Rock-climber: "I could break my bones" ... He managed to amputate his right arm

A rock-climber who had been trapped under the weight of a 360-kilogram boulder for five days described how he managed to amputate his right arm to free himself -- first he twisted it until the bones snapped, then he sawed through the skin and muscle with an inexpensive multi-tool knife. Aron Ralston, 27, recovering in a Grand Junction, Colo., hospital after being rescued from Utah's Canyonlands National Park on May 1, 2003, told reporters that after three days with his arm wedged between the huge rock and a cliff face, he decided he had to sever the limb to save his life. He had thrown his body against the boulder and chipped away at it with an assortment of tools.

"At no point was I ever able to get the boulder to budge even microscopically," Mr. Ralston said.

So on April 30, the former engineer tried cutting his arm with a pocketknife, but found the blade was too dull to remove even the hairs on his arm. Two days later, with his strength draining and out of food and water, Mr. Ralston considered his options. "It occurred to me I could break my bones," he said. The outdoor enthusiast set out his "operating table," using bicycle shorts as padding for a tourniquet. He leaned against the trapped arm and twisted, breaking the radius just above his wrist, and kept twisting until the ulna broke. "I felt pain and I coped with it," Mr. Ralston said yesterday. "I moved on." He applied the tourniquet to staunch the bleeding, then used the serrated blade of the multi-tool to saw his arm off below the elbow. The entire process took about an hour, he said. After freeing himself, Mr. Ralston crawled through a winding canyon, rappelled down a 20-metre-high cliff and walked about 10 kilometres before he encountered some hikers who summoned a helicopter.

Culled from: National Post

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