OT. Why to not climb mountains..

Kismet

Kismet

Joined
Jan 30, 2002
Messages
7,269
or...."What an endorsement opportunity!!!!"

NBC NEWS AND NEWS SERVICES
MOAB, Utah, May 2 — Pinned by a boulder for five days and having run out of water, a climber amputated his own arm with a pocket knife, rappelled down a cliff and walked until rescuers found him.
‘I’ve never seen anybody who has the will to live and is as much of a warrior as Aron is, and I’ve been doing this for 25 years.’
— STEVE SWANKE Park ranger

ARON RALSTON, 27, of Aspen, Colo., was in serious condition Friday at a hospital in Grand Junction, Colo., following the ordeal Thursday.
Ralston was climbing Saturday in Blue John Canyon, adjacent to Canyonlands National Park in far southwestern Utah, when a 1,000-pound boulder fell on him, pinning his right arm, authorities said.
Initial reports said the boulder might have weighed 200 pounds, but rescuers who later went to the site said it weighed closer to 1,000 pounds.

‘NO OTHER OPTION’
Sheriff’s Sgt. Mitch Vetere told NBC’s “Today” show that the team that went to the site concluded “he had no other option” but to cut off his arm because the air-based search team “wouldn’t have seen him from the air.”

Ralson was able to tell rescuers that he ran out of water on Tuesday, and on Thursday morning decided that his survival required drastic action.
Using his pocketknife, he amputated his arm below the elbow and applied a tourniquet and administered first aid.
He then rigged anchors, fixed a rope and rappelled 75 feet to the canyon floor.
He hiked downstream and was spotted about 3 p.m. by a Utah Public Safety Helicopter.
The search for Ralston had begun the same morning, after authorities were notified he was four days overdue reporting for work.
Vetere, who led the air search, spotted Ralston with two hikers near a trail head. Ralston was then loaded into a helicopter for the 12-minute flight to a hospital.
Ralston was “thoroughly exhausted,” Vetere said. “The only thing he wanted was water.”

‘HE IS A WARRIOR’
Ralson walked into the emergency room on his own.
“I’ve never seen anybody who has the will to live and is as much of a warrior as Aron is, and I’ve been doing this for 25 years,” said park ranger Steve Swanke, who was with Ralston in the emergency room. “He is a warrior period.”
Ralston’s expeditions have been known to trigger awe, said Brion After, manager of the Ute Mountaineering store in Aspen where Ralston works. After said Ralston has climbed 49 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot-plus mountains.
“To be honest, sometimes we get pretty scared with some of the things he’s doing,” After said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
 
Not to be grusome, but for the sake of a Worst Case Scenario;

I wonder if one might be able to incise the skin around the arm
at the furthest point reachable in order to 'de-glove' the lower arm
and slip the hand out from under the boulder.

Of course if the trapped part (bone especially) of the arm were
crushed rather than simply trapped, 'de-gloving' might not work
in any case.

Then too, a "simple" amputation might be much less painful.

Makes me wonder about old (pre-anesthesia) stories
(civil war I think, maybe WW also)
of doctors successfully performing amputations at great speed,
but finding the patient had died from the pain.

Was the climber's arm numbed from pain, cold, ???;
or were those stories I recall exaggerated?

I suppose a tourniquet would numb the area beyond fairly quickly.

Hmmm.

He should have had a 20"AK for boulder prying.
 
He's a hardcore guy, that's for sure.

Stephen King wrote a story along those lines a while back, about a surgeon trapped on a barren desert island, with no food except a suitcase full of heroin. How far are you willing to go to survive?
 
He had to have tried pulling it out, and if he was willing to cut it off, he was certainly willing to drag the mess out from the boulder if possible. It twer not possible. I wonder how much feeling he had in his arm after being stuck for a couple days anyway?

I'd be thinking things like, "now, dont' cut that- looks like I could use that later. And that stringy thing there? Could be a tendon, better leave as much of that as possible...."

The bone had to be a real trial of guts.
But you know, starving to death aint no fun either.

If only he'd had a khukuri...


munk
 
Good story, Kis! A bit Grizzly, but it bears noting.(oh, the puns are here...)

Proof that the sum of man is greater than his components.

mPiSi--I thing I'd eat the briefcase. then my clothes. then Dirt. Then my arm. Heroin is just a different death sentence.

Keith
 
Hey ddean, thanks for not being gruesome!:rolleyes:

Like munk, I'd think that the guy must have tried pulling even to the extent that something would get torn off. Also, loss of a big chunk of skin all the way to fat, muscle, and bone is no small matter, that might have been less survivable than the amputation.
 
Originally posted by munk
I'd be thinking things like, "now, dont' cut that- looks like I could use that later. And that stringy thing there? Could be a tendon, better leave as much of that as possible...."
Click to expand...

:D

I tried to burn off a wart with a soldering iron a few years ago. Couldn't bring myself to do it. But then there are other, less painful ways to get rid of warts.
 
Ferrous - That's the story ("Survivor Type", from the Skeleton Crew collection of short stories), the guy breaks his ankle chasing a bird, it gets gangerous and he amputates with the heroin as anesthetic. Then gets nastier from there. He was washed up naked IIRC, and he never said anything about the suitcase so it must have been plastic. A good story of survival and descent into madness...

Scot, off to find a crowbar and maybe a block and tackle to add to his hiking pack...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top