Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Aron Ralston [85]
I’m elated at the idea. I retrieve the discarded tubing insulation from my pack, where I dropped the parts left over from yesterday’s surgical prep session. Why didn’t I think of this before? Using my left hand to twice wrap the thin black neoprene around my right forearm just two inches below my elbow, I tie a simple overhand knot and tighten one end in my teeth, then double and triple the knot. I take my carabiner with the purple marking tape—the same one I used yesterday, I note—and clip the neoprene, twisting it six times. Clamping down on my forearm, the material pinches my skin. I adjust my arm hairs under the band, but it still hurts. For some reason, the pain pleases me, perhaps because it reassures me that the tourniquet is working. I can see what little pink is left in my forearm fade to fish-belly white, and the flesh bunched up between my elbow and the tourniquet flashes to bright red. Oh yeah, this is way better than the webbing idea. The ache in my arm flares, but my self-satisfaction overrides it. I’m pleased with myself, and with the tourniquet’s squeeze, less masochism than a renewed sparkle of hope. I’m taking action. And it feels very good to be taking action.
I’m ready for the next step. I take my multi-tool and switch it from the battered file to the longer of the two knife blades, forgetting my plans to use the sharper one. Instead of pointing the tip into the tendon gap at my wrist, I hold it with the blade against the upper part of my forearm. Surprising myself, I press on the blade and slowly draw the knife across my forearm. Nothing happens. Huh. Repeating the act, I press harder with my palm on the tool’s grip. Still nothing. No cut, no blood, nothing. Extracting the short knife, I vigorously saw back and forth at my forearm, growing more frustrated with each unproductive attempt. Exasperated, I give up. This is shit! The damn blade won’t break the skin. How the hell am I going to carve through two bones with a knife that won’t even cut my skin? God damn it to hell.
Embittered, I set the knife atop the chockstone, unclip the carabiner, and loosen the tourniquet. After a minute, the weak blood flow in my arm raises an irritated series of red lines on my skin where I was sawing with the knife. These aggravated scratches are the sole evidence of my attempt at amputation.
That’s pathetic, Aron; just pathetic.
Back to waiting.
Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh. A black raven flies overhead. I check my watch. It’s eight-fifteen A.M.—precisely the same time I saw a raven yesterday morning. I wonder if it’s the same one. Of course it is. It probably has a nest down the canyon someplace. How kooky is it that the bird flew off at exactly the same time it did yesterday? It seems unnatural to me that a living thing would have such a refined sense of time. The sunlight or air temperature must trigger some response that tells the bird it’s time to go find some food. I don’t know.
More predictably but no less punctually, the dagger of sunlight appears about an hour later, and I stretch out to it at 9:35 for my ten-minute “sun salute” break. With the twin visits of the raven and the sun dagger, I figure that my morning routines are completed. Then, for the first time, I feel pressure in my bladder. I unclip from the daisy chain, unzip my shorts, and turn around to urinate. The sand soaks up the liquid before it can puddle or splash, seemingly absorbing my urine faster than it falls. It doesn’t smell as bad or look as dark as I’d have figured, seeing as how it’s been two days since I peed. Feeling nature’s other call, I take off my harness and drop my pants in an attempt to defecate. I don’t want to stink up the canyon, but I don’t have any choice. My concern quickly turns out to be moot; it’s a false alarm.
Tired from the stress of the early-morning rounds of elevated and dashed hopes, I let my mind drift. I recall meeting an Australian outdoorsman, Warren MacDonald, at the Banff Mountain Film Festival last