Explorers travelled to scene where trapped mountaineer faced choice of cutting own arm off or death
Explorers travelled to the spot where mountaineer Aron Ralston was faced with the grim choice to cut off his own arm after it became pinned under a rock or die.
You might have seen the film 127 Hours, directed by Danny Boyle, which tells the story of how Ralston was himself exploring the canyons of Utah when a rock crushed his right arm and he could not free himself.
The man himself has said the film is 'so factually accurate it is as close to a documentary as you can get and still be a drama', so if you've seen it then you'll know that after spending the titular length of time pinned in a canyon he had to cut his own arm off.
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Just as the film shows, Ralston had to break his own arm and then cut it off with a blunted pocket knife which must surely have been excruciatingly painful.
He is then able to make it out of the canyon and make contact with people who are able to get him rescued.
The real Ralston continued his mountaineering and became the first person to climb every mountain in Colorado that is higher than 14,000ft in winter.
Having not told anyone where he was going in Utah and having no way to call for help, amputating his own arm really was a life or death decision for Ralston along with a harsh lesson in why people going exploring should make sure someone knows where they went.
A group of explorers retraced Ralston's journey and found the canyon in which he'd been trapped, as well as the rock that would have killed him had he not cut off his arm.
YouTube explorers TSFTC are normally based out of Vermont but they travelled to Utah to find the rock, where they found that it had moved from the original position it was once in.
Having set out to stand where Aron Ralston stood they'd accomplished their goal while also demonstrating what a maze the canyons could be.
Part of the reason why the rock has moved is because a team went out to recover Ralston's arm that was left trapped by it.
It took significant effort from a team of people and power tools to move the rock, demonstrating that Ralston would not have been able to shift it by himself.
Once they were able to move the rock a bit they were able to free Ralston's arm, which was then cremated and the ashes sent to him.
Ralston himself returned to the scene to spread the ashes of his amputated arm, while the rock is still wedged in place between the two walls of the canyon.
Joe Harker