Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Aron Ralston [103]
Pushing aside that bleak conclusion for a moment, I find some levity in my situation—it’s the first time in thirteen years that I have carried out a dissection, and I’m handling it much better this time around, even though it’s my own arm. I recall the sheep’s eyeball that stared back at me from the stainless-steel pan in ninth-grade physical science class. Cutting into the squishy orb was enough to intimidate me right out of the biology program in high school; thereafter, I stuck with chemistry and physics—anything to avoid animal parts in a nonculinary setting. That eyeball was indirectly responsible for my chosen path in engineering. It’s odd that I’ve come back to face such an old and rooted fear in this canyon.
Sweating from the adrenaline, I set my multi-tool on top of the chockstone and pick up my water bottle. It’s not time for my next sip, but I’ve earned this. As the first drops splash against my lip, I open my eyes and stare into the opaque blue bottom with detachment. I continue to tilt the bottle up and up, feeling a mix of deserved reward and recalcitrant spite—like I’m doing something naughty but I don’t care; I’m going to do it, and the fact that I shouldn’t makes me enjoy it even more.
Just do it—get it over with. It doesn’t matter.
Each continued tablespoon of water satisfies me like a whole mouthful, and instantly, I’m gulping at the dribbling flow. I close my eyes…Oh, God. After an all too brief three seconds, I swallow the last drops of my clean water supply, and it’s gone. My body wails for the water to keep coming, but there is no more. I gaze into the container poised over the bridge of my nose and shake the Nalgene, tearing free those last drops from the walls of the bottle.
Well, that’s it, there’s not a single drop left. I don’t linger on it. Screwing the lid back on the threaded lip, I realize I’ve passed a moment I’ve been anticipating for three days. Now it’s over. There’s one less thing I have to worry about. I decide to disengage the tourniquet—it’s making my whole arm ache, and since I won’t be going any further with the amputation, there’s no need to cause any excess agony. I unclip the carabiner holding the neoprene tubing and slowly unwind it, allowing my arm to regain its regular shape. At a snail’s pace, my circulation returns to my arm, and I keep watch on the wound. There is no increase in the blood flow at the gash, and no pulsing at all, so I figure I have avoided any arteries. Still, the bleeding is less than I would have expected. It almost seems like the tourniquet wasn’t doing anything. I make the connection that since the chockstone has pinched off the arteries and veins in my hand, it has reduced the blood flow in my arm. That would explain why my forearm is stone cold.
Pulling out the video camera, I hold it in my hand this time and begin taping the results of my surgery. My hat, webbing, and tourniquet supplies appear in the screen, on top of the chockstone.
“This next part may not be for all viewers at home. It’s a little after eight. At precisely eight o’clock I took my last sip of clean water…and…hide your eyes, Mom….”
Panning across the boulder, the camera comes to my arm and the gaping wound, smattered with bright red blood. My breathing becomes labored as I look at the puncture in my arm.
“I made an attempt—a short career in surgery, as it turned out—those knives are just not anywhere close to the task. I’ve got about an inch-wide gash in my arm that goes about a half inch deep. I cut down through the skin and the fatty tissue, and through some of the muscle. I think I cut a tendon, but I’m not sure. I tried, anyways. It really just didn’t go well. The tourniquet is relaxed at this point. Which actually is a little bothersome, considering I’m not bleeding that bad, barely at all. It’s so weird. You’d expect to definitely