GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — In the darkest moments, when he thought he might die, 27-year-old adventurer Aron Ralston prayed for inspiration.
Partially pinned by an 800-pound boulder for five days in a remote southern Utah canyon, "I prayed for the decisionmaking," Ralston recalled. "I prayed for signs."
"The source of power I felt was the power and prayers of many people, most of whom I will never know."
At a Thursday news conference at Grand Junction's St. Mary's Hospital, Ralston thanked "the thousands, perhaps millions" of people who kept him in their thoughts and prayers. With the remainder of his right arm bandaged and resting in a sling, he relayed the harrowing details of a solo hike that ultimately forced him to cut off part of his arm with a dull pocketknife and to snap the bones in his forearm to pry himself from the rock.
The Aspen, Colo., resident admitted he was at fault for failing to notify friends and family of his trip, which would have made the search for him easier. But he said traveling with a group or leaving detailed trip plans would not have saved his right arm.
"I discussed this with my surgeon, and he reiterated that due to the immediate soft tissue damage and loss of circulation, the hand and arm would have been unrecoverable," he said.
An excursion
Saturday, April 26, was supposed to be the last of a short three-day excursion for Ralston that included hiking in the Colorado mountains and biking the Slickrock Trail outside Moab.
He began the day outside remote, narrow Bluejohn Canyon, adjacent to Canyonlands National Park, with 3 liters of water, four candy bars, two burritos, compact discs, ropes and a harness. He biked about 2 1/2 hours and locked up his bike at the head of Bluejohn shortly before noon.
For the first two hours he hiked with two young women from Moab whom he met that day. At a fork in the canyon, the women went west. He stayed along the main trail, which is scattered with big rocks and hills that Ralston had to climb.
He described the hike as "semi-technical, very giving of its solitude. I was very alone there."
He found himself standing on an area of chalkstone, which he had to descend to continue on.
While scrambling down, one of the rocks shifted, pinning his right arm against the canyon wall.
He grabbed pinch points behind the rock and tried to push his body off.
"I was successfully able to pull my left hand away," he said.
His other hand and arm, however, were trapped by the rock.
Few options
With adrenaline rushing, "I very quickly figured out some of my options," he said.
But he needed to calm down to act rationally.
"I began laying (out) my plans for what I was going to do," Ralston said.
He counted his provisions: Two burritos, 1 liter of water, candy bar crumbs.
In his head, he played out every possible scenario for survival he could think of. When he couldn't think, he prayed for inspiration to get himself out.
"The spiritual side of my life has always been a strong component of who I am," he said.
Ralston chipped away the rock with his pocketknife, which he said was part of a multi-tool set but not a high-quality instrument like the well-known Leatherman. "It's basically the equivalent if you bought a $15 flashlight and you get a multi-tool" set for free, he said.
Often, over the course the next several days, he simply paused.
"There were times when I thought that was the most efficient use of my time," he said.
Highs and lows
Ralston created a pulley with his ropes and rigging equipment, a skill he learned as a part of search and rescue teams he worked for when he lived in Albuquerque and one in which he has participated in Aspen. He was trying to extricate himself.
"At no point was I able with any of the rope mechanics to (get) the boulder" to budge, he said.
He ran out of water on Tuesday.
Ralston said he thought a lot about death. Initially he was afraid of dying. He was worried his body would never be recovered. He felt guilty that he had failed to clearly communicate where he was going. Then his feelings toward his situation changed.
"I came to peace with death over the time I spent in the canyon," he said. "If it wouldn't be my time to go, it wouldn't be my time to go."
During the five days, Ralston experienced emotional highs and lows.
"The best of times were when I recalled my life — my friends, my family," he said. "I felt really happy during those moments."
'What I had to do'
On the third day, with simple escape or rescue increasingly unlikely, he decided to resort to one of the most drastic of his options: severing his arm below the elbow.
He created a "surgeon's table" on the rock, laying out his intended tourniquet and biking shorts to absorb blood.
"I applied the knife and started to saw my arm. It didn't break my skin. It didn't even cut my (arm) hair," Ralston said.
But he worked at puncturing his arm and was successful in cutting it. His next dilemma was cutting the bone. And the knife he had was too dull to perform the task as well.
On the morning of Thursday, May 1, Ralston decided to break the bones in his forearm, first the radius then the ulna.
It took an hour, he said.
"I felt pain and I coped with it," Ralston said. His determination to get out alive trumped any fear.
"The courage was more a matter of pragmatics," he said. "I did what I had to do."
Though bloody, dehydrated and hungry, he then rigged his ropes and, with one good arm, rappelled down a 60-foot wall and headed into Horseshoe Canyon, a satellite of Canyonlands National Park.
He found a pool of water.
"My body reacted (to the water) well. I was able to restock my canisters," Ralston said.
Ralston left the pool and hiked about six miles until he encountered tourists from Holland, who gave him two Oreo cookies, his first food in days. He was only about two miles from his car.
Shortly afterward, a Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter spotted him. He was transported to Allen Memorial Hospital in Moab, then airlifted to the trauma center at St. Mary's, where he underwent two surgeries.
His hand was later recovered by a team of rangers, but it could not have been re-attached, and most of his arm below the elbow could not be saved.
Learning lessons
Ralston will be released from the hospital this weekend and is expected to go to his parents' Denver-area home to recuperate, said Dan Prinster, vice president of business development at St. Mary's.
He said physicians who examined his recovered right wrist joked, "your future career as a surgeon ended before it started."
In the immediate future, Ralston will be focused on rehabilitation. He said he hopes to soon take a nature walk with friends.
He also is grappling with what the experience means and what he needs to learn from it.
How did he get the courage to amputate his own arm? How did he endure the pain?
"Those are questions I'm not sure I've got the answers to," he said. "I'm just so happy to have the opportunity to take action."
E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com