Aron Ralston recounts trapped arm ordeal

The man who had to cut off an arm to free himself from a boulder that pinned him in a Utah canyon eight years ago described the ordeal in detail last night at the University of Missouri.

Aron Ralston was soft-spoken and matter-of-fact about the whole thing, even finding ways to get laughs from the audience between cringes. At the end of the 90-minute talk at Jesse Auditorium, MU freshmen Brittany Johnston and Grace McGrath left inspired and a little teary-eyed.

“I thought I was having a bad day,” McGrath said.

Ralston’s story has been documented in his autobiography, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place,” and was the inspiration for the 2010 film “127 Hours.”

The ordeal started in late April 2003 when Ralston was biking and hiking in southeastern Utah. After meeting up with two friends, he left them to go climb the narrow passages of Blue John Canyon.

The fateful moment came when he tried to scurry over a boulder and the 800-pound rock shifted, pinning his arm between it and a canyon wall.

Ralston compared the snapping sensations he felt to crushing your fingers in a car door. He was overwhelmed with pulsing sensations.

“I was freaking out,” he said, describing his feelings of fury.

He shouted for help to no avail. For about 15 hours, he tried to chip away at the rock. Ralston, who has a degree in mechanical engineering, tried to create a pulley system to lift the rock, but that didn’t work, either.

Ralston knew he hadn’t told anyone where he was going. “I was standing in my grave,” he said.

Amputation crossed his mind, but it was at the “bottom of my option list.” He feared bleeding to death if he attempted it, but by Thursday, out of water for two days, Ralston was ready to take the chance.

After making a tourniquet, he began hacking at his arm, using the knife as a dagger instead of a saw because it was too dull to cut. When he hit bone and realized it was no longer working, “I knew I was going to die. There was no option left.”

Ralston said he gave up control, etched his initials and APR 03 to signify his month and year of death, and felt at peace.

“But a funny thing happened on the way to my grave,” Ralston said.

Sometime during the night, sleep-deprived, delirious and shivering with cold, Ralston said he had an out-of-body experience and saw a vision of a hallway, a living room and a boy playing. In a flash, the scene was gone. Instead of a will to live, Ralston said, he felt a will to love. And then he realized April — his presumed month of death — had passed into May.

With a new sense of hope, Ralston realized he could break his bones, a realization he described as euphoria. Using his feet to push, he broke them and was able to free himself.

Stepping away, he said, was a moment of ecstasy.

“Most guys don’t know what it feels like to give birth,” he said. “I think this is on par.”

Ralston then rappelled out of the canyon and hiked out of the desert, meeting a family who helped him get to a rescue helicopter that had been searching for him.

Today, Ralston and his wife, Jessica, have a 19-month-old son, Leo. For him, Ralston said, “I would cut my other hand off. I’m sure you have someone in your lives you would do that for.”