Trapped: Aron Ralston — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:19It's April 26th, 2003,
2. 0:22a man named Aron Ralston is canyoneering in Bluejohn Canyon, Utah.
3. 0:27As an experienced outdoorsman, Aron
4. 0:29believed that this was just another trail he knew inside and out.
5. 0:32That all changed when, by a stroke of terrible luck,
6. 0:36he stepped on a loose rock and fell into the canyon.
7. 0:39Trapping him in the middle of the desert with more than 50 miles between him
8. 0:43and civilization
9. 0:54Ralston's harrowing experience begins when he arrives at the Canyonlands National Park
10. 0:58on April 25th, just a day before the incident.
11. 1:02He came by a day early to explore the ravines
12. 1:06These ravines could at times be 30 meters deep and less than one meter wide
13. 1:10Before he left, he didn't tell anyone where he was going or how long he'd be gone
14. 1:15because he didn't feel as though he had the need to
15. 1:17He thought the hike would be an easy one and he'd be back within the day
16. 1:22The night before the hike, Ralston parks his car here and then
17. 1:25slept in it for the night so that he could wake up the next day
18. 1:28and immediately start hiking
19. 1:34By 9:15 the next morning, Ralston began biking to the Bluejohn Canyon,
20. 1:38one of the places he was planning to explore
21. 1:41He took only enough food and water to last him a few hours
22. 1:44because he was not expecting this to be
23. 1:46a long trip but rather planning on returning to his truck later that night
24. 1:51When he reached the canyon's opening he locked his bike and started making his
25. 1:55way across on foot
26. 2:02At around 2:45, only five hours after he left,
27. 2:05Ralston's hike changed entirely during his walk he stepped on a loose boulder
28. 2:10and fell down to the floor of the canyon, which was only about a two foot drop
29. 2:14in falling but Ralston had gotten his arm stuck
30. 2:17between an 800-pound boulder and the wall of the canyon.
31. 2:21In a panic, Ralston tried pulling his arm out but with no success
32. 2:25After somewhat calming down Ralston laid out his options,
33. 2:291. He had no way of signaling for help
34. 2:312. He was 30 meters below surface level
35. 2:333. 20 miles to the nearest paved road
36. 2:364. He hadn't told anyone where he was going either, it would take at least a few days
37. 2:40for people to notice that he was missing so ralston's focus was on surviving
38. 2:44until that time so that someone could find him
39. 2:47Second, he barely had bought any food, he had two burritos
40. 2:51one bottle of water, and some small candy bars
41. 2:54Third was the issue of getting his arm out, there was only a few ways to free
42. 2:58his arm, he could either chip away the boulder,
43. 3:00using the pocket knife that he had brought with him,
44. 3:03attempt to move the 800-pound boulder on his own or lastly,
45. 3:07cut his arm off
46. 3:14Ralston spent the whole night chipping away at the boulder.
47. 3:17Little by little, he did his best to cut away the rock that was trapping his arm
48. 3:21After around 15 hours of chipping away at it, he realized that there was no way
49. 3:26he could cut enough rock to free his arm,
50. 3:28with this realization, Ralston turned his attention to the second option
51. 3:33moving the boulder off of his arm, he made a makeshift pulley system using a
52. 3:37rope that he had brought with him but with only the strength of his one
53. 3:41free arm against an 800-pound boulder the situation did not change and he
54. 3:45remained trapped.
55. 3:48Ralston's physical health had also begun
56. 3:50to deteriorate as his body temperature became
57. 3:52unpredictable due to dehydration.
58. 4:04This is when Ralston started to lose hope
59. 4:13He'd been running low on food and water and started recording videos on his
60. 4:16camcorder, Ralston had the idea of cutting his arm off for a few hours now,
61. 4:21so it seemed like that was his last option.
62. 4:40The next day, after considerable thought, Ralston laid out the tools that he would
63. 4:44need to cut his arm off, he took out one of the two knives from
64. 4:48his dollar store pocket knife and tried to break the skin
65. 4:51As he says in the video he made using his camcorder, he could barely get any
66. 4:55blood to draw.
67. 5:22After another night of cold winds, anxiety, fear, and panic,
68. 5:27Ralston decided to get serious about cutting his arm and instead of trying to cut in a sawing
69. 5:32motion he decided to stab it, once he realized that the knife he was
70. 5:36using was too dull to cut through the bone of his arm,
71. 5:39he decided to put the whole amputation thing on hold
72. 5:43Ralston reasoned that he would officially go missing at midday tomorrow
73. 5:47and he believed he wouldn't make it until someone found him
74. 5:55On Wednesday, Ralston really started to confront the possibility of death.
75. 5:59He recorded himself saying goodbye to his family and friends
76. 6:02and saying his last will and testament, he claims that the majority of the day
77. 6:06was spent daydreaming about his life.
78. 6:08He recalls that sometimes his family and friends would appear
79. 6:11in front of him in the canyon
80. 6:13and he even recalls having a vision about his future child
81. 6:17On Thursday, it had been five days since Ralston initially fell into the canyon
82. 6:21and he had resorted to drinking his own urine due to the lack of water
83. 6:25He began thinking of his escape route again and realized that he didn't have
84. 6:29to cut through his bones with a dull knife that he had,
85. 6:32instead he found that the boulder was positioned so that Ralston could break
86. 6:35the bones in his arm himself and then cut through everything else.
87. 6:39That's exactly what he did
88. 6:41Audio: "It came to me, this epiphany
89. 6:43that I could break... that I could break the bones
90. 6:45because my arm was caught so tightly that I could torque myself
91. 6:49He would have to snap both of the bones in his arm to make it work"
92. 6:53It took him over an hour to finish the job
93. 7:00Finally after Ralston had cut through his entire arm
94. 7:03including arteries, nerves, and tendons, he staggered backwards,
95. 7:07hitting the wall behind him.
96. 7:09This was a pivotal moment for him
97. 7:11as he described the moment as a rebirth but with the mind of a grown man
98. 7:16Audio: "And then boom, and i wasn't even attached anymore
99. 7:19and I fell down like this and I
100. 7:26I was free"
101. 7:31Now that Ralston had freed himself from
102. 7:33the boulder he was tasked with hiking out of the canyon and walking all the
103. 7:37way back to his truck, some eight miles from his current location.
104. 7:41With one hand losing blood, Ralston pulled himself out of the canyon,
105. 7:45climbed down a 65-foot cliff, and walked six miles until a family who
106. 7:49was hiking found him in notified authorities.
107. 7:53Medics reached Ralston by helicopter 4 hours after the amputation.
108. 7:57If they had waited any longer, Ralston would have died due to blood loss
109. 8:06After one of the most harrowing experiences known to man,
110. 8:09Aron Ralston can now live his life as he intended.
111. 8:12He is now a motivational speaker and an engineer, and he's also written an
112. 8:16autobiography called 'Between a Rock and a Hard Place'.
113. 8:20His story has also sparked interest around the world making his book a bestseller
114. 8:24and even adapting it to a hit film
115. 8:26called '127 hours'