Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Aron Ralston [157]
“Monique can run—she is fast.”
Still hiking along, I look to his wife, and she nods. “Do you understand what I need?” I ask.
“Yes, a litter and a—”
I interrupt her. “Wait. Did the police have radios and phones?” The two adults nod. “OK, I need you to ask them for a helicopter.” Why I didn’t think of this first, I don’t know—maybe because of my fatigue—but a helicopter will be much better than a litter team. All I’ll have to do is get up to a place where a helicopter can land, and then wait. I think I can manage that. I look at Monique. “Please, now, go fast.”
[The following passage is from a letter from Eric Meijer, giving his account of our unplanned rendezvous.]
On Thursday May 1st, our family [my wife, Monique, our son, Andy, and myself, Eric Meijer] planned a trip to the Horseshoe Canyon, a remote section of Canyonlands N.P. in Utah. At the start of the trailhead we talked to a ranger who told us about a car that was parked in the area already for several days and that the owner might be missing in the canyon. We joked that we would keep our eyes open and that we would try to find him.
After a hike of 3.7 miles to the Great Gallery (Indian rock art) where we took some pictures, we returned and suddenly heard a noise behind us, and after that a voice that cried “Help, I need help!”
Monique and I immediately realized that this had to be the missing person. We didn’t find him, he found us! A bit unstable but pretty quickly he walked nearer and we saw that the right-hand side of him was full of blood.
His arm, or better what was left, hung in a self-made sling. We ran towards him and he spoke clearly: “Hello, my name is Aron. A boulder fell on me on Saturday. I have been stuck for five days without food or water. I cut off my hand four hours ago and I need medical attention. I need a helicopter.”
We decided that my wife and our son would try to get out of the canyon ASAP to get help, whilst I remained with Aron to move with him in the same direction, giving him food and water and supporting him mentally at the same time. Aron asked me to carry his backpack and by continuous talking I tried to find out as much as possible about his further well-being. It was important to direct him ASAP out of the narrower part of Horseshoe Canyon towards the wider area near the climb out where a heli could possibly land.
As Monique takes off at a jog, Andy follows her. I almost ask the boy to stay with us so Monique can go faster, but more immediately, I think of asking Eric if he has any food. He thinks and calls out to Monique, and she stops. “We have a couple Oreos left, but Monique has them,” Eric explains to me, and shouts to her to get out the cookies as we catch up to her. She hands over the clear plastic sleeve that held fifteen cookies with an apology that she and Andy ate most of them already. She and the boy turn and run off again.
There are only two Oreos left, but they are heaven-sent, and I dispose of them in a single chomp each, pausing after the first one to unscrew the lid on my water bottle and take a swig of tadpole water to wash it down. After I munch the second cookie, Eric hands me an unopened half-liter bottle of distilled spring water. It doesn’t taste as good as the Big Drop puddle water, but it’s a vast improvement over the sandy sludge currently in my Nalgene. I thank Eric for the water, and I ask him if he will carry my pack. He says certainly, and I shrug it off, lightening my burden by a few pounds.
Eric talks with me and asks a few questions about what happened. I’m trying to walk with the water in my mouth still, but each time I reply to one of his questions, I swallow the water. When I finish talking, almost always keeping my answers short, I take another few ounces into my mouth and hold them there. After a half-dozen rounds of inquiries, I let Eric know that I need to stop talking and focus on hiking.
About five minutes after Monique and Andy leave us the second time, Eric and I come across another hiker, in his early forties, headed in the opposite direction with