Aron Ralston Cuts Off His Own Arm to Survive: The Aron Ralston Story — Transcript

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1. 0:00This man cut off his own arm with a
2. 0:02cheap $15 multi-tool and then he hiked
3. 0:05out of a canyon alone, bleeding, one
4. 0:08arm, 7 miles. His name is Aaron Rston
5. 0:13and what happened to him over 127 hours
6. 0:16in a Utah canyon is one of the most
7. 0:18insane survival stories in human
8. 0:20history. April 26th, 2003. Iron is 27
9. 0:26years old. He's a mechanical engineer.
10. 0:28He quit his job at Intel, moved to
11. 0:31Aspen, Colorado, and spent every free
12. 0:34second climbing mountains. He had
13. 0:35already climbed 45 of Colorado's 52
14. 0:39highest peaks solo in winter. This guy
15. 0:44wasn't a beginner. This was his life.
16. 0:47That Saturday morning, Aaron rides his
17. 0:49bike 15 miles to Blue John Canyon in
18. 0:52Utah. He locks his bike. He starts
19. 0:54walking in. Nobody knows where he is. He
20. 0:57told no one that detail, that one detail
21. 1:01will nearly kill him. At 2:45 in the
22. 1:04afternoon, Aaron is squeezing through a
23. 1:06narrow section of the canyon. It's so
24. 1:08tight in places the walls are only 3 ft
25. 1:11apart. A boulder above him shifts just
26. 1:14slightly. That's all it takes. 800 lb of
27. 1:17rock drops and lands directly on his
28. 1:20right hand and wrist, pinning it against
29. 1:22the canyon wall. Just like that, he
30. 1:24can't move. He tries to pull free.
31. 1:27Nothing. He tries to push the rock.
32. 1:29Nothing. This boulder later took 13 men,
33. 1:32a winch, and a hydraulic jack to move.
34. 1:35Aaron had one good hand. He has two
35. 1:37burritos, 350 ml of water. No phone. No
36. 1:42one knows where he is. And the nearest
37. 1:44paved road is 20 m away. The first day,
38. 1:47he's still calm. He's a problem solver.
39. 1:50He's an engineer. He tries everything.
40. 1:52He chips at the rock with his cheap
41. 1:54multi-tool. He tries to rig a pulley
42. 1:57system with his ropes. He tries to dig
43. 1:59around the boulder. Nothing works. By
44. 2:01day two, the reality is starting to
45. 2:04land. Nobody is coming because nobody
46. 2:07knows to look. By day three, Iron is
47. 2:10dehydrated. His arm has been crushed and
48. 2:12without blood flow for 72 hours. The
49. 2:15pain is constant. He starts thinking
50. 2:18about amputation. He holds the small
51. 2:20blade of his multi-tool against his skin
52. 2:23and he pulls it away. He can't do it.
53. 2:26Not yet. The blade is too dull and he
54. 2:29knows he can't cut through bone, so he
55. 2:32waits. Day four. No food left. Water
56. 2:36nearly gone. Aaron does something that
57. 2:39will haunt you. He picks up his small
58. 2:41video camera and he records goodbye
59. 2:43messages to his mom, to his dad, to his
60. 2:46friends, one by one. Then he carves his
61. 2:49name into the canyon wall. His date of
62. 2:51birth and what he believes will be his
63. 2:54date of death. May 1st, 2003. He doesn't
64. 2:58expect to survive the night. Day five.
65. 3:01The water is completely gone. Aaron
66. 3:03starts drinking his own urine to stay
67. 3:05alive. He's losing his mind from
68. 3:07dehydration. He starts hallucinating.
69. 3:10And then he sees something, a vision of
70. 3:13himself playing with a small child, a
71. 3:16little boy, running around laughing. And
72. 3:19Aaron in the vision has only one arm. He
73. 3:21wakes up convinced that child is his
74. 3:24future son and that he is going to
75. 3:26survive this somehow. Dawn on day six,
76. 3:30Aaron looks at his trapped arm and what
77. 3:32he sees changes everything. His arm has
78. 3:35started to decompose. There is no
79. 3:37circulation. The flesh is dying. He can
80. 3:39smell it. He knows if he stays, he dies.
81. 3:42He knows if he cuts his arm off with a
82. 3:44dull blade and no anesthetic, he might
83. 3:46bleed out before anyone finds him. But
84. 3:48he also knows that if he does it right,
85. 3:51he might just make it. What Iran does
86. 3:54next takes more courage than most humans
87. 3:57will ever need in a lifetime. He twists
88. 3:59his body against his trapped arm, using
89. 4:02his own body weight as leverage until he
90. 4:04feels his radius and ulna snap. both
91. 4:07bones broken by hand. Then he picks up
92. 4:11the dull 2-in blade on his cheap
93. 4:13multi-tool and he starts cutting. It
94. 4:15takes one full hour. He cuts through
95. 4:18muscle, through tendons. He uses the
96. 4:21pliers on the multi-tool for the parts
97. 4:23the blade can't handle. He saves the
98. 4:25main arteries until last to control the
99. 4:28bleeding, and then he's free. Most
100. 4:31people would collapse. Aaron Rston
101. 4:34repels down a 65- ft sheer cliff face,
102. 4:37one armed, still bleeding in the desert
103. 4:40heat. Then he hikes six miles through
104. 4:43canyon terrain with a tourniquet made
105. 4:46from a camel back tube and a stump where
106. 4:48his right hand used to be. After 6
107. 4:51miles, he runs into a family, a Dutch
108. 4:54couple on vacation with their son. They
109. 4:56give him food and water, and they run
110. 4:59for help. A rescue helicopter spots him
111. 5:024 hours after the amputation. By the
112. 5:05time he reaches the hospital, he has
113. 5:07lost 40 lbs and 25% of his total blood
114. 5:11volume, his severed hand and forearm are
115. 5:14still under the boulder. 3 days later,
116. 5:1613 rangers go back to retrieve them with
117. 5:19a winch and a hydraulic jack. Aaron
118. 5:22Rston didn't just survive. He went back
119. 5:25to climbing. The following years, he
120. 5:27became the first person to solo climb
121. 5:30every single one of Colorado's 54 peaks
122. 5:33over 14,000 ft in winter with a
123. 5:37prosthetic arm. He wrote a book called
124. 5:39Between a Rock and a Hard Place. It
125. 5:42became a film called 127 Hours. The
126. 5:46amputation scene was so realistic,
127. 5:48multiple people in cinemas fainted
128. 5:50during screenings. Here's what gets me
129. 5:53about this story. Aaron said later that
130. 5:56the timing of his amputation was almost
131. 5:58impossibly precise. If he had cut his
132. 6:01arm off a day earlier, he would have
133. 6:03bled to death before anyone found him.
134. 6:06If he had waited another day, he would
135. 6:08have died in that canyon. He did it at
136. 6:10almost exactly the only moment it could
137. 6:13have worked. One man, one canyon, one
138. 6:17$15 tool, and 127 hours that changed his
139. 6:21life forever. If this hit different,
140. 6:24like and subscribe. New videos every
141. 6:27week. And the next time you think your
142. 6:29day is bad, just remember Aaron Rston,
143. 6:32who broke his own bones, cut off his own
144. 6:35arm, and then went for a sixmile hike.
145. 6:38>> My name's Aaron Rston.
146. 6:42My parents are down on Larry Rston of
147. 6:44Englewood, Colorado.