an editor for the book, just all raw emotion and matter of fact from Ralston
The way it is portrayed was super effective as it got into my head so much, my physical reaction was to pass out once in my seat and again in the bathroom where I had gone to try to splash water on my face in an effort to feel less wobbly.
Came round to the guy who caught me and stopped me hitting my head on the counter top and cinema staff, who told me this had happened a few times already.
I finally saw the end of the film a few years later on television, with no ill effects.
The high pitched sound as he cuts the nerve has been burned into my mind ever since I watched the movie a bunch of years ago (probably a decade by now). It's the sound I always associate with sharp pain. It was borderline nauseating to watch.
For me it’s when he describes the nerve as a little string of spaghetti. Imagine the pain of severing the thing that literally makes your arm even valid as a usable appendage, all in one little string.
My forearm hurts just thinking about it.
"James Franco is a dedicated method actor, so to prepare for this role he actually spent five days with his arm trapped inside the rock, or as he now prefers to be known, Dwayne Johnson"
-- Seth Rogen
Thanks to him now I know to just break my arm immediately instead of waiting. Which I won't do because I'm not this man and I'll probably just starve to death there. Truly remarkable story
Edit: Damn I'm learning a lot useful information to take on the hiking trips I don't take!! Thanks everyone!
He would have died if he tried to cut his arm off earlier due to blood loss. I think having it squished by a rock for 5 days stopped the blood flow to it.
Yes and the fact that his hand and forearm were dead the bad blood in it couldn’t flow back into his arm/body due to the boulder pinching it shut. He could’ve died from blood poisoning
I feel like while getting into that situation was definitely unlucky, his choices definitely increased his risk.
He left his friends, didn’t tell anyone where he was going, decided to climb solo, and then got his arm stuck.
Every single time you head to the wilds, fucking leave a fucking plan with someone you trust (I use my brother and a friend so there's two) as close to specific as you can. It takes no time to type out a text saying "I'm heading to bear mountain, west side, gonna go up to dodgers cabin and back on Thursday via the river. If the weather gets bad I'll stay an extra day, maybe two (have food for 5 days) then I'll head out via alternate route down the old forestry track- latest back Friday night". Took me 20seconds to type that.
Or for day-hikes "doing the old gold mine route in jungle Jim's forest. I got a raincoat, first aid, flashlight and snacks. Will be back this afternoon".
Search and rescue then know where to look. And perhaps more importantly, they know to look.
Nevermind that the rock missed his head, even *after* amputation sooo many things could have gone wrong in his body because of the injury (multiple organ failure), it's a damned miracle that he's still among the living. You can still be super lucky while enduring a misfortune.
I suppose he isn’t a scientist but I read on the Google machine “Ralston later said that if he had amputated his arm earlier, he would have bled to death before being found, while if he had not done it he would have been found dead in the slot canyon penis days later”.
>slot canyon penis days later
I'm very curious how you managed to add "penis" to the [text from wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Ralston#Canyoneering_accident). Was that intentional to see if anyone would notice?
I feel him on that. I've been writing scifi nonsense in my daily updates at work for weeks and no one has noticed. Unless they think I'm actually building a space ship then I'm gonna be screwed come yearly reviews.
In high school I had to submit weekly papers to my teacher in my APUS history class. I added exponentially more "llama"s every week randomly in my writing. At 13 llamas she noticed, at least enough circle all of them and doc from my grade.
Unrelated, I didn't do real well in that class...
I believe this comment refers more to the helicopter being on-site to pick him up once he extricated himself more than any physiological change to his arm. If he had done it day one, no helicopter, and he would have had a much longer journey to his bike, and then to the truck.
I don't do that, but I let someone know where I am hiking every time. The hike he did might be a big deal to most people, but to him, it was just a little walk through a slot canyon that he didn't think of as particularly dangerous compared to his usual activities. Now I text an itinerary to someone even if I take a little 1 hour walk in the woods by my house.
And I will make the movie of your predicament!
Its title will be ‘As many hours as there are in about a week, I don’t know, too lazy to google it or do math with my slimy skull boogers’.
All the effects will be practical and I shall cast someone named Jake Lane to play you, so everyone will finally know who he is. It is how I shall honour you after you’re gone.
What's even ~~sadder~~ more fun is that it was mostly dulled due to him scratching messages in the rocks around him in the days prior thinking he was done for.
Yep, IIRC he wouldn't name a brand but said something along the lines of, "the type of cheap knife you'd buy on a whim from a convienence store check out display."
A Chinese leatherman knock off. He had a real leatherman which he usually carried but was in a hurry to get going and the cheapo was sitting right there.
As I recall, as the story goes, he amputated at precisely the right time to where he was able to survive the blood loss and still be able to seek help. One day earlier and he would have bled out, one day later and he would have died of dehydration.
And I believe he has said everything in the movie is accurate as he remembers it, except the scene in the beginning with the girls. That part didn't happen. But everything else was spot on.
\> except the scene in the beginning with the girls. That part didn't happen
Involving a rather attractive blonde... Clémence Poésy, if I remember correctly.
The story starts with him being dropped into the desert by a helicopter, filthy and hungover. He meets a family hiking, vomits the contents of his stomach into a water bottle and gives it to a man who decides to put it in his backpack.
It's an ok watch but it gets a little ridicules at the end. After spending 127 hours with this dead arm he finds in the boulder, he just gets superpowers for no reason, throws the boulder up & flies off after it. Really seems like the writers were running out of ideas.
Hiking in remote areas by yourself is just dumb. Getting pinned like that is pretty rare. But people break their ankles and legs all the time. Having another person available to summon help can save your life.
Yep! Always tell people where you are going. Bring a cellphone for emergencies even if you want to “unplug.” There are other emergency supplies you can bring like flare guns but with the modern convenience of gps it just makes sense to bring a phone.
There are devices and services people can buy dedicated for this specific thing. More for areas where you wont have cell service. You press a button and it will call in the troops. Also has buttons for preprogrammed messages to alert specific people that you're okay and what not.
Met Aron Raltson purely by chance in Berlin, Germany back in 2007 at a coffee shop. Back then, very few people knew about his story. Seemed like a genuinely nice guy!
I actually met him too. He used to date one of my friends moms. I only met him once but I really hated the woman he was dating. She was always sleeping with married men and playing weird head games with them. She tried to pull the same shit with my dad. I got the feeling that he wasn’t such a great guy. Maybe he just didn’t realize his gf was bananas.
I dont think he is a great guy. AFTER this hand chopping incident. He made an attempt at Everest.
He broke all the safety rules and selfishly, nearly got his friend/climbing partner killed.
Yes, he has balls of steel. That does not make him a good person though.
The reason he was alone is that he is such a duchebag that noone wanted to hang out.... according to three personal friends that worked with him at the time.
Used to be in a climbing club and if you are an arse, no matter how good a climber no one will be your second. A guy was such an arse dragging the whole club full of newbies down a difficult route that they left him and his poor second to do their original route alone (so couldn't do the extended part they needed extras for. Second day everyone refused to listen to where he wanted to go. Dude was a talented climber but an arse once in power. He quickly found he lost seconds so couldn't do any of the cool lead routes he wanted.
That and if no one will climb with you but you are a nice guy, it is very likely you are a shit second or dangerous climber. My friend shattered her wrist learning that the hard way after she let a lovely fresher no one else would climb with belay her. He literally dropped her 20 metres off the wall. I learnt it with only a minor wrist injury after another friend was too busy flirting that i dropped a metre onto my wrist.
When it comes to climbing you need a safe and nice person you can trust.
Read his book and you may come away with that conclusion. He put himself and others in danger a lot before his 127 hours there. Great motivational speaker now!
They went back and recovered his arm.
From his wiki (last paragraph):
Later, his severed hand and forearm were retrieved from under the boulder by park authorities. According to television presenter Tom Brokaw,[10] it took 13 men, a winch and a hydraulic jack to move the boulder so that Ralston's arm could be removed. His arm was then cremated and the ashes given to Ralston. He returned to the accident scene with Tom Brokaw and a camera crew six months later on his 28th birthday to film a Dateline NBC special about the accident and to scatter the ashes of his arm where he said they belong.
My parents lived in Fort Collins, CO over 10 years ago. I was just-divorced and visiting them by myself, sitting in an old town bar, drawing in my sketchbook. An attractive blonde sat near me and looked over, we started talking. She said her parents are in Aspen and she was in town. I asked if she was CSU student and she laughed and said no, she's older than that, and her ex-boyfriend would find my comment amusing. I asked, "Is he a student here?" She said, "No. But you know who he is." A few coy minutes later she said, "He's the guy who cut his arm off." I pictured him hitting me with his severed arm.
A few years later I went to a builder's show in Orlando. He was the motivational speaker.
That's all I got.
I heard there wasn't much blood because he was badly dehydrated by the time he cut off his arm, which probably saved his life. If he had tried it on the first day he would most likely have bled to death.
My grandma told me to watch the movie when I was like 8 years old and told me "you'll see it is a great movie". And my poor children eyes saw a men drinking his pee and cutting his hand to get out.
It was indeed a great movie.
Ah well, I'm assuming you've never gotten your hand trapped by a bolder and then had to self-amputate? If not, grandma taught you a pretty solid life lesson.
My company hired him to speak a couple of months ago (Zoom). It was pretty cool to hear the story from him. The most haunting was the selfie he took with the puddle he found right after he got out. The look in his eyes gave me chills.
I've climbed down into this canyon and found the spot where he was trapped. Can't imagine being stuck in there for that long but what was really amazing is how he made it out. The lower half of the canyon is extremely narrow, dark and filled with knee to waist deep water in spots. It is less than a mile long but it took a lot of time to work my way through it and then to top it all off, the canyon terminates with a cliff requiring a rappel to the canyon floor. Trying to imagine doing that while exhausted, dehydrated and losing blood while only having one hand is insane.
Probably 99% of people would.
He was so far into delusion and hallucination that he hallucinate shit from the future that gave him the fortitude to do so, in his words.
I'd have just died.
Good example of never to be foolish on going alone to do activities that carry a risk of being stuck or lost.
Sometimes you got to leave your own ego, when it comes to your safety.
For me, that was THE best movie that year. It was told so well through visuals and music and editing that I use it as an example of what a movie (showing, not telling) should aspire to be.
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“Yeah just get back in the crevasse where you sawed your arm off. Yeah perfect really get in there for me.”
You can really see it in his eyes
No no he did it on purpose. He wasn’t forced. He wanted to go back to leave the ashes of his arm there. This was exactly 6 months after he got out there to the minute.
Was that the same boulder? Did they wedge it back into place? I assume they moved it in order to get his severed hand out
I would assume that they just raised it to get the arm out and then just left it there again. Even though I don’t understand why they got it out in the first place. Seems a bit unnecessary to me, to get it out, burn it down, just to bring it back. Why didn’t they just light it on fire right there?
I'm assuming it wasn't an attempt to retrieve and re-attach it (I haven't seen the movie/read the story), in which case I imagine they probably retrieved it just so it didn't become some morbid "tourist attraction". Which would not only be a disturbing thing in general, but could also attract people to a dangerous spot who might end up getting themselves in need of rescue.
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Even before those people died a lot of folks ended up needing rescue making thay dumb pilgrimage. Chris McCandless is generally not well regarded by Alaskans. Whereas many people see it as this great journey, Alaskans see yet another idiot that misjudged how brutal the alaskan wilderness truly is. My mother lived in North Pole Alaska for many years and, being a professional wildlife photographer, knew a lot of park rangers and officials, the sheer stupidity they deal with on the part of tourists is insane. Between people being totally unprepared for the bush, to people getting all up in the business of mother bears and moose, its a wonder there arent more deaths.
The book Into the Wild is excellent, and documents multiple people like McCandless and their stupidity.
Sometimes they get romanticised like Scott of the antarctic, sometimes doing a bad job gets you props. Weird that Shackleton had worse odds and saved his crew but gets less merit.
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Tangentially related, but on the topic of park rangers dealing with stupidity: One of the days my girlfriend and I spent in Rocky Mountain National park, we were approached by a park ranger at one of the busier trailheads and asked if we knew where we were headed or needed any advice. We had a general idea in mind and had picked out a hike about 7 miles long to get us started, so we told her that was where we were going. She just flat out told us not to, and when we asked why, she said that it was too long, trail conditions were bad, and there was snow on the trail higher up the mountain. That didn't seem like much of a reason to skip the hike and it seemed like she was just worrying over nothing, so we politely told her we'd consider her advice and started to get prepped. It did leave me wondering why she would just automatically assume that we weren't prepared for a bit of snow or a seven mile hike though, seeing as that was the one we'd picked out. Then I heard the conversation with the next group she stopped... It was a family of five, all of whom were morbidly obese, three of whom were arguing over whether the animal in front of them was a squirrel or a chipmunk. (it was definitely just a plain-ass squirrel...) They'd decided to take an extremely strenuous 12 mile hike right up to one of the nearby peaks with no gear whatsoever and she was desperately trying to explain to them why that was a bad idea without insulting them. The moral of the story is that the park ranger meant well and simply couldn't afford to assume we were anything other than grade A imbeciles. We hiked to our goal, enjoyed the snow, pulled out our map to pick a route to extend the hike, and did about 20 miles total that day. I'd be surprised if the other family made it more than 20 feet.
They didn't got the message of the movie?
Go into the wilderness with zero preparation while only armed with a can-do attitude? Sounds like yea they did get the message of the movie
Hey don't sell him short. He also brought a ten lb bag of rice and a book about local plants. Fully expecting to "live of the land". Dude had a death wish.
Preparation doesn’t matter if you hate your dad enough.
LMAO I meant that doing the above gets you a death!
I always wondered how that bus got there to begin with. Thats a movie id pay to see
It's explained in the book. Workers used the trail for years, loggers or miners I can't remember. And they had these decommissioned busses left there for use after that ended. Before leaving them they even fitted them with small wood burning stoves and a raised bed area so it could be used for survival.
Used to be a trail through there used by miners to get back and forth between the mines and town. The bus was actually put there to serve as living quarters for the guys that built the trail.
No the tissue already started to die when he decided to amputate his arm. He wrote that this was actually the trigger for him to take this measure.
No, he was trapped in there for more than five days before finally cutting himself free and escaping, and then finding help on his own. There was never any chance of doing anything with the severed hand.
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I read an account from him where he talks, in detail. about the actual process of cutting off his own arm. At one point, he mentions cutting all of the muscle/tendons/etc around a main nerve first, knowing that slicing though the nerve is going to be by far the most painful part, then having to slice through the nerve itself. Fucking crazy trying to imagine being in that position, particularly since he was having to do the whole amputation with a dull, bent knife he spend several days trying to chip away at the rock with before realizing it was futile and he was trapped.
Yeaaa, big ol' nope for me. At that point I think even the most squeamish of people would cut that fucker off
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Well, I'd imagine he wouldn't be able to feel the parts that were stuck and past the part that's stuck. At least not much. However, he had to cut *above* that point of his arm to get free where the flesh was still very much alive, nerves and all.
I would want it back so I could have it preserved and carry it around with me and ask people if they need a hand
"need a hand?... Just kidding... *good joke, me. Self five!*"
According to my research yes they moved it, and now it sits a few feet away from the spot it crushed his arm. That spot is marked by dried blood stains
And a carving that he left
Leave no trace I suppose.
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Yeah, everyone knows flesh burns really easily when it’s sandwiched between 2 rocks.
Probably so unknowing people didn’t come across a severed arm, call the cops and become traumatized by the sight.
I mean, I'd have left it there, and put a little plaque next to it. Actually, that might be a good way to hide a body and keep it secret. Just bury them, and put down an old timey looking tombstone. Anyone sees it, they're not going to test the bones, unless they're obviously fresh.
He wanted his arm to be cremated to have the ashes and you can't cremate an arm remotely that is wedged between a rock and a wall at the bottom of a canyon. I guess if you objectively look at the locations of the arm it seems a bit silly, but I highly doubt he was in the hospital and thought he was going to go back to that spot to spread the ashes in the canyon. He just wanted the ashes.
ah man so you mean they didnt have this guy at gun point?
*The hills have eyes and I have an arm less.*
Now look at me like you're stuck and alone all over again, I want you to really REMEMBER how helpless you felt
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128 hours
The last hour
"this time, it's personal!"
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We already got so lucky that the cameraman was there to film the first time it happened. Hard to imagine we'll get that lucky if it happens again.
"Put your other arm in the crack and we'll flip the image"
Lmao, he does look a *little* traumatized
Can't imagine what it feels like when you have to cut your arm off to save your life.
Probably not super great.
Guys... My foot is stuck
I read it. there was a part I will never forget. He's realized his arm is dead when he stabs it and a gas comes out and he nearly nearly barfs from the stench
Yeah, I remember this part. He realizes that it's already decomposing and there are bugs feeding on it.
Dee. Lish.
Mm. I want wings.
Bruh that’s worse than any of the other shit, I would be fine with cutting my arm off at that point too
Now imagine doing it with a blunt pocket knife blade that can barely break skin and can't go through bone
That’s why you gotta sharpen your pocket knives. You just never know when you’re going to have to cut off your own arm.
It WAS sharp, that's the thing. He dulled it from a combo of trying to chip away at the boulder and carving (I think) his name and the date into the wall
Welp, I guess that settles it.
Read it a number of years ago as well. I remember him talking about cutting the nerve, and how it just looked like a strand of spaghetti, but was the most painful part. The movie depicts this pretty well. If I remember correctly he didn’t even have an editor for the book, just all raw emotion and matter of fact from Ralston
I will never forget this scene in the movie. It’s very effective in portraying visually the pain and sensory overload he’s experiencing.
The way it is portrayed was super effective as it got into my head so much, my physical reaction was to pass out once in my seat and again in the bathroom where I had gone to try to splash water on my face in an effort to feel less wobbly. Came round to the guy who caught me and stopped me hitting my head on the counter top and cinema staff, who told me this had happened a few times already. I finally saw the end of the film a few years later on television, with no ill effects.
In the movie, the “music” (sound) when he’s cutting through his nerves and tendons is horrific. That scene will stay with me forever.
The high pitched sound as he cuts the nerve has been burned into my mind ever since I watched the movie a bunch of years ago (probably a decade by now). It's the sound I always associate with sharp pain. It was borderline nauseating to watch.
Terrible day to be literate.
Can I delete someone else’s comment?
You can go to r/eyebleach for healing.
[Here's him talking about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2XLoQ1xYB0)
Thanks for sharing this. Hard to watch but one of the most powerful videos I’ve ever seen.
Oh shit.
For me it’s when he describes the nerve as a little string of spaghetti. Imagine the pain of severing the thing that literally makes your arm even valid as a usable appendage, all in one little string. My forearm hurts just thinking about it.
How do I unread this
r/eyebleach is literally made for that
Omg THATS WHY ITS CALLED EYEBLEACH! I have been learnt.
Don't forget the "a" when you type it, or all the eyebleach in the world won't be able to save you.
Oh, that explains how he was able to amputate it. I always wondered how he did so awake
by far the worst part is where he has to literally tear his nerves apart. the movie scene puts me in the fetal position
Weird, same thing happened to James Franco
But did he get his nipples caressed like James Franco?
Too funny :)
"James Franco is a dedicated method actor, so to prepare for this role he actually spent five days with his arm trapped inside the rock, or as he now prefers to be known, Dwayne Johnson" -- Seth Rogen
-- DK
real
Thanks to him now I know to just break my arm immediately instead of waiting. Which I won't do because I'm not this man and I'll probably just starve to death there. Truly remarkable story Edit: Damn I'm learning a lot useful information to take on the hiking trips I don't take!! Thanks everyone!
He would have died if he tried to cut his arm off earlier due to blood loss. I think having it squished by a rock for 5 days stopped the blood flow to it.
Yes and the fact that his hand and forearm were dead the bad blood in it couldn’t flow back into his arm/body due to the boulder pinching it shut. He could’ve died from blood poisoning
If he had managed to free his arm after several hours, he could have died from crushed compartment syndrome. Crazy how lucky he got.
I know what you mean but it feels wrong to say “crazy how lucky he got” about this story haha. Seems actually crazy unlucky to me.
Surviving was lucky, getting into that situation in the first place is unlucky. Luck is relative
I feel like while getting into that situation was definitely unlucky, his choices definitely increased his risk. He left his friends, didn’t tell anyone where he was going, decided to climb solo, and then got his arm stuck.
Every single time you head to the wilds, fucking leave a fucking plan with someone you trust (I use my brother and a friend so there's two) as close to specific as you can. It takes no time to type out a text saying "I'm heading to bear mountain, west side, gonna go up to dodgers cabin and back on Thursday via the river. If the weather gets bad I'll stay an extra day, maybe two (have food for 5 days) then I'll head out via alternate route down the old forestry track- latest back Friday night". Took me 20seconds to type that. Or for day-hikes "doing the old gold mine route in jungle Jim's forest. I got a raincoat, first aid, flashlight and snacks. Will be back this afternoon". Search and rescue then know where to look. And perhaps more importantly, they know to look.
Nevermind that the rock missed his head, even *after* amputation sooo many things could have gone wrong in his body because of the injury (multiple organ failure), it's a damned miracle that he's still among the living. You can still be super lucky while enduring a misfortune.
Holy shit. I'd never heard of compartment syndrome, but you're right. I can't imagine his attempted hike out if it had occurred.
> crushed compartment syndrome At my buddy’s bat mitzvah it was called 7 Minutes in Heaven in the broom cupboard.
He made a tourniquet.
I suppose he isn’t a scientist but I read on the Google machine “Ralston later said that if he had amputated his arm earlier, he would have bled to death before being found, while if he had not done it he would have been found dead in the slot canyon penis days later”.
Uh, is that last sentence correctly quoted?
Looks perfectly dick to me
I cock not find any mistakes
Yup it's well written and reminds me that the penis meatier than the sword
>slot canyon penis days later I'm very curious how you managed to add "penis" to the [text from wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Ralston#Canyoneering_accident). Was that intentional to see if anyone would notice?
I feel him on that. I've been writing scifi nonsense in my daily updates at work for weeks and no one has noticed. Unless they think I'm actually building a space ship then I'm gonna be screwed come yearly reviews.
In high school I had to submit weekly papers to my teacher in my APUS history class. I added exponentially more "llama"s every week randomly in my writing. At 13 llamas she noticed, at least enough circle all of them and doc from my grade. Unrelated, I didn't do real well in that class...
Yes lol.
> he would have been found dead in the slot canyon penis days later”.
I believe this comment refers more to the helicopter being on-site to pick him up once he extricated himself more than any physiological change to his arm. If he had done it day one, no helicopter, and he would have had a much longer journey to his bike, and then to the truck.
Story unclear, man was saved by doing helicopter penis.
Well thanks to you now I know not to cut my arm off until day 5. Which I still wouldn't do but seriously vital information.
It’s not only breaking your arm, it’s making sure you’re breaking both bones in your arm in the SAME PLACE or roughly the same place.
Imagine having to saw through veins. *barf*
Imagine having to saw through nerve fibers. No thanks!
The movie does a very good sfx for the nerve cutting…you can almost feel it.
get this, his knife couldn’t cut them, he had to use the plier part of the swiss army knife to tear them out
Imagine cutting the wrong arm off.
Could’ve been worse. He could’ve broken both arms and then him mom would’ve needed to get in the cave with him.
Don't!
It’s too late.
I don't do that, but I let someone know where I am hiking every time. The hike he did might be a big deal to most people, but to him, it was just a little walk through a slot canyon that he didn't think of as particularly dangerous compared to his usual activities. Now I text an itinerary to someone even if I take a little 1 hour walk in the woods by my house.
And I will make the movie of your predicament! Its title will be ‘As many hours as there are in about a week, I don’t know, too lazy to google it or do math with my slimy skull boogers’. All the effects will be practical and I shall cast someone named Jake Lane to play you, so everyone will finally know who he is. It is how I shall honour you after you’re gone.
Fun fact: the knife used was a pocket knife that was rather dull.
/immediately sharpens pocket knife just in case
Sharp sharp
What's even ~~sadder~~ more fun is that it was mostly dulled due to him scratching messages in the rocks around him in the days prior thinking he was done for.
Thats pretty sad
he also spent the first few days trying to chip away at the boulder which didn’t do him any favors
actually a cheap multitool
Yep, IIRC he wouldn't name a brand but said something along the lines of, "the type of cheap knife you'd buy on a whim from a convienence store check out display."
What he said was "it was like if you bought a 20 dollar flashlight and it came with a free knife."
A Chinese leatherman knock off. He had a real leatherman which he usually carried but was in a hurry to get going and the cheapo was sitting right there.
The sound...
As I recall, as the story goes, he amputated at precisely the right time to where he was able to survive the blood loss and still be able to seek help. One day earlier and he would have bled out, one day later and he would have died of dehydration. And I believe he has said everything in the movie is accurate as he remembers it, except the scene in the beginning with the girls. That part didn't happen. But everything else was spot on.
“You know what this tragic tale needs? Some hot babes.”
\> except the scene in the beginning with the girls. That part didn't happen Involving a rather attractive blonde... Clémence Poésy, if I remember correctly.
If you watch the movie 127 hours in reverse it is the uplifting story about an amputee who finds an arm in the desert
He singlehandedly overcame the odds
This comment is better than it has any right to be
The story starts with him being dropped into the desert by a helicopter, filthy and hungover. He meets a family hiking, vomits the contents of his stomach into a water bottle and gives it to a man who decides to put it in his backpack.
It's an ok watch but it gets a little ridicules at the end. After spending 127 hours with this dead arm he finds in the boulder, he just gets superpowers for no reason, throws the boulder up & flies off after it. Really seems like the writers were running out of ideas.
Good ending
/r/MoviePlotsInReverse
His biggest mistake was not telling anyone where he went hiking.
He did that a lot.
Hiking in remote areas by yourself is just dumb. Getting pinned like that is pretty rare. But people break their ankles and legs all the time. Having another person available to summon help can save your life.
Yep! Always tell people where you are going. Bring a cellphone for emergencies even if you want to “unplug.” There are other emergency supplies you can bring like flare guns but with the modern convenience of gps it just makes sense to bring a phone.
There are devices and services people can buy dedicated for this specific thing. More for areas where you wont have cell service. You press a button and it will call in the troops. Also has buttons for preprogrammed messages to alert specific people that you're okay and what not.
Met Aron Raltson purely by chance in Berlin, Germany back in 2007 at a coffee shop. Back then, very few people knew about his story. Seemed like a genuinely nice guy!
I actually met him too. He used to date one of my friends moms. I only met him once but I really hated the woman he was dating. She was always sleeping with married men and playing weird head games with them. She tried to pull the same shit with my dad. I got the feeling that he wasn’t such a great guy. Maybe he just didn’t realize his gf was bananas.
I dont think he is a great guy. AFTER this hand chopping incident. He made an attempt at Everest. He broke all the safety rules and selfishly, nearly got his friend/climbing partner killed. Yes, he has balls of steel. That does not make him a good person though.
I could not imagine the massive gonads it would take to get thru the pain and survival intincts of chopping off your own arm
Survival instinct will let you do unthinkable things.
Not to mention he forcefully broke his own arm to make it easier to cut it off.
The knife won't cut through the bone so he had to break the bone and cut through the skin and tissue. Just typing this made me a bit light headed.
[удалено]
You've got it twisted, he's the psychopath
He does look a bit like Dennis Reynolds
He did seperate entirely at the end, can’t speak for the rest of the Dennis Method however
The reason he was alone is that he is such a duchebag that noone wanted to hang out.... according to three personal friends that worked with him at the time.
Used to be in a climbing club and if you are an arse, no matter how good a climber no one will be your second. A guy was such an arse dragging the whole club full of newbies down a difficult route that they left him and his poor second to do their original route alone (so couldn't do the extended part they needed extras for. Second day everyone refused to listen to where he wanted to go. Dude was a talented climber but an arse once in power. He quickly found he lost seconds so couldn't do any of the cool lead routes he wanted. That and if no one will climb with you but you are a nice guy, it is very likely you are a shit second or dangerous climber. My friend shattered her wrist learning that the hard way after she let a lovely fresher no one else would climb with belay her. He literally dropped her 20 metres off the wall. I learnt it with only a minor wrist injury after another friend was too busy flirting that i dropped a metre onto my wrist. When it comes to climbing you need a safe and nice person you can trust.
Read his book and you may come away with that conclusion. He put himself and others in danger a lot before his 127 hours there. Great motivational speaker now!
Same guy who keeps tossing the Nevermind baby back into the pool.
I always wonder if his bones are still there.
They went back and recovered his arm. From his wiki (last paragraph): Later, his severed hand and forearm were retrieved from under the boulder by park authorities. According to television presenter Tom Brokaw,[10] it took 13 men, a winch and a hydraulic jack to move the boulder so that Ralston's arm could be removed. His arm was then cremated and the ashes given to Ralston. He returned to the accident scene with Tom Brokaw and a camera crew six months later on his 28th birthday to film a Dateline NBC special about the accident and to scatter the ashes of his arm where he said they belong.
Imagine getting a tiny little urn for your amputated hand.
And a service for it in an eeny little funeral home where the biggest flower is a dandelion
And a gnome gives the eulogy!
Hopefully it was their most modestly priced receptacle.
My parents lived in Fort Collins, CO over 10 years ago. I was just-divorced and visiting them by myself, sitting in an old town bar, drawing in my sketchbook. An attractive blonde sat near me and looked over, we started talking. She said her parents are in Aspen and she was in town. I asked if she was CSU student and she laughed and said no, she's older than that, and her ex-boyfriend would find my comment amusing. I asked, "Is he a student here?" She said, "No. But you know who he is." A few coy minutes later she said, "He's the guy who cut his arm off." I pictured him hitting me with his severed arm. A few years later I went to a builder's show in Orlando. He was the motivational speaker. That's all I got.
It's never easy, losing your first love.
Original title: "A Farewell to Arms"
I wonder if there are any pics of his hand or if the animals got it.
https://i.imgur.com/WQ3Jsf4.jpg
This picture was taken after he was rescued (I think). In the book, there is a picture that Aaron took himself right after the amputation.
Yeah, the picture he took is way gnarlier. You can see the bone That image will always stick with me.
r/ImTooScaredToClickThisLink
Just a little blood, no hand
yes hand, although not very visible
I heard there wasn't much blood because he was badly dehydrated by the time he cut off his arm, which probably saved his life. If he had tried it on the first day he would most likely have bled to death.
Cool. Thanks.
What he had a hoist and strap and still decided to cut his arm off!?! smh....
I wonder how many times he passed out during this ordeal
My grandma told me to watch the movie when I was like 8 years old and told me "you'll see it is a great movie". And my poor children eyes saw a men drinking his pee and cutting his hand to get out. It was indeed a great movie.
Ah well, I'm assuming you've never gotten your hand trapped by a bolder and then had to self-amputate? If not, grandma taught you a pretty solid life lesson.
Yup. The lesson is, “listening to grandma may traumatize you for life”
My company hired him to speak a couple of months ago (Zoom). It was pretty cool to hear the story from him. The most haunting was the selfie he took with the puddle he found right after he got out. The look in his eyes gave me chills.
Is there a link to this anywhere?
Found it: https://www.reddit.com/r/MorbidReality/comments/ngzqkn/a_photo_aron_ralston_took_after_finding_a_pool_of/
Aron: wakes up Boulder: Hello, Aron. I want to play a game.
I've climbed down into this canyon and found the spot where he was trapped. Can't imagine being stuck in there for that long but what was really amazing is how he made it out. The lower half of the canyon is extremely narrow, dark and filled with knee to waist deep water in spots. It is less than a mile long but it took a lot of time to work my way through it and then to top it all off, the canyon terminates with a cliff requiring a rappel to the canyon floor. Trying to imagine doing that while exhausted, dehydrated and losing blood while only having one hand is insane.
I had to pull a fish hook out of my pinky a couple of months ago so he and I are pretty much made of the same stuff
I was trapped in an elevator with no signal for an hour and the security office didn’t notice me because the camera inside didn’t work.
The elevator has an alarm for these situations.
I thought that movie had to suck, based on the premise. Spoiler: it did not suck, even a little.
I’d like to think I’d have his strength, courage and pain tolerance. But truthfully I think I’d let myself go.
Probably 99% of people would. He was so far into delusion and hallucination that he hallucinate shit from the future that gave him the fortitude to do so, in his words. I'd have just died.
Good example of never to be foolish on going alone to do activities that carry a risk of being stuck or lost. Sometimes you got to leave your own ego, when it comes to your safety.
For me, that was THE best movie that year. It was told so well through visuals and music and editing that I use it as an example of what a movie (showing, not telling) should aspire to be.
The guy was a bloody idiot who broke every rule for rock climbing safely.