Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Aron Ralston [58]
Shaking my head in defeat, I yawn, battling the fatigue that comes in waves.
“I tried chipping away at the rock. The progress I made in twenty-four hours, with a lot of work, it would be a hundred and fifty hours, if ever. I think part of the problem is, is that my hand is actually supporting the rock. Which means every time I chip away part of the rock, it moves a little bit and settles onto my hand again. I can’t feel it happening, but microscopically, it seems to be, because the little gap over here between the rock and the wall—right there—is actually, well, at least I think it’s gotten smaller as I’ve been working on it. So, there you can see the chip marks under the rope. I removed a lot of that rock where the rope is right now. And even some you can’t see anymore because my arm is now covering it. Again because the rock moved.”
Pausing to lick my dry lips, I try to swallow, then give a long and despondent sigh. When I rehash my situation, I hear the downheartedness in my voice. The failure of my options trounces my spirit into dejection.
“So, those two things out, the third thing left was to cut my arm off.”
I grimace. My face wrinkles into a contortion that takes ten seconds to straighten out before I can continue with a wholeheartedly dejected explanation.
“I worked a tourniquet up and got into place a couple times with all my plans and what I was going to do…but it’s pretty much suicide. It’s, uh, four hours from here to my vehicle. It would be…if at all possible—because of the fourth-class climbing involved—to go back out the way I came in, it would be about four hours that way, to where I don’t have a vehicle, well, I have a bike, but…um…To go out the West Fork, it would be a couple hours later…er, less…two hours, maybe two and a half hours, but again, fourth-class climbing, which would probably be impossible with one hand. Between the blood loss and my dehydration, I think I’m ruling that out. I think I would die if I cut off my arm.
“Umm, the fourth thing that could happen is someone comes. This being a continuation of a canyon that’s not all that popular, and the continuation being even less so, I think that’s very unlikely that that will happen before I retire from dehydration and hypothermia.
“It’s odd…The temperature is sixty-six degrees, at least it was yesterday at this time; I think it’s a degree or two colder than that now. It got down to fifty-five overnight, which wasn’t bad. I spent a lot of time shivering, though. When I would wake up, I would chip at the rock…I didn’t really wake up, I sat and I tried to sleep.”
I begin my familiar recitation of the most likely rescue scenario.
“So, either somebody notices I’m missing because I don’t show up at the house for the party on Monday night or I don’t show up for work on Tuesday, but they don’t really know anything more than I went to Utah. I think maybe my truck will be found. I think it will be Wednesday, Thursday, at the earliest when someone figures out where I might be, what I’ve done, and gets to me. That’s at least three days from now.
“Judging by my degradation in the last twenty-four hours, I’ll be surprised if I make it to Tuesday.”
I know with a sense of finality that I’m saying goodbye to my family, and that regardless of how much I suffer in this spot, they will feel more agony than me. After a long pause, I stumble through an explanation, trying to apologize to my family for what I know they will go through because of my disappearance and demise.
“I’m sorry.”
With tears brimming, I stop the tape and rub the back of my knuckles across my eyes. I start the tape once more.
“Mom, Dad, I love you. Sonja, I love you. You guys make me proud. I don’t know what it is about me that’s brought me to this. But this is…what I’ve been after. I go out looking for adventure and risk so I can feel