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Spiritual Strength of a Maori Charm

When Aron Ralston was dying, deep in a desert canyon in Utah, his right arm pinned by a boulder, he drew some of his incredible will to live from a Maori bone carving from New Zealand...

When Aron Ralston was dying, deep in a desert canyon in Utah, his right arm pinned by a boulder, he drew some of his incredible will to live from a Hei-Matau fish hook Maori bone carving from New Zealand.

When in Auckland last week to promote his new book - Between a Rock and a Hard Place - the 29-year-old American told us that he gained strength during his harrowing ordeal from the Maori bone carving he wore around his neck.

"It represents the talismans they would make for their family members when they go out to fish, to keep them safe," said Ralston.

The spiritual protection of the Maori pendant was important to the adventurer, who credits "divine intervention" for his survival.

"The fact that I lived six days in the canyon - that by itself is a medical miracle."

Ralston - who remains an active adventurer and plans to scale Mt Cook and Mt Aspiring on a future visit here - now feels a duty to share his inspirational story, which he said has pulled seven people back from the verge of suicide. "If a miracle happens, you can't just hide it under your hat," he said.

Excerpt: 'Between A Rock And A Hard Place' Book By Aron Ralston.

By Aron Ralston

"IT'S 3:05 ON SUNDAY. This marks my 24-hour mark of being stuck in Blue John Canyon. My name is Aron Ralston. My parents are Donna and Larry Ralston, of Englewood, Colorado. Whoever finds this, please make an attempt to get this to them. Be sure of it. I would appreciate it."

It's April 27, 2003, and for the first time since my arm was pinned against the wall of this Utah canyon, I am using my digital camcorder to videotape myself. I take long blinks and rarely look at the camera's screen. What makes me avert my glance is the haggard expression in my eyes. They are wide-open, huge bowls; loose rolls of flesh sag and tug at my lower eyelids.

Picking up the camera, I point it first at my forearm and wrist, where it disappears in the horrifyingly skinny gap between a large boulder and the canyon wall. Then I pan the camcorder up over the pinch point to my grayish-blue hand.

"What you're looking at there is my arm, going into the rock ... and there it is—stuck. It's been without circulation for 24 hours. It's pretty well gone."

Shaking my head in defeat, I yawn, battling fatigue.

I outline my failed attempts at self-rescue, and continue. "The other thing that could happen is someone comes. This being a continuation of a canyon that's not all that popular, and the continuation being less so, I think that's very unlikely before I retire from dehydration and hypothermia. Judging by my degradation in the last 24 hours, I'll be surprised if I make it to Tuesday."...

...My next thought is escape. Eliminating ideas that are just too dumb (like cracking open my AA batteries on the boulder and hoping the acid eats into the chockstone but not my arm), I organize my options in order of preference: excavate the rock around my hand with my multitool knife; rig ropes and an anchor above myself to lift the boulder off my hand; or amputate my arm...

8 P.M.
Stress turns into pessimism. Without enough water to wait for rescue, without a pick to crack the boulder, without a rigging system to lift it, I have one course of action. I speak slowly out loud:

"You're gonna have to cut your arm off."

Hearing the words makes my instincts and emotions revolt. My vocal cords tense and my voice changes octaves:

"But I don't wanna cut my arm off!"

"Aron, you're gonna have to cut your arm off."

I realize I'm arguing with myself, and yield to a halfhearted chuckle. This is crazy. But I know that I could never saw through my arm bones with either of the blades of my multitool, so I decide to keep picking away at the boulder. Tick, tick, tick ... tick ... tick, tick. The sound of my knife tapping is pathetically minute...

DAY FOUR TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 5 A.M.

7:58 A.M. Slowly, I become aware of the cold stare of my knife. There's a reason for everything, including why I brought that knife, and suddenly I know what I am about to do. Mustering my courage, I dismantle a purple Prusik loop from the rigging and tie it around my right biceps, preparing the rest of my tourniquet as I refined it yesterday.

Unfolding the shorter blade, I close the handle and grasp it in my fist. Raising the tool above my right arm, I pick a spot on the top of my forearm. I hesitate, jerking my left hand to a halt a foot above my target. Then I recock my tool and, before I can stop myself, my fist violently thrusts the blade down, burying it to the hilt in the meat of my forearm.

"Holy crap, Aron," I say out loud. "What did you just do?"

My vision warps with astonishment. I bend my head to my arm, and my surroundings leave sepia-toned hallucinogenic trails behind them. Yesterday, it didn't seem possible that my knife could ever get through my skin, but I did it. When I grasp the tool more firmly and wiggle it slightly, the blade connects with something hard, my upper forearm bone. I tap the knife down and feel it knocking on my radius.

"Whoa. That's so bizarre."

DAY SIX: THURSDAY, MAY 1, 9:30 A.M.

I thrash myself forward and back, side to side, up and down, down and up. I scream out in pure hate, shrieking as I batter my body against the canyon walls, losing every bit of composure that I've struggled so intensely to maintain. And then I feel my arm bend unnaturally in the unbudging grip of the chockstone. An epiphany strikes me with the magnificent glory of a holy intervention and instantly brings my seizure to a halt:

"If I torque my arm far enough, I can break my forearm bones."

Like bending a two-by-four held in a table vise, I can just bow my entire goddamn arm until it snaps in two!

"Holy crap Aron, that's it, that's it. THAT'S F****** IT!"

There is no hesitation. I barely realize what I'm about to do. I unclip from the anchor webbing, crouching until my buttocks are almost touching the stones on the canyon floor. I put my left hand under the boulder and push hard, harder, HARDER! to put a maximum downward force on my radius bone. As I slowly bend my arm down to the left, a POW! reverberates like a muted cap-gun shot.

I scramble to clear the chockstone, trying to keep my head on straight. Without further pause and again in silence, I hump my body up over the rock. Smearing my shoes against the canyon walls, I push with my legs and grab the back of the chockstone with my left hand, pulling with every bit of ferocity I can muster, until a second cap-gun shot ends my ulna's anticipation. Sweating and euphoric, I touch my right arm again. Both bones have splintered in the same place, just above my wrist.

I am overcome with excitement. Hustling to deploy the shorter and sharper multitool blade, I completely skip the tourniquet procedure I have rehearsed and place the cutting tip to my wrist, between two blue veins. I push the knife into my wrist, watching my skin stretch inward, until the point finally pierces and sinks to its hilt.

In a blaze of pain, I know the job is just starting...

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