Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Aron Ralston [156]
I’m going to make it.
We close the distance, and I see what I presume is a family: a man and a woman in their late thirties, and a boy who I guess is their son. They’re all dressed in shorts, T-shirts, hats, and tall hiking boots. The woman has a fanny pack around her waist with two water bottles in the side holsters. The man has a midsize backpack on, nearly the same size as mine, but it looks light and is probably mostly empty.
As we get close enough that I can talk to them, I begin telling them, “My name is Aron Ralston. I was trapped by a boulder on Saturday, and I’ve been without food and water for five days. I cut my arm off this morning to get free, and I’ve lost a lot of blood. I need medical attention.”
I finish my announcement, and we come to a stop, face-to-face, a few feet away from each other. I’m coated in blood on my right side from my shirt collar to my shoe tip. I look at the boy—he can’t be more than ten years old—and fear that I’ve just scarred him for life.
The man speaks, his single short sentence coming through to me as through a mental fog until something clicks in my mind. Realizing he has a Germanic accent, I decipher the six words:
“They told us you were here.”
It takes me a good five seconds to process the full meaning of his statement, and the next thing I know, I’m hiking at full speed down the canyon, barking at this innocent family to start hiking. “We have to get moving. We’ll talk while we walk. Can you understand me all right?”
The dad nods but protests, “You should stop and rest.”
I reiterate my command—“No, we need to keep hiking”—and then begin barraging them with questions: “Who are ‘they’? Who told you I was here? Do you have a phone of any sort that works down here?”
The family trots to catch up to me as the dad replies, “There are police at the parking. They told us to keep an eye out for you. We told them we would.”
“Do you have a phone?” I ask again. They do not. The dad has a GPS on a string around his neck. “Can you tell me how far is it to the trailhead?”
“It is, ahh, three kilometers.”
Oh, man, how can that be? I check my map, and it looks much closer than that, maybe a mile to where the trail leaves the canyon bottom and another mile of steep hiking. “Are you sure?”
He shows me the GPS screen. He’s benchmarked the route, and the display indicates that we are now 2.91 kilometers from and 220 meters below the trailhead. The elevation will be the devastating part. I can feel the strain that comes with hiking up over the ten-foot-high sandbars where the trail cuts the corners off the meandering wash channel. I start to have doubts that I will make it to the trailhead after all. Maybe it is the knowledge that there are rescuers there, and that they might be able to come get me, but I begin to understand my body is failing. I’ve lost too much blood. Even minor obstacles cost me a great deal of energy and cause my heart rate to skyrocket.
Thinking through the sequence of events that will most quickly lead to definitive medical care, I ask the hikers for their names so I can plan what I’m going to ask them to do.
“I am Eric, and this is Monique and Andy,” the dad replies. “We are the Meijers, from Holland.” (That explains the accent as well as the excellent English.) I haven’t yet heard Monique or Andy speak, but I can safely assume their English is just as good as Eric’s.
“OK, Eric, you guys look pretty fit. I need one of you to run ahead and get to the police at the trailhead.” I am fairly certain that the people there aren’t actually police, but that’s what he called them. “I need them to send down a litter and a team of people to help carry me out. I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it out of the