Being Aron Ralston, Amputee Mountaineer | The New York Times — Transcript

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1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:08you're never more grateful for being
3. 0:09alive than after you've just almost
4. 0:13died and I was I was dead I wasn't just
5. 0:16almost dead I was dead for 6
6. 0:18days there is a sense um in my life that
7. 0:22this will be part of my life forever and
8. 0:24ever yeah I'm the guy who cut his arm
9. 0:27off
10. 0:30in 2003 his story made national
11. 0:33headlines a solo hiker trapped by a
12. 0:36canyon Boulder forced to take drastic
13. 0:39measures to free
14. 0:41himself there's a burden to feel that
15. 0:43that I feel hey here's the privilege of
16. 0:45having your
17. 0:46life you know so now what do I
18. 0:52do 6 years later 33-year-old Aaron
19. 0:55Ralston struggles to answer that
20. 0:56question carefully get myself into a
21. 0:59position where I'm grabbing onto one of
22. 1:01the sides of the boulder the back of the
23. 1:03Boulder and I can work my my legs down
24. 1:05first until I'm then it was not the way
25. 1:08he intended to find
26. 1:14Fame windy day in
27. 1:18February instead in his early 20s
28. 1:20Ralston hoped to become the first to
29. 1:22climb all of Colorado's 14,000 ft Peaks
30. 1:25solo during
31. 1:27winter it was experience of risk for the
32. 1:30sake of self-discovery I had this these
33. 1:33insecurities of of uh really if I was
34. 1:36adequate enough if I was good enough if
35. 1:37I was good at
36. 1:39anything and then in order to feel
37. 1:41something I had to be in riskier
38. 1:49environments but a solo hike begun in
39. 1:51blue John Canyon Utah in April of 2003
40. 1:54presented minimal risks save for one
41. 1:57nearly fatal decision
42. 2:00as I went out there I made a choice not
43. 2:02only to be by myself but uh I didn't
44. 2:04tell anyone where I was going alone in a
45. 2:07remote part of the canyon the boulder he
46. 2:10was climbing became loose the boulder
47. 2:12ricocheted between the walls and it ins
48. 2:15snared my my right hand and then settled
49. 2:18between the walls again so that I became
50. 2:20trapped my arm was crushed flat for
51. 2:24about the the last 8 to 9
52. 2:27in we always make choices of what we
53. 2:30want in our lives so for some reason I
54. 2:32had wanted that experience what would I
55. 2:35do if I were in a situation where my
56. 2:36life was on the line oh you really
57. 2:38wanted to know well here you're going to
58. 2:40find out
59. 2:41Aaron remarkably he documented the hours
60. 2:44and days that followed using his digital
61. 2:47[Music]
62. 2:52camera I spent six days there uh trapped
63. 2:56until finally I had an epiphany of how I
64. 3:00could get myself free by first breaking
65. 3:02the bones in my arm and then using the
66. 3:05the knife that I had to cut through the
67. 3:06soft tissues and
68. 3:08and extract myself media attention was
69. 3:12instantaneous but privately the
70. 3:1427-year-old grappled with the meaning of
71. 3:16his
72. 3:18survival you imagine like if your
73. 3:20grandmother gives you a sweater for
74. 3:22Christmas that like that you feel a
75. 3:24little bit of pressure to make sure you
76. 3:25wear it so like imagine like the gift of
77. 3:27having your life like I feel a little
78. 3:30bit of
79. 3:31pressure how has that changed you and
80. 3:34how have you accepted that you were
81. 3:35going to continue to live the Wilderness
82. 3:38gave me a gift of my life it's given us
83. 3:41all a gift of this story of Courage six
84. 3:43years later he is both blessed by and
85. 3:45beholden to the notoriety he works
86. 3:48fulltime as a motivational speaker and
87. 3:50his 2004 book has been optioned for film
88. 3:53I'm so glad to meet you to meet I work
89. 3:55with being accepting that this is my
90. 3:58life you're very inspiring to
91. 4:01me and yet I also have conversations
92. 4:04with my girlfriend about what is my life
93. 4:06outside of
94. 4:08that all right
95. 4:11climbing I still have an element of uh
96. 4:14of Adventure and exploration and
97. 4:16Discovery in my life but I also
98. 4:18understand that that there's a a a
99. 4:20fullness and a wholeness that's here and
100. 4:22this aliveness that comes more from
101. 4:24being more
102. 4:26open um not needing to feel so extreme
103. 4:31and still questions of identity
104. 4:33persist even years later people feel
105. 4:37that like why are we paying attention to
106. 4:39him why like why are we celebrating this
107. 4:42this guy who kind of was an idiot and
108. 4:45made a big mistake and to isn't that
109. 4:47talented of a climber and and all the
110. 4:49rest of this and and I'm just like yeah
111. 4:51totally tell me when you figure it out
112. 4:52cuz I'd like to
113. 4:55know okay see
114. 4:59[Music]