Die or Amputate Your Arm: Canyonlands National Park

In 2003, Aron Ralston became trapped beneath an 800-pound boulder in Utah's Blue John Canyon after setting out alone without telling anyone where he was going. After 127 hours with no hope of rescue, he faced an unimaginable choice: die in the canyon or amputate his own arm to survive. COME SEE US ON TOUR! For a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodes For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials: Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdark Support the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page! Thank you to this week’s partners! KA'CHAVA: Go to https://kachava.com and use code NPAD for 15% off your first order. ALLOY HEATH: Try the original estrogen-powered M4 skincare from Alloy. Visit Online Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) | Menopause Treatment - Alloy and use code NPAD for $20 off your first order! IQ BAR: Text PARK to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products, plus FREE shipping. Message and data rates may apply. ECOEXPLORERCO: Order now at EcoExplorerCo.com and use code NPAD during check out for a discount. Stay curious, Eco Explorers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  Before you head into the backcountry, there's one piece of advice you'll hear over and over again. Tell someone where you're going. Maybe you're only planning to be gone for a few hours. Maybe you've hiked dozens of trails alone and never had a problem. Maybe you'll figure you'll have cell service, or you'll just text someone when you're done. It's easy to convince yourself that nothing is going to happen and that advice is unnecessary. But the wilderness doesn't care how experienced you are, how prepared you feel, or how many times you've done the same thing before. A twisted ankle, a flash flood, a falling tree, a wrong turn, a single loose boulder can turn an ordinary day outside

• 1:46Cassandra Yahnian?

  into a fight for your life in a matter of seconds. And when that happens, one question suddenly becomes more important than anything else. Does anyone know where to find me? For Aaron Ralston, that question became all too real. Like countless outdoor enthusiasts before him, he set out alone expecting nothing more than a day of adventure. He drove into the Utah desert without telling a single person exactly where he planned to go. By the end of the day, that seemingly small decision would become one of the most consequential of his life. Aaron endured one of the most extraordinary survival ordeals in modern history. Alone beneath nearly 800 pounds of sandstone

• 2:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  and almost no food, almost no water, and no way to call for help, he was eventually forced to make a decision impossible to imagine. Die or cut off his own arm to survive. Welcome to National Park After Dark.

• 3:05Danielle LaRock?

  Hello, everyone, and welcome back to National Park After Dark. I'm Danielle.

• 3:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  And I'm Cassie. And I just realized my headphones are plugged into the wrong place. So I'm going to fix that real quick before we continue.

• 3:16Danielle LaRock?

  Okay.

• 3:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  And I do this for a job. God, that's so much better. I could barely hear myself. Amazing. And we're going on tour, so you can see this live.

• 3:24Danielle LaRock?

  You can see a struggle in real time.

• 3:28Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 3:28Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, we're so excited that the tour is finally happening. If you missed the announcements over the last episode or two, or if you're not a newsletter subscriber or a Patreon member, you, you know, get with it. We're going on tour. We're going to seven cities.

• 3:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. Crazy. So cool. So exciting.

• 3:49Danielle LaRock?

  Really excited for, I'm excited for all of them, but just selfishly, because I've never been to San Francisco before, I'm really looking forward to that stop.

• 4:00Cassandra Yahnian?

  I'm excited. I have been to San Francisco, but it was a long time ago and I wasn't there very long. And I think while we were there, we should go to Alcatraz.

• 4:07Danielle LaRock?

  Oh, for sure.

• 4:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 4:08Danielle LaRock?

  I think we definitely, and it's, I think it's the finale of the tour.

• 4:12Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 4:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  The donkey at my house is really excited right now.

• 4:21Danielle LaRock?

  He's coming too.

• 4:22Cassandra Yahnian?

  Anyway.

• 4:23Danielle LaRock?

  Well, yeah, so come see us. It'll be really fun. And Cassie today is doing an episode that, dare I say, I thought we'd never get to.

• 4:33Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. You know, I think for this episode, it was one where it was like, you know, it's really well known. There's a movie about it. Everyone's heard about it. However, and this is a story I've known for a long time too. And someone recommended it recently and I was like, do we want to do this story? And Aaron Ralston's story, the first time I ever heard of it was actually when I was working in outdoor education. And we used it as an example of why it's always important to tell someone where you are going and what could happen and go wrong if you don't. But recently I read his book, his memoir. It's called Between a Rock and a Hard Place for the First Time. And I thought I knew his story because I had seen the movie. I'd heard about it. But I really didn't know the full scope of it

• 5:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  until I read his memoir, which is really good. And I totally recommend, even if you're listening to this episode, even if you've seen the movie, you should read it because he tells you everything he was thinking throughout this whole process. And he also really dives deep into what his family was doing during this time when they started realizing he was missing, which is something that I'm not going to focus on too much today just because I think his time in the canyon is the most important. So if you want to see like that side of it too, the book is really, really interesting. And I think people should read it. But it is a great story to remind you why you should always tell someone where you are when you are in the outdoors.

• 5:59Danielle LaRock?

  I'm looking forward to it because I have not read his memoir. And I've seen the movie once when it first came out, like over a decade ago. I'm always curious about how the person who actually experienced an event like that feels about a movie that was adapted from their experience. You know, like I wonder what he thought of. It's James Franco, right?

• 6:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 6:24Danielle LaRock?

  James Franco's performance and like the filmmaker's interpretation of the events and if he had any say in it or what? I don't know how any of that works, but.

• 6:32Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, me either. I think with any movie, you know, it's going to be different than the book because the book can cover so much more than the movie. And I think what's really interesting about this movie is that a lot of times when you're watching a movie, there's action and there's places and there's people. And for this one, there's one person, one place, and he's stuck right there. So I think, and I didn't watch the whole thing, but I think that they probably did a pretty good job with what they were able to create a movie out of. And the donkey agrees.

• 7:04Danielle LaRock?

  Great. Well, let's get to it. They're like, let's go. Okay. I feel like we've talked far too long.

• 7:09Cassandra Yahnian?

  Far too long. Let's get into the story. So let's start at the beginning because if you want to understand Aaron's decisions, we kind of have to know who he was prior to this event. Aaron Lee Ralston was born on October 27th, 1975 in Marion, Ohio. When he was 12 years old, his family relocated to Englewood, Colorado, where he quickly fell in love with the Rocky Mountains. He learned to ski, backpack, climb, and spent most of his time outdoors. As a teenager, friends nicknamed him Animal because he approached every challenge with relentless energy and determination. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University with degrees in mechanical engineering and French,

• 7:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  Aaron took a job as a mechanical engineer for Intel in Phoenix, Arizona. But the mountains were always on his mind. He spent nearly every vacation hiking, climbing, and backpacking across the American West, gradually realizing that adventure was more than just a hobby and he wanted to prioritize it in his life. So in 2002, he left his engineering career, moved to Aspen, Colorado, and structured his life around climbing. By the spring of 2003, 27-year-old Aaron had already climbed every one of Colorado's 59 14,000 footer peaks. Next, he had his sights set on becoming the first person to solo all 59 of Colorado's 14ers during the winter.

• 8:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  At this time, he had already completed 47 of them. So he was very much working on these at the time of the story. Just a year earlier, he had joined a team of elite adventure racers to Summit Denali, North America's tallest mountain, which we know, and returned a second time to climb it with friends. In 1998, a few years before that, he and several friends had also completed an exhausting rim-to-rim-to-rim crossing of the Grand Canyon in just two days, descending from the south rim to the north rim before turning around and doing it all over again. All this to say, he's very much integrated into the outdoor world and he recreates out

• 9:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  there a lot. However, his experience extended beyond his own recreation. While living in New Mexico, Aaron volunteered with the Albuquerque Mountain Rescue Council, responding to emergencies in rugged backcountry terrain. Then, after moving to Aspen, he was also in the process of becoming a member of their search and rescue team. He understood firsthand how difficult it could be to locate an injured climber in the remote backcountry and knew the importance of leaving an itinerary before heading out into the wilderness, especially alone. Ironically, despite all of that experience and his background in search and rescue,

• 9:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  he made one critical mistake before leaving for a trip in Utah. He never told anyone exactly where he was going. So, let's go into how this trip began. On April 26, 2003, Aaron drove to Canyonlands National Park for a solo canyoneering trip in Utah's Blue John Canyon. This trip hadn't been part of his original plan. Aaron had intended to spend his five days off ski mountaineering in Colorado's backcountry with friends, but unstable snowpack and dangerous avalanche conditions forced them to abandon that plan. So instead, Aaron loaded his truck with climbing gear and mountain biking equipment and headed south to Utah, where the desert had a lot more opportunities. He's like, there's no

• 10:41Cassandra Yahnian?

  snow, there's no avalanche conditions here, let's go over here. Aaron wanted to explore a route he had found in one of his favorite guidebooks called Canyon Hiking on the Colorado Plateau by Michael R. Kelsey. The guide described a roughly 30-mile loop that combined mountain biking with technical canyoneering through Blue John Canyon, a remote slot canyon carved into the Cedar Mesa sandstone over millions of years by powerful flash floods. Although Blue John Canyon borders Canyonlands National Park, it is not technically part of the park. I just want to say that. The canyon lies on the Bureau of Land Management land just beyond the park boundaries, but to reach it, this is where Canyonlands links in, to reach

• 11:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  this part, Aaron would have to park at Horseshoe Canyon Trailhead in the Horseshoe Canyon Unit of Canyonlands National Park, mountain bike several miles across the open desert that is within the park, then leave his bike behind and continue on foot through a maze of sandstone slot canyons before eventually looping back to get his bike and then biking back through Canyonlands. So, Blue John Canyon where he's going is not in the park, however, to get there, he has to adventure through the park.

• 11:57Danielle LaRock?

  It counts.

• 11:58Cassandra Yahnian?

  So, it's like, totally counts. It counts so much, but I just wanted to say that, just in case.

• 12:05Danielle LaRock?

  Who hurt you, Cassie? You're like, I promise.

• 12:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  I promise. I promise. Now, people, I feel like, say it as jokes. They're like, this isn't national forest after dark, Cassie. I'm like, I'm sorry.

• 12:18Danielle LaRock?

  As long as there's a national word in it.

• 12:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  We don't care if it's part of the...

• 12:21Danielle LaRock?

  We're taking it.

• 12:22Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yes. Yeah. It just has to say national.

• 12:24Danielle LaRock?

  We care a little bit, but...

• 12:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  We do care. I mean, clearly, I just outlined that so hard for no reason.

• 12:31Danielle LaRock?

  It is nice to know, though. It is nice to know, and yeah, because I wasn't aware that he was, had anything to do with a park during this entire thing. I guess I don't know much about the story at all, other than the...

• 12:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  Cutting his arm off.

• 12:46Danielle LaRock?

  The whole, that part, yeah.

• 12:48Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot. I didn't know much about him until I read his memoir.

• 12:52Danielle LaRock?

  Because if I'm not mistaken, it feels like, again, in the movie, it just kind of made it seem like he just like showed up and was like, oh, this feels fun. I'm gonna go do this. Like, I...

• 13:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 13:05Danielle LaRock?

  I don't know, it just felt like it didn't portray or convey the fact that he was such an experienced outdoorsman prior to this incident.

• 13:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  I agree. And I think that's super important. And I never had any idea that he was part of search and rescue.

• 13:21Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 13:22Cassandra Yahnian?

  Which adds a whole nother element to it, because search and rescue personnel really know what it takes to rescue someone in dire situations, and they have medical training, and it just adds a whole nother layer to his actual experience in the canyon. So, with this plan to mountain bike and then hike into the canyon, he did this on Saturday, April 26, after parking at the trailhead. Aaron unloaded his mountain bike, clipped on his helmet, and began pedaling across the desert towards Blue John Canyon. Strong winds blew directly into him, making for slow progress, but he wasn't in any hurry. As he rode, his thoughts drifted to a party he planned to attend later that evening at

• 14:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  Goblin Valley State Park. The night before, while shopping in Moab, Aaron had thought about calling his friends to let him know that he planned to come to this party, but it was late at night and he didn't want to wake anyone, so he decided that he'd just show up and didn't let them know his plans or let them know that he was officially coming. That decision would become a critical mistake in the days ahead. As he pedaled deeper into the desert, Aaron carried far more gear than he normally would. Blue John Canyon is a technical canyoneering route, so his pack weighed roughly 25 pounds. Inside were a climbing rope, harness, carabiners, webbing, a rappel device, and a multi-tool, along with a gallon

• 14:47Cassandra Yahnian?

  of water, five chocolate bars, a chocolate muffin, two bean burritos, a headlamp, extra batteries, and enough supplies for what he expected would be a full day in the canyon. I also love people's food choices. It's like, what's your go-to snack? And it's like, bean burritos. Two bean burritos.

• 15:06Danielle LaRock?

  With a side of chocolate.

• 15:07Cassandra Yahnian?

  With a side of chocolate. Honestly, that kind of slaps.

• 15:11Danielle LaRock?

  That's what I feel like would be in your pack.

• 15:14Cassandra Yahnian?

  I would do that in my pack, for sure.

• 15:16Danielle LaRock?

  Yep.

• 15:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  I mean, there's like sustenance, there's protein, there's sweets.

• 15:20Danielle LaRock?

  There's a little treat, little muffin.

• 15:22Cassandra Yahnian?

  Little muffin. So, he packed this planning to be there for a day. Years spent exploring the desert of the Southwest had taught him how unforgiving the landscape could be, so he knew he needed to carry plenty of water, understood the dangers of heat and dehydration, and felt comfortable navigating through remote terrain. Packed alongside his climbing gear were a digital camera and camcorder with spare batteries. It's funny, because this is 2003, so if you're not aware, in 2003, you didn't have a cellphone that could record and take photos, you didn't have a camera that could take video, you had two separate things, just so everyone knows. Blue John Canyon was known for its remarkably preserved

• 16:07Cassandra Yahnian?

  ancestral plebeian petroglyphs, and Aaron hoped to photograph the ancient rock art and capture parts of the day's adventure before meeting friends that evening, so he took it along to document his day. He wore what had become his standard adventure uniform, a faded pink Phish t-shirt, wool socks, tennis shoes, biking shorts beneath beige quick-dry nylon shorts, a blue baseball cap, and sunglasses. Folded inside his pocket was a photocopy of the route from his well-worn guidebook. Eventually, Aaron reached the point where the ride ended and the hike began. Relieved to leave the relentless headwind behind, he locked his mountain bike to itself with a U-lock, tucked the key into his shorts pocket, shouldered his pack, and started hiking towards the mouth of Blue John Canyon. He slipped

• 16:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  on his headphones, pressed play on his Phish CD, and disappeared into the narrowing sandstone corridor. Before long, he came across two hikers making their way through the canyon and quickened his pace to catch them. He introduced himself and learned that the two women, Megan and Christie, worked for Outward Bound in Moab. Aaron told them he worked for Ute Mountaineering in Aspen, and the three quickly fell into conversation as they continued through the canyon together. When they reached some technical sections of the route, Aaron pulled out his webbing and helped the women down the seeper drops. He shared a few of his chocolate bars and invited them to join him later that evening in a party in Goblin Valley. They happily agreed, saying it sounded like a plan. Eventually, they

• 17:36Cassandra Yahnian?

  reached a fork in the canyon where their roots separated. Before parting ways, they agreed to meet later that afternoon at the Cranery Springs Trailhead and caravan to the party together. So, now he does have like kind of a plan with someone, but he still hasn't said exactly where he's going. It was around 2:00 PM when they said goodbye and they headed in opposite directions. Aaron pressed play on his Phish CD once again and continued deeper into Blue John Canyon. With every turn, the sandstone walls drew closer together. In some places, the canyon narrowed to only a few feet across, forcing him to twist sideways through the passage. The smooth, curving walls towered overhead,

• 18:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  carved over countless centuries by powerful flash floods. Scattered throughout the canyon were massive choke stones, which are enormous boulders that had been ripped from the canyon walls during ancient floods, and wedged high between the sandstone walls like giant corks in a bottle. So, they're just like these narrow walls, these big rocks that are just kind of stuck in these narrow passageways. They're called choke stones, and they're all over the place where he is. Reaching the bottom of the canyon often meant climbing over, under, and around them. So he has to navigate through them. Aaron made steady progress, stopping often to admire the sculpted sandstone and photograph the ancient petroglyphs etched into the rock.

• 19:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  The deeper he traveled, the quieter it became. The only sounds were his footsteps echoing off the canyon walls and the music playing through his headphones. At 2:41 PM, according to the clock on his camera, just after he had taken a photograph, Aaron reached another obstacle. Ahead of him, a massive chokestone roughly the size of a large truck tire was wedged several feet above the canyon floor. It looked solid enough, so planning to use it as a step, he climbed onto the boulder to lower himself down the other side. And for a moment, that rock held. But then it shifted. As the rock suddenly tipped beneath him, Aaron instinctively grabbed onto it, hanging

• 19:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  from the boulder as it broke free from its resting place. For a split second, both he and the chokestone were falling together through the narrow slot canyon. Aaron threw his hands above his head to protect himself as the boulder crashed downward, ricocheting between the canyon walls. It struck his left hand first, and he managed to yank it free. Then, before he could react again, the boulder slammed into his right hand, pinning it against the canyon wall at the wrist. His palm faced inward, his thumb pointed up, and his fingers were splayed across the rock. As the boulder ground to a stop, it dragged his forearm with it, tearing away skin and leaving his arm crushed beneath hundreds of pounds of sandstone. So now he's just stuck there.

• 20:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  For several long seconds, Aaron couldn't process what had just happened. He stared at the boulder in disbelief. His right arm disappeared into a narrow gap between the rock and the canyon wall, trapped so completely that he couldn't even see his hand. Pain shot through his arm as adrenaline surged through his body. Acting on instinct, he threw his weight against the boulder, desperately trying to shove it off at his arm, screaming, "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, get your hand out of here", he yelled to himself with everything that he had. For a moment, the rock seemed to shift ever so slightly, and hope surged through him that he could move it. He pushed even harder, convinced he could free himself, but the movement stopped as

• 21:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  quickly as it began, and the boulder refused to budge. Breathing heavily, Aaron forced himself to stop and take stock of the situation. Sweat poured down his forehead as the adrenaline began to settle, replaced by the realization that he wasn't getting out through brute force alone. His mouth felt dry, and instinctively, he reached for the drinking tube from his camelback, only to remember that he had actually drank in everything from his hydration bladder, and it was empty. His remaining water was in an algae bottle buried inside his backpack. With one arm pinned behind the boulder, even taking off his backpack became a challenge. After several awkward attempts, he managed to loosen the straps enough to slip out of it, retrieve the bottle, and drink deeply.

• 22:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  Before he realized it, he had consumed nearly a third of the water that he had left. He quickly screwed the cap back on, suddenly aware that every sip now mattered because he didn't know how long he was gonna be there for. As the initial shock wore off, Aaron examined his trapped arm more closely. His hand was wedged between the boulder and the canyon wall. He already had no feeling in his right hand. His thumb had turned gray, and when he compared both wrists, he realized the trapped one had been compressed to roughly a sixth of its normal thickness, and blood was no longer reaching his hand.

• 22:40Danielle LaRock?

  Sorry, this is just the worst. Yeah, the whole like, "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit" is exactly what I would do.

• 22:48Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, same. It's an immediate reaction, like, "Oh fuck, I just, this is bad."

• 22:53Danielle LaRock?

  Well, especially because I think anyone would have that reaction, right? But especially because he knows. It's like, the more you know, the more you suffer.

• 23:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 23:07Danielle LaRock?

  And the more you know how bad of a situation this is, like, every, I'm sure all of his training is coming into his mind, just the knowledge of not only how bad of a situation this is, but the probability of him being found, or rescued, or helped, or whatever, just all instantaneously, is coming out in those "oh shits." It's not just a, "This is bad." It's a, "Oh, this is, I might, this might be it," type of thing, in a split second.

• 23:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, and we definitely, I'm definitely gonna jump into his thought process, because one of the things that I think is so impressive about how he handled this, and we'll jump into it really shortly, is he has this "oh shit" moment where he's like trying to pull away, and he's trying to push the rock, and it's totally physical, his reaction of like, "Get me out of here," which I think is, would be anyone's first reaction. But then he stops and he like, sits back, and he really evaluates his situation and says, "Okay, what can I do?" And I think a lot of this probably comes back to his engineer brain, where, and his search and rescue brain, where it's like, "Okay, evaluate the situation," and engineer brain of like, "Okay, what can I do? How can I, how can I fix this problem?"

• 24:22Cassandra Yahnian?

  So that's something that I think is really impressive, and we'll get into that, of course. So, um, kinda going into that right off the bat, Aaron first tested how far he could move and quickly realized that it wasn't much. So he starts evaluating, he's like, "Where can I move?" He realizes he could stand, but he couldn't sit. So now he's stuck in a standing position, and in every direction that he tried to move, the boulder held him in a position where he could only move a couple inches. So he has almost no movement now. Then, an even more terrifying thought entered his mind, and that was, he started to think of who would know where to look for him, and in that instance, he realized that there was no one.

• 25:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  He had broken one of his most basic rules of wilderness travel by failing to tell anyone exactly where he was going or when he was expected to return. And also, at this point, his truck was eight miles away, and as far as he knew, no one would really realize he was missing. And this was actually a big variation of what he normally did when he went out, because usually when he went out on any of his adventures, he would leave a detailed itinerary actually on his countertop in his house for his roommates. So it would be like, "This is where I'm going, this is what time I'll be here, this is how long I'll be here, in case anything happened to him." And for whatever reason, this time just slipped his mind to do that.

• 25:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  So not only did he not physically, verbally tell anyone where he was gonna be, or how long he was gonna be gone, he's also realizing he didn't leave this detailed itinerary, which was also something he always did. Which is really smart, I've never written a detailed itinerary for anyone, I'm like, "Hey, here's where I'm gonna be if I die. Look for me here, if I go missing."

• 26:11Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, I don't think I've, well, when I've done my cross-country road trips and stuff like that, I've, especially in portions that I was just by myself, my mom and stepdad are like, "Can you just please, a rough ga, like, rough gauge of where you'll be on what day, and like, how far you're driving," type of thing, and especially now with having locations and stuff with my phone. And I know this was not, I mean, this was a time where that was irrelevant, that wasn't a thing, but, I don't know, I, it's hard, because it's, like you've been saying, it's

• 26:50Danielle LaRock?

  one of the golden rules of outdoor adventure, especially things that, I mean, anything can go wrong, no matter what you're doing, even if you're going on a stroll, or if you're canyoneering, but especially with more extreme type of outdoor ride.

• 27:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  There's higher risk.

• 27:07Danielle LaRock?

  There's higher risk, but it does sometimes, like, I know the counterargument to leaving detailed things is, well, there's no room for, like, spontaneity. Like, who knows where I'll be? I'm just like, going with the breeze.

• 27:24Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, and it's like a fun adventure, and not a detailed plan.

• 27:29Danielle LaRock?

  Roughly say, "I'm gonna be in this area for about this long."

• 27:33Cassandra Yahnian?

  For sure. Yeah, for sure. And that was something that he didn't do, which was very out of character for him. So he's sitting here, he's stuck, he's evaluating his situation, and he starts going through a list of people and things that he did to see if there's anybody who would realize he was missing. So he's going through it, and he's thinking, he had never called his friends to tell him that he planned to stop by the party he was invited to that evening. So if he didn't show up, they would likely assume that he had just changed his plans, and it wouldn't be a red flag. For his roommates, they probably wouldn't begin to worry until Monday, because they knew he was gone for the weekend, but they didn't know where, or what he was doing. His coworkers at Ute Mountaineer wouldn't notice that he was missing until he failed

• 28:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  to show up to work Tuesday morning, and it was currently Saturday. Even then, search and rescue teams generally waited at least 24 hours before launching a search for someone who was overdue. So at the earliest, no one would begin, he's realizing at the earliest, no one would begin searching for him until Wednesday, because if his work reported him missing on Tuesday, because it's, it would be very out of character for him to not show up to work, police would say, "Give it 24 hours." So now it's Wednesday, but no one knows where he is. So where are they gonna search? But at the very least, the search would begin in four days, but they would not know

• 29:00Cassandra Yahnian?

  where to find him, and then it would take, see how long it would take to actually find him. So he starts going through, how could people track him, how could people find him? And he's like, "Okay, my credit card statements, where could my credit, my credit card statements be?" But he only got gas at Glenwood Springs, which is pretty far away, and wouldn't indicate that he went to Moab, because when he went and got groceries, in Moab, he paid in cash. So there would be nothing linking him to Moab. So he's like, okay, now they really have a big wide range that they don't know where I could be. So all this goes through his head, but instead of panicking, he forces himself to think

• 29:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  methodically through every possible option. He considered whether he could crack open his batteries and use the chemicals from that to weaken the rock that he was stuck in. He wondered if he could chip away at the sandstone with a small multi-tool in his pack, or rig a mechanical advantage system with his climbing rope to somehow shift the boulder. Then his mind landed on one final possibility that seemed almost impossible to contemplate, and that was amputating his own arm. And he quickly was like, no, I'm not doing that. We're gonna try these other things. There's no way I could amputate my arm. So of the four options he had considered to free himself, one seemed the most realistic. If he couldn't move the boulder, perhaps he could chip away enough of the surrounding

• 30:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  rock to free his hand with his multi-tool. So Aaron pulled out his imitation Leatherman multi-tool and using his teeth unfolded the longest blade. Then he began pecking away at the sandstone. For him, it felt good to be doing something. He's like, okay, I'm not just sitting here. I'm proactively getting myself out. He was like, sitting here and dwelling on my situation isn't going to help. I really need to work at this and try and get it. So he switched to the file and the multi-tool when his blade wasn't, he didn't really want to use the blade, hoping that the file would actually wear down the rock more efficiently. Instead, he watched tiny metal shavings flake away from the tool instead, and he was just

• 31:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  ruining his multi-tool. So he's like, okay, this is actually destroying my only option, so I can't use this file. Next, he tried attacking the canyon wall instead of the chokestone, hoping he might widen the narrow gap trapping his arms. Now he's like chiseling away, trying to loosen this rock in any way he can. But the angle was awkward, and as he swung the knife towards the rock, he became dangerously close to stabbing himself. Catching the mistake just in time, he laughed at the absurdity of everything that was happening, and he said out loud, actually, he said, watch out, buddy, you're gonna cut your arm off.

• 31:48Danielle LaRock?

  Oh, foreshadowing.

• 31:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  Foreshadowing, for sure.

• 31:55Cassandra Yahnian?

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• 33:24Cassandra Yahnian?

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• 34:25Cassandra Yahnian?

  By 6:00 PM that night, Aaron had been trapped for nearly three hours. He knew chipping away at the rock wasn't working, so he tried another idea. Holding his knife against the chokestone like a wedge, he picked up a loose rock and used it as a hammer, hoping to split the sandstone apart. Instead, the hammer rock shattered after only a few blows, sending the knife skidding out of reach. To retrieve it, he pulled off his shoe and sock and carefully retrieved it with his toes. So it was like just enough to reach with his legs, but close call. Following that attempt, Aaron returned to the only strategy he had left. He gripped the knife, leaned into the rock, and resumed chipping away, one dull strike at a time.

• 35:10Cassandra Yahnian?

  Around midnight, after hours of pounding at the boulder with his multi-tool, Aaron finally saw something change. A piece of sandstone about the size of a dime broke free and tumbled to the canyon floor. Encouraged by this, he chipped away a few more small flakes, and for a brief moment, it felt like he was actually making progress. But after studying the rock more carefully, he began to do the math in his head. And remember, he's very logical brain here. He's like evaluating everything that's going on, and he does the math. And at the pace that he was doing this, he realized it would roughly take him about 150 hours to remove enough stone to free his hand. And for that, he was like, I don't think I'm gonna survive that long.

• 35:55Danielle LaRock?

  And also pending that, nothing happens. Like, the tool's still intact. He's so, you know, it's not taking in other variables that could happen. That's best case scenario.

• 36:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, yeah. And of course, 150 hours, he has limited water, he has limited food. It's like, I don't, limited energy. It's like, I don't think I can do this for 150 hours. By then, he was exhausted, but sleeping was pretty impossible. Every attempt to relax sent searing pain through his trapped arm, and as the desert temperature dropped, the cold became unbearable. He pulled his sock and shoe back on, layered up with the clothing he had packed, slipped his backpack onto his back for insulation, and wedged his camelback beneath his trapped arm in a desperate attempt to stay warm. Around 1:30 that morning, Aaron finally allowed himself the smallest sip of water,

• 36:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  because he had no idea how long he would be trapped, so he made himself a promise that from then on, he would ration his supply, taking one tiny sip every three hours.

• 37:01Danielle LaRock?

  Okay.

• 37:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's like, that is not enough, you know? But he's like, I have to ration this. I have to, I have to try and keep myself hydrated. Standing in the same position for hour after hour had become agonizing, so Aaron turned his attention to another problem. He needed some way to rest. Using the waist belt from his backpack, he fashioned a makeshift harness and began trying to suspend himself from the canyon wall above. Again and again, he tossed his climbing rope, using a knot in a carabiner as a weight, hoping it would catch in a crack overhead. Each attempt took several minutes to reset, and dozens of throws failed before one finally lodged securely between two rocks.

• 37:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  Carefully leaning back, he tested the improvised seat. It held, taking the weight off his aching legs for the first time in nearly 12 hours, which is super creative. However, the relief didn't last long. After about 20 minutes, the waist belt began cutting off circulation, forcing him to stand once again. Throughout the night, he alternated between standing and hanging in the harness, never able to get fully comfortable. Although the air temperature that night only dropped into the low 50s, the narrow sandstone walls trapped the cool air and very little sunlight reached the canyon floor. Aaron shivered uncontrollably, his teeth chattering as he waited for sunrise.

• 38:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  Even when the daylight finally arrived in the canyon around 9:30 AM, the sun never reached his entire body. Instead, a narrow beam briefly illuminated one of his calves. Stretching awkwardly to catch every bit of warmth he could, Aaron balanced on one foot before switching to the other, trying to let the sunlight warm his blood. The small comfort lasted less than 15 minutes before the sun slipped behind the canyon walls once again, leaving him back in the cold. As the hours passed, Aaron tried to think of every possible way someone might find him. He replayed the weekend over and over, searching for anything that could lead to rescuers in Blue John Canyon. He remembered telling Christie and Megan that he'd meet them back at the trailhead

• 39:10Cassandra Yahnian?

  so they could caravan to the party together, but they didn't know what his truck looked like. The realization was terrifying. Aaron had enough search and rescue training to know exactly how dehydration would kill him. He pictured the muscle cramps, convulsions, and eventually kidney failure. Then his mind drifted to other possibilities. Maybe hypothermia would be kinder. Maybe a flash flood would roar through the canyon and knock him unconscious before he ever knew what happened. The next morning, Aaron turned to another plan. As a mechanical engineer, he approached the problem like a puzzle, rigging increasingly elaborate hauling systems from his climbing ropes, webbing, and carabiners. He spent hours building anchors and pulley systems designed to multiply his strength,

• 39:55Cassandra Yahnian?

  even constructing a Z-Drag rescue system commonly used to raise injured climbers. Each attempt ended the same way. He pulled with everything he had, bouncing his full weight against the rope, but the 800-pound boulder never moved, not even a fraction of an inch. As each plan failed, the reality of his situation became harder to ignore. His trapped hand had turned gray and lifeless, and when he accidentally scraped it against the rock, dead tissue peeled away without causing any pain. He realized his hand was beyond saving. For the first time, Aaron seriously considered amputating his own arm. His longer knife blade had already been dulled from chipping away at the sandstone,

• 40:39Cassandra Yahnian?

  making it useless for something so extreme. He set aside a shorter, sharper blade and even experimented with using the tubing from his camelback as a makeshift tourniquet, but there was still one impossible obstacle he couldn't solve. Even if he could cut through his own flesh, he had no way to cut through the bones in his forearm.

• 41:00Danielle LaRock?

  That's what I was thinking this whole time. That's what I was thinking this entire time.

• 41:05Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's like, sure, I could cut my skin, some tendons and stuff with this knife, but what am I going to do with this bone? I mean, in surgical situations, they use full-on saws.

• 41:14Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 41:15Cassandra Yahnian?

  I mean, we've been part of amputations for dogs, for legs, and it is a really intense surgery and there are some heavy-duty tools involved.

• 41:27Danielle LaRock?

  Yes, indeed. And I was also thinking about the episode I did about the guy who got his leg stuck in Australia.

• 41:35Cassandra Yahnian?

  Underwater.

• 41:36Danielle LaRock?

  Underwater. And he had a whole medical team with him who did the amputation. And I know that they use certain tools and stuff like that, too. But, oh my God, that's just, yeah.

• 41:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  And he just has this little knife where he's like,

• 41:53Danielle LaRock?

  Is it like this big?

• 41:54Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, it's just a multi-tool. Yeah, it's like, it's pretty small. It's a couple of inches. Yeah.

• 42:00Danielle LaRock?

  God, keep going. To quote Georgia from My Favorite Murder, this is terrible. Keep going.

• 42:11Cassandra Yahnian?

  So of course he has that obstacle, but also the isolation was becoming just as dangerous as the dehydration was becoming. More than once, Aaron was certain he heard voices echoing through the canyon. Without thinking, he screamed for help until his throat hurt, only to realize that there was no one there. After one of those false alarms, he promised himself he would only call out once each day, saving both his strength and his voice for the hope that someone might actually be close enough to hear him. He's like, God, I'm gonna ruin my voice and then someone's actually gonna come by and they're not even gonna hear me, so I have to be careful here.

• 42:48Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, but, and I understand, but once a day?

• 42:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  No one's around. I mean, he's pretty far out there.

• 42:55Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, the odds of like that one time through the day. Yeah.

• 43:00Cassandra Yahnian?

  Good luck. I get it though, like you wanna, he's like thinking, he's like, okay, I have to save my voice. I have to, don't ruin it.

• 43:09Danielle LaRock?

  No, it makes sense. It's just the odds are stacked against that.

• 43:12Cassandra Yahnian?

  Especially if you're already hallucinating a little bit. It's like, how do you know?

• 43:15Danielle LaRock?

  Right.

• 43:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  You're shouting at the right time. By Sunday afternoon, nearly 24 hours after the incident, something inside Aaron had shifted. He reached into his backpack and pulled out his camcorder. Looking into the lens, he calmly began. He said, "It's 3:05 on Sunday. This marks my 24-hour mark of being stuck in Blue John Canyon above the Big Drop." He introduced himself by name before saying, "My parents are Donna and Larry Ralston of Englewood, Colorado. Whoever finds this, please make an attempt to get this to them." So he's like, he's envisioning that they're gonna find him dead. Have no idea who he is, but he's gonna have this camera footage before he dies.

• 43:59Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, it's grim. It's really grim.

• 44:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's really grim. Aaron then carefully explained exactly what had happened, describing how the boulder had crushed his arm and why he believed waiting for rescue was his best chance for survival. He even said that trying to cut off his own arm would likely be suicide and that conserving his energy offered the greatest chance of making it out alive. Then, speaking directly to the camera, he told his parents and his sister Sonia how much he loved them. That night, he prepared for another freezing night in the canyon, wrapping himself in whatever gear he could to trap warmth. Even so, his teeth chattered uncontrollably and to keep from freezing, he continued hacking away at the rock long after dark.

• 44:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  The physical suffering was relentless, but the boredom became its own form of torture. It felt as though the silence alone might drive him insane. Desperate for any sign that he wasn't completely alone, Aaron began praying. When no answer came, he found himself making a bargain he never imagined he would. If God wasn't listening, maybe the devil was. He offered anything, even his arm or his soul, if it meant getting out alive. Monday brought more failed attempts to free himself. He rebuilt his pulley system yet again, convinced that one more adjustment might finally generate enough force to lift the boulder. He never moved, and by then, he had been trapped for 40 hours.

• 45:27Cassandra Yahnian?

  He dreamed constantly of five-gallon jugs of water, bottles of Gatorade, and fresh grapefruit waiting inside his truck only eight miles away. Desperation finally pushed him to test the idea of amputation. He tightened a makeshift tourniquet around his upper arm and began sawing into his forearm, but the blade was far too dull to cut through flesh. He removed the tourniquet and abandoned the attempt. That afternoon, 48 hours after becoming trapped, Aaron turned on the camcorder once again. Speaking directly to his sister Sonia, he admitted that he had spent so much of his life chasing one adventure after another that he had failed to appreciate the people who mattered most.

• 46:12Cassandra Yahnian?

  He reflected on something a coworker had once told him. "It's not what you do, but who you are that matters." Through tears, he recorded what amounted to an oral will, telling his family what should happen to his belongings if he never came home. Soon afterwards, Aaron emptied the last of his water and made a decision he had been dreading. He began collecting his urine inside his empty camelback bladder. At first, he couldn't bring himself to drink it. He watched it separate into layers, hoping the lighter color liquid at the top might be less concentrated than the dark brown sediment below. But eventually, his thirst won, and he forced himself to drink it through the bite valve,

• 46:55Cassandra Yahnian?

  swallowing it quickly.

• 46:58Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, all right. My first experience with seeing somebody drink their own pee was Bear Grylls.

• 47:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's an experience.

• 47:09Danielle LaRock?

  First and only, really.

• 47:11Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, I've never seen someone drink their own pee, but I've never been in a dire situation. And I know that there's like conflicting stuff where drinking your own urine, and he talks about this, he goes through his thought process in the book, about if drinking his own urine was actually helping him or making him die faster. Because in your urine, yes, you're getting a liquid and a fluid, but your kidneys already filtered all of that stuff out of your body and now you're putting it back in.

• 47:37Danielle LaRock?

  It's waste product.

• 47:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's a waste product that you're putting back in, and that's actually hard on your kidneys, but your organs do need fluid to function, so.

• 47:46Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 47:47Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's like, am I helping or am I making it worse? I don't know. It really depends on what stage of dehydration you're at, I guess. How much waste product is in your urine versus how much fluid?

• 47:57Danielle LaRock?

  I hope we never have to find out personally.

• 47:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  Me too. I'll just die for sure. I mean, I don't have kidney, I don't have great kidneys. I would go into kidney failure way faster than a normal person.

• 48:09Danielle LaRock?

  I don't mean to laugh, but you would be a goner down there.

• 48:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, yeah, I would have, I would never made it this long.

• 48:17Danielle LaRock?

  Well, you don't have your, you wouldn't have your meds.

• 48:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  I wouldn't have my meds, yeah. I'd be in rejection. I'd also be dehydrated, my kidney, I only have one working kidney, so RIP to me.

• 48:28Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, I'm sorry. Let's not get you in that situation ever.

• 48:33Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, I can't get in this situation because I can't drink my own urine. I won't even, my kidneys won't even be making urine because I'll be in kidney failure.

• 48:47Danielle LaRock?

  It's not funny.

• 48:48Cassandra Yahnian?

  It is funny though, a little bit.

• 48:52Danielle LaRock?

  I don't mean to laugh.

• 48:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's okay. So yeah, he's just deciding if this is actually helping or not. But by Tuesday, dehydration was obviously taking a toll. His eyes had become sunken in. He noticed his heartbeat was becoming erratic and his contact lenses were painfully dry, which is, oh yeah, just like your body's not producing any fluid at this point. And a big sign of dehydration is also rapid heartbeat, which he is noticing a lot. And again, he's searching rescue, he has medical training, he's observing these things in his body and he's like, okay.

• 49:28Danielle LaRock?

  He's like, oh my God, my eyeballs are drying out.

• 49:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 49:31Danielle LaRock?

  It's bad. This is bad.

• 49:33Cassandra Yahnian?

  That does sound horrible, though. I don't wear contacts, but if I did, I would not want my eyes to be dry while I was wearing them.

• 49:39Danielle LaRock?

  To me, and I have no idea, because I too don't wear contacts, but it feels like maybe the equivalent for us would be, you know, when you get like sand in your, or some fine grain of something in your eye and it's that scratchy feeling? That's what I'm imagining.

• 49:56Cassandra Yahnian?

  I could see that for sure.

• 49:58Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 49:58Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's awful. Well, that night exhaustion, dehydration, and nearly constant wakefulness blurred the line between dreams and reality. Aaron hallucinated that he was traveling through a blood vessel or a birth canal. He drifted through space. He floated over oceans. The visions that haunted him most, though, were painfully ordinary ones. He hallucinated milkshakes. He dreamt of icy margaritas and cups of soda that were just beyond his reach. At other times, memories of the people he loved became so vivid that they felt real. In one vision, an unseen friend led him through the canyon wall into a room filled with family and friends, but none of them could see him.

• 50:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  And a voice simply told him, it's time to say goodbye. By Wednesday morning, Aaron had been trapped for 90 hours. Convinced he would not survive another night, he scratched his name, his birthday, and the letters RIP into the canyon wall beside him, believing it would become his only grave marker. Then, in the middle of another vivid trance, he saw something else. A small blond-haired boy ran through a house laughing. Aaron somehow knew in this hallucination that this child he was seeing was his own son. And he saw himself alive despite a missing hand lifting the little boy into his arms. And when he had this vision, it changed everything.

• 51:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  From this moment where he's writing RIP on the wall to now this hallucination, for the first time since the boulder had fallen, he now has not only a real sense that he's gonna survive this, but that he has a life beyond it if he does. And this little boy, he's like, that was my son and I'm going to be a dad. I have purpose.

• 51:50Danielle LaRock?

  I have goosebumps right now. I have goosebumps right now. I didn't know any of this.

• 51:54Cassandra Yahnian?

  I know. They don't show it in the movie.

• 51:56Danielle LaRock?

  God.

• 51:56Cassandra Yahnian?

  Or maybe they do. I didn't watch the whole.

• 51:58Danielle LaRock?

  Damn you, James Franco.

• 52:00Cassandra Yahnian?

  I did watch the whole movie, so maybe they didn't just forget, but.

• 52:02Danielle LaRock?

  No, yeah, it's probably in there, but, and we sound like idiots, but.

• 52:07Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's okay. So he didn't know how he was getting out, but now he had this new sense of determination that he had to. And at this point, it had been 120 hours. He started bashing at the boulder again with a black rock, feeling angry. He dusted some of the rock powder off his trapped hand and some of the flesh flaked away. He realized that his hand was actually starting to decompose. So he's like, I've been sitting here so long. Not only is it not salvageable anymore, but it's in decomposition.

• 52:37Danielle LaRock?

  It's rotting off my body.

• 52:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. And he, in this moment, he took his knife out and he poked the blade into his flesh and it cut through like butter.

• 52:48Danielle LaRock?

  Okay. Advantageous, but gross.

• 52:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  Super gross, but to add to it, when he poked it, there was an audible hissing sound of the gases releasing from his hand.

• 53:04Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, that's decomp for you.

• 53:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yep.

• 53:07Danielle LaRock?

  In real time.

• 53:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  In real time, and he smelt it.

• 53:12Danielle LaRock?

  Hmm.

• 53:12Cassandra Yahnian?

  He's like, oof, this is bad. So not only is it bad, it's like, okay, my arm, I've known I'm not gonna have this hand for a while. That's not the scary part about this. The scary part about this is that now this can travel up my arm and I can get gangrene and I can get a serious infection. So now it's like, okay, if I don't die soon from dehydration, my arm might actually kill me. And with this realization, he violently tried to yank himself away from his dead limb. He was just like, get away from me, like, get off of me. Just had this. It feels like it was almost like a physical reaction of like, oh my God, get this off of me.

• 53:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  And he starts yanking it, but of course, to no avail did he get away from his hand. But in his yanking, he felt a sudden torque in his arm bone and realized that if he pulled his arm just right, he could break it. Desperate to be away from his decomposing arm, he acted immediately on this thought. He squatted down as far as possible to exert the maximum force on his radius bone, and he felt it give an audible pow. He stood up and felt his arm and there was a lump where the bone had broken.

• 54:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  And with that, he decides to exert the same force again and broke the ulna with the same noise, and it sounded like a cap gun going off.

• 54:41Danielle LaRock?

  Is he feeling pain during this?

• 54:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, for sure.

• 54:44Danielle LaRock?

  Whole thing. Like, I wanna say yes, but I didn't know if there was loss of sensation at any point or.

• 54:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  There's adrenaline for sure. No, he feels a lot of pain in this. But he does mention in this, like, he doesn't even yell or make a noise during this. He's just doing it. It's like, almost like this survival point, this adrenaline rush of like, I just gotta get this arm off of me right now. And after he does those two breaks for his bone, he felt his forearm again and found that both his radius and his ulna had broken on the same spot. So there was like a clear delineation between his bone that they had luckily broken in the same place. So going back to his knife that he knew he couldn't cut through his bone,

• 55:33Cassandra Yahnian?

  he pulls out the sharper, shorter blade that he had and he starts hacking into his arm.

• 55:39Danielle LaRock?

  Do you have to say hacking?

• 55:41Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, for sure. He cut four inches from his wrist and then he held the blade in his teeth while he pried his fingers down into the gash so he could feel around inside. He could feel the difference between the tendons and the ligaments, and he turned the blade up and cut through string after string of muscle.

• 56:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  About 20 minutes after he began, Aaron tightened the improvised tourniquet around his upper arm because he knew he was reaching the point where he would begin cutting through blood vessels. And he wanted to make sure he would slow the bleeding. So he's got like this makeshift tourniquet. He's preparing. He's like, all right, this is probably gonna bleed. The soft tissue gave way far more easily than the tendons. Using the pliers on his multi-tool, he grabbed the thick fibrous strands and tore through them one by one. As he worked, another realization struck him. If he had thought to break the bones days earlier, he might have escaped much sooner. All that he could think while he's got these tools and he's in his arm, he's like,

• 56:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  I must be the dumbest guy to ever get his arm stuck under a boulder while he's cutting his arm off. He's like, I could have done this days ago.

• 56:57Danielle LaRock?

  I don't know. I think you're pretty smart. I've been doing rigging stuff and.

• 57:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  He's tried all of the opportunities and I feel like at this point, I mean, you have to get to a mental space to be able to do this. And immediately, you're not gonna get your arm stuck in a boulder and then be like, okay, chop it off. You have to like, get to that point where it's like truly the last option.

• 57:22Cassandra Yahnian?

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• 58:05Cassandra Yahnian?

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• 58:23Speaker 00

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• 59:07Speaker 00

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• 59:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  At 11:16 a.m., after nearly 40 minutes of cutting, only a single major nerve remained. It stretched across the opening like a guitar string. The instant the knife touched it, a violent surge shot through his body as though he had grabbed live electrical wire. When he finally severed it, the sensation exploded into what he described as plunging his arm into molten lava. The pain was so overwhelming that he had to stop. For several long moments, he leaned against the canyon wall, breathing through the agony, before forcing himself to continue. Only the remaining skin held his arm in place.

• 1:00:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  Rather than slicing cleanly through it, Aaron pulled and tore at the tissue until it finally gave way, and his arm was finally officially free. He stumbled backward against the opposite wall of the canyon, overcome with shock and relief. For several moments, he sat there trying to comprehend what had just happened. His trapped hand remained beneath the boulder where it had been for nearly six days. Blood pooled on the canyon floor around it, and the exposed ends of his severed bones stood out stark white against the red. When Aaron finally looked at his watch, it read 11:34 a.m. It had taken him barely an hour to cut off his arm.

• 1:00:53Danielle LaRock?

  Impressive, with no medical knowledge and a dull knife. Or, I keep wanting to say Swiss Army knife, but that's just what I'm envisioning.

• 1:01:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's a multi-tool kind of thing. Yeah. Blood continued to flow from the stump of his arm, and he knew that he had to get moving. He slipped the wound into a plastic lunch bag, wrapped yellow climbing webbing around it to help secure the dressing, and fashioned a sling from his camelback. Then he repacked everything he could carry, including his cameras, his multi-tool, and even the Nalgine bottle that now held six days' worth of urine. Before leaving, he paused long enough to take two close-up photographs of the severed hand still trapped beneath the boulder. Then he started his walkout. The route back to his truck was still nearly eight miles away.

• 1:01:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  Even after everything he had endured, Blue John Canyon demanded much more of him. He squeezed through narrow slot passages, climbed over obstacles, and carefully navigated several technical sections before finally emerging onto the open slick rock above the canyon. Ahead of him stood the big drop rappel. For the first time in nearly six days, Aaron stood in full sunlight. At the bottom of the roughly 65-foot cliff, he spotted something he had almost stopped believing he would ever see again. A bathtub-sized pool of water, but Aaron had to rappel down the big drop to get to it first.

• 1:02:25Cassandra Yahnian?

  So he's like, okay, I've got one arm now, but I have to finagle this and rappel into this canyon for some water. So he does. He clipped himself into the anchor using a daisy chain, which is the short length of webbing with sewn loops that climbers use to secure themselves while setting up a rappel, and untangled his rope using the remaining hand and his teeth. At one point, he heard the rope begin to slide towards the edge of the cliff and caught it beneath his foot just before it disappeared over the side. Losing it would have meant climbing back through the canyon, something he knew he was unlikely to survive. Working in the hot sun drained what little energy he had left, and he paused long enough

• 1:03:07Cassandra Yahnian?

  to swallow a large gulp from the bottle that held his urine before finishing up the setup. About 15 minutes later, he eased himself over the edge. Feeding the rope through his rappel device, feeding the rope through his rappel device with a single hand, he descended slowly and deliberately. Without a second hand to steady himself against the cliff, every movement had to be controlled. At last, his feet touched the canyon floor. He immediately made his way to the pool of water. Dumping out the last of the liquid in his bottle, he rinsed it and filled it with a murky brown water. Floating with leaves and sediment, it was hardly clean, but to Aaron, it tasted incredible.

• 1:03:47Cassandra Yahnian?

  He drank the entire bottle, filled it again, and refilled his camelback before continuing on. He was so parched that the water tasted so good, he didn't even notice the dead raven floating nearby.

• 1:04:01Danielle LaRock?

  Oh, no.

• 1:04:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  But he still had a long way to go at this point. I mean, he's barely gone out of the canyon. His truck is still basically eight miles away still. Less than a mile into the hike, he felt water running down his back. His camelback had sprung a leak. Not wanting to lose another drop, he drank as much of it as he could and continued on with the only water that he could carry. To make it last, he relied on a technique he had learned about from Mexico's Tarahumarar people, indigenous ultra-distant runners famous for traveling incredible distances through Copper Canyon. He held, and this technique that they had, was to hold a mouthful of water without swallowing

• 1:04:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  it, allowing it to moisten his mouth and help quench the sensation of thirst. So he didn't know if it would work, but he's like, if my mouth just has water in it and there's this humidity and I'm not feeling thirsty, maybe that will help me. So he starts doing this technique. Around two and a half miles into the hike, Aaron was forced to stop when he had a bout of diarrhea hit him. He had barely eaten in days, but the filthy water, extreme dehydration, and stress had taken a toll on his body. At roughly mile four, he passed the Great Gallery, home to one of the largest and best-preserved collections of barrier canyon-style rock art in North America.

• 1:05:23Danielle LaRock?

  Which is in the park.

• 1:05:25Cassandra Yahnian?

  Which is in the park, yes. Which is in Canyonlands National Park. He's back in the park now. Visiting it had been one of the main reasons he chose this route through Blue John Canyon. Under any other circumstance, he would have stopped to admire these ancient figures painted across the sandstone, but he was like, maybe not right now. He was like, I'm just gonna, he would have stopped to take photos and he wanted to see it more, but he was like.

• 1:05:51Danielle LaRock?

  Things have changed.

• 1:05:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  Things have changed. I've been through, I'm a different person now. I gotta, I gotta keep moving. So then, around mile six, Aaron spotted three hikers in the distance. He tried to call out, but nothing came. His throat was too dry and his body was too weak to make the noises he was trying. Gathering what little strength he had left, he managed a very faint cry for help. But it worked. The hikers, who ended up being a Dutch family exploring the canyon, heard him and rushed over. Aaron explained that he had been trapped beneath the boulder for nearly six days and had amputated his own arm to escape. The family immediately began helping him, and during the conversation, the father,

• 1:06:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  whose name is Eric, casually mentioned that police officers at the trailhead had asked them to keep an eye out for missing hiker. The comment stopped Aaron in his tracks. Until that moment, he had assumed no one knew where he was. But while he had been trapped inside Blue John Canyon, his disappearance had slowly come to light back home. His roommates in Aspen became concerned when he failed to return home and no one could reach him. Although Aaron often took off on outdoor adventures, he was very dependable, and it wasn't like him to vanish without eventually checking in, so his roommates were very concerned.

• 1:07:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  And their concern deepened when Aaron failed to report to work at Yoot Mountain near on Tuesday morning. His manager knew immediately that something was wrong. He's like, Aaron would never not show up. There's something very, very wrong here. And he actually called Aaron's mother because he was like, I have to talk to someone. He wouldn't just not show up for work. And when he found out that she also hadn't heard from him, they all became really concerned. Friends, roommates, coworkers, and family quickly began piecing together everything they knew. And his mom actually broke into his email to look at conversations that he had had and been like, is there any clue that we can find?

• 1:08:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  And they remembered Aaron mentioning a canyoneering trip in southeastern Utah, but realized no one knew exactly where he had gone because he didn't leave an itinerary. But they're like, he's in Utah, we know that. Investigators retraced the recent movements from his credit card to buy the gas. And then they finally located his truck at Horseshoe Canyon because of his mom. His mom told them to look there and I forget if it was because of an email or because of a conversation, but she was the one who was like, check this area. By Thursday morning, search and rescue teams and law enforcement officers had gathered at the trailhead, warning hikers entering the area to watch for any signs of a missing climber.

• 1:08:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  So Aaron, knowing he didn't have much strength left, he asked the woman in the family to run ahead and tell the rescuers that he needed a helicopter. He's like, my situation is dire, I need, remember he's search and rescue. He's like, I need a search and rescue helicopter, get down here. And before she left, she handed him everything that she had to eat, which was a full sleeve of Oreo cookies. She's like, take this, I'll be back. And Eric, the father in the group, handed Aaron a bottle of distilled water that he had been carrying. Aaron gratefully drank it, though he later admitted it wasn't nearly as satisfying as the muddy pothole water he had found earlier in the canyon. He like, didn't think it tasted as good. But after nearly six days without water, that first drink had tasted better than anything

• 1:09:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  he had ever consumed. The two men continued down the trail together. So even though he knows that search and rescue is like, and police are not far away, they keep walking. And Eric, this man from the Netherlands who came across him, was shocked that he could still walk after learning his story. He's like, you were just in a canyon for how long? You're dehydrated, you haven't had water, you just walked eight miles almost and you want to keep walking? But Aaron knew that his body was rapidly reaching its limit. Ahead, the trail climbed towards a low ridge and he wasn't sure he had enough strength left to make it. He had lost an enormous amount of blood. He was severely dehydrated and every step was getting harder and harder.

• 1:10:14Cassandra Yahnian?

  As they walked, they suddenly heard the sound of helicopter blades. Unknown to Aaron, search and rescue crews had already spent hours searching the maze of canyons after authorities located his truck at the Horseshoe Canyon trailhead. Finding him from the air while he was trapped inside Blue John Canyon actually would have been virtually impossible. So it's really good that they, they would have never seen him from the sky. When the aircraft appeared overhead, they immediately began waving their arms to get the pilot's attention. The crew spotted the group below, circled once to confirm what they were seeing and landed nearby. Flight medics hurried over to Aaron, quickly assessed his condition and helped him aboard the helicopter.

• 1:10:55Cassandra Yahnian?

  As the helicopter climbed away from the desert, relief finally began to replace the fear that had consumed him for nearly six days. Looking down at the canyon below, Aaron couldn't help but think about how impossibly close he had come to dying. If the helicopter had arrived even an hour later, he was certain he wouldn't have survived long enough to reach it. And if he had tried to amputate his arm days earlier, before discovering he first needed to break the bones in his forearm, he likely would have bled to death before ever making it out of the canyon. He probably would have never came across that couple. He probably, he's like, all of this is coming into place at the exact time for me to survive.

• 1:11:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  Back in Blue John Canyon, the National Park Service personnel actually returned to the site of Aaron's ordeal, carrying a cooler packed with ice, hoping that they might be able to recover his severed hand in time for surgeons to attempt to reattach it. Which when you know what-

• 1:11:56Danielle LaRock?

  He would probably been like-

• 1:11:57Cassandra Yahnian?

  He's like, I don't want that.

• 1:11:59Danielle LaRock?

  It's too far gone.

• 1:12:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's like, thanks for the effort. I appreciate it, but-

• 1:12:04Danielle LaRock?

  It's the thought that counts, but it's actively exuding noxious gases from decomp and-

• 1:12:11Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's like, I can't, I can't-

• 1:12:12Danielle LaRock?

  Gray.

• 1:12:14Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's like, I'm good, actually, thank you. Of course, when they reached the boulder, it became clear that they couldn't take it. And actually, after several unsuccessful attempts to move it by hand, rescuers had to bring in a hydraulic jack and other equipment to shift it just enough to retrieve the hand.

• 1:12:33Danielle LaRock?

  I was gonna ask if it's still there.

• 1:12:36Cassandra Yahnian?

  It is not.

• 1:12:37Danielle LaRock?

  Okay.

• 1:12:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  It is not.

• 1:12:38Danielle LaRock?

  But is his engraving?

• 1:12:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  We'll get into it.

• 1:12:42Danielle LaRock?

  Okay.

• 1:12:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  And of course, they discover, once they get the hand, they're like, no, we can't, we can't attach this back to his body. So instead, they cremated it. Meanwhile, after being stabilized in Moab, Aaron was flown to St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado, where a team of surgeons began the first of several operations to clean his wounds, repair damaged tissue, and prepare his arm for a future prosthetic. When he finally woke up, exhausted and heavily medicated, he was actually astonished to learn that he was alive. He was like, where am I? I'm in a hospital? You fix, he's like, wow. Not long afterward, his mother Donna walked into his hospital room. Aaron immediately apologized for putting her through such an unimaginable ordeal, telling

• 1:13:28Cassandra Yahnian?

  her that he loved her, and the two embraced and broke down in tears. News of Aaron's survival spread rapidly around the world. The remarkable story of the young climber who had amputated his own arm to escape became international headline news. Doctors estimated he had lost nearly a liter and a half of blood and roughly 40 pounds over the course of the ordeal, and it was a miracle that he was alive. Despite everything that he had endured, Aaron never completely lost his sense of humor, because while he was recovering in the hospital, his friend surprised him with a chocolate frosted cake shaped like a hand, which he shared with his parents and his sister. It's like, well-

• 1:14:12Danielle LaRock?

  What are you gonna do?

• 1:14:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  What are you gonna do? Morbid humor, it helps, dark humor.

• 1:14:17Danielle LaRock?

  A good attitude gets you far.

• 1:14:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  It really does, it truly, truly does. His recovery, however, was far from over. The dirty multi-tool that had allowed him to escape had also introduced bacteria into the exposed bone and tissue. Before long, Aaron developed osteomyelitis, a serious bone infection that required him to be readmitted to the hospital for additional treatment and surgery. The very knife that had saved his life had nearly become the cause of killing him. Aaron underwent multiple surgeries and spent months rebuilding his strength. Just weeks after his rescue, he was determined to leave the hospital long enough to attend his younger sister Sonia's college graduation.

• 1:15:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  Still recovering from a serious bone infection, he was discharged with an IV line and bags of intravenous antibiotics so he could continue treatment while making the trip to Austin, Texas, to see his sister's graduation.

• 1:15:14Danielle LaRock?

  And that's the best sibling award of 2020, what, or sorry, 2003?

• 1:15:21Cassandra Yahnian?

  2003.

• 1:15:23Danielle LaRock?

  Goes to Aaron Ralston.

• 1:15:25Cassandra Yahnian?

  Support poured in from around the world. One of his favorite bands, The String Cheese Incident, organized a benefit concert that raised more than $17,000 to help cover his medical expenses. Kristy and Megan, the two hikers he had met just before entering Blue John Canyon on the day of the accident, attended the concert and were reunited with him. Aaron's remarkable survival quickly became international news. That July, he appeared on the late night show with David Letterman, and later that year, GQ named him one of its Men of the Year. As he adapted to life with one arm, he worked closely with prosthetists and even designed improvements to his own climbing, prosthetic drawing on his own background as a mechanical engineer.

• 1:16:09Cassandra Yahnian?

  Remarkably, by August, just a few months after the accident, Aaron had climbed five Colorado 14ers consecutively in only 30 hours. Later that summer, he successfully summited Wyoming's Mount Moran using one of the custom prosthetic devices he had helped design. Exactly six months after freeing himself from the boulder, almost to the minute, Aaron returned to Blue John Canyon with a crew from NBC's Dateline. They filmed him standing atop the very chokestone that had trapped him. Then Aaron asked the cameras to leave. For the first time since his rescue, he was alone in the canyon again. He scattered the ashes of his severed arm beneath the boulder where it had remained

• 1:16:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  trapped after his escape, then walked over to the canyon wall where, in what he believed were his final moments, he had carved his name, his date of birth, and the letters RIP. Taking out a brush, he carefully scrubbed the inscription away, erasing the marker he had left behind. He's like, I didn't die here. I don't need a grave marker here. And finally, true to the vision that had given him the strength to survive in Blue John Canyon, Aaron eventually married and became a father. Although that marriage later ended in divorce, he went on to welcome a second child and has spoken often about how becoming a dad reshaped his priorities and gave him a deeper appreciation for everyday life.

• 1:17:35Cassandra Yahnian?

  Over the years, Aaron continued pushing himself in the mountains. In 2005, he became the first person to solo climb all 59 of Colorado's 14ers in the winter, a feat that remains one of the state's most celebrated mountaineering achievements. He also returned to rock climbing, mountaineering, skiing, and canyoneering, proving to himself that losing an arm had not meant losing the life that he loved. Today, Aaron works as a motivational speaker, sharing the lessons he learned from that day, including to always tell people where you're going when you're in the outdoors. While adventure and endurance are still central to his story, his message has evolved to focus on resilience, gratitude, personal responsibility, and finding purpose.

• 1:18:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  More than two decades after his ordeal, he continues to inspire audiences around the world, reminding people that even in life's darkest moments, it is still possible to choose hope, perseverance, and a path forward. And that is my story of Aaron Ralston.

• 1:18:37Danielle LaRock?

  I'm so happy you covered that.

• 1:18:39Cassandra Yahnian?

  Don't you feel like you've heard the story so much different now?

• 1:18:42Danielle LaRock?

  Yes.

• 1:18:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  Or know it so different?

• 1:18:44Danielle LaRock?

  Yes, completely. And I know you mentioned in the beginning that we were both kind of avoiding it because of, you know, oh, has this stuff been done before so many times? We don't want to go there type of thing, but-

• 1:18:58Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like, you'll already know the story.

• 1:19:01Danielle LaRock?

  And even if, I mean, I changed my opinion, even if it was similar to what we kind of already knew, I think it was worth telling again because that is such an inspirational story and really showcases the human spirit, you know?

• 1:19:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  And resilience of people and what you can do-

• 1:19:23Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  -in really hard times. I mean, if you asked me right now, could you ever chop your arm off? I would say absolutely not. And then you see someone like this, who has to do it in their, in that situation. I'm like, could I?

• 1:19:37Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  You know?

• 1:19:39Danielle LaRock?

  Wow. Well, thank you so much for covering it and doing it so well. And in a way that was just, I, I know every, from time to time throughout that episode, you were just looking at me for a response. And I truly didn't want to get one because I was just on the edge of my seat and just wanted you to keep going. And those are the best types of stories where you get yourself so lost in it. And yeah, I, yeah, I, it's interesting because when he's staggering by the great gallery wall, I was thinking back to when Ian and I were there.

• 1:20:15Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, so you've been on this trail?

• 1:20:17Danielle LaRock?

  Yes.

• 1:20:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  You've been where he was?

• 1:20:20Danielle LaRock?

  At least partially, at least partially.

• 1:20:22Cassandra Yahnian?

  See, I've never been, I've been to Canyonlands, but I've never been to this location.

• 1:20:26Danielle LaRock?

  And this is, this is why we do this, because if I would have known back then, what had happened where I was standing, I would have had such a deeper appreciation. Not that, to say that what I was seeing wasn't enough, because it's amazing.

• 1:20:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  But it's different when you know.

• 1:20:46Danielle LaRock?

  It's different. Yeah.

• 1:20:47Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. So that's crazy that I didn't realize that you guys had, had been there.

• 1:20:52Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. Amazing. Well, thank you so much again for sharing it. And I will certainly put his memoir on the list. I've been really into memoirs recently.

• 1:21:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  Have you? I would really recommend it. And fun fact about his memoir, if you listen to it, he reads it.

• 1:21:09Danielle LaRock?

  That's, and that's the best. I love when, I feel like it's almost, not a requirement, but if you're writing a memoir about your life, I want to hear you read it.

• 1:21:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, unless you have like a horrible voice, because I'm sensitive to noises. But I agree. Aaron has a great voice. So

• 1:21:27Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, great.

• 1:21:28Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's fine. But yeah, I, it, it does, it does feel different listening to his book with him telling you his story.

• 1:21:38Danielle LaRock?

  And the bounce back that he had.

• 1:21:41Danielle LaRock?

  Wow. Okay. Well, everyone, thanks so much for joining us again for another week and another episode. I'm recognizing now that when we were initially talking about the tour at the top of the episode, we were just like, yeah, you should come and didn't give you any sort of advice on how to do that.

• 1:22:00Cassandra Yahnian?

  Right.

• 1:22:01Danielle LaRock?

  So if you want to join us in one of the seven cities, we have links on our website in the episode description and on our social media accounts. So you can find all of those things, living in all of those different places.

• 1:22:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. Don't worry, we'll bombard you with the links.

• 1:22:20Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. Please come.

• 1:22:22Cassandra Yahnian?

  Please come as yet. I have a fear of rejection. So

• 1:22:27Danielle LaRock?

  And Cassie has gotten me freaked out about it. I'm like, oh, no, it's gonna be fine. Because we intentionally booked venues that we, like, we felt comfortable with numbers wise, and that are kind of similar to what we've done in the past. And in the past, we haven't had an issue. But just because there's, I don't know, it's like a formal tour, it feels a lot more intimidating.

• 1:22:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  If there's like one person in the audience, I'm gonna put on the best show of my life for that one person. But I'm gonna be really sad.

• 1:22:55Danielle LaRock?

  I'm not performing for one person. We would be canceling. But as we mentioned before in another, I think maybe the first episode, if this is something, I know people are gonna be like, you're not coming to here, here, or here. And we understand that. But we may be able to extend it.

• 1:23:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  Could happen.

• 1:23:18Danielle LaRock?

  Alrighty. Well, I guess next week, it'll be my turn once again to share a story with you. And until then, please enjoy the view.

• 1:23:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  But tell people where you're going outside.

• 1:23:31Danielle LaRock?

  And then watch your back. Bye.

• 1:23:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  Bye.

• 1:23:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  Thanks for joining us for another episode. We hope you learned something new and have another location to put on your list. If you want more NPAD content, make sure to follow along with our adventures on all socials at National Park After Dark. For more stories just like this one, with the added bonus of exclusive content, you can join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. If you prefer to watch our episodes, head over to our YouTube channel. And if you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite listening platform.

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