Between a Rock and a Hard Place Blogpost #2
Aron, trapped in Blue John Canyon, has to survive and preserve what’s left of his water. He had a few ideas on how to escape from the boulder. One was to lift the few hundred pound rock with his rope and limited tools off his hand just enough to get his palm out; this idea didn’t work. The next idea was to chip away at the block but it was time and strength consuming since he was chipping away at a sandstone boulder; this wasn’t any ordinary sandstone though. It came from the top layer of the canyon, meaning that it’s the most erosion resistant sandstone around the area. His third option was to cut off his arm, but argued against himself for thinking that. The only choice he had left was to wait for rescue or his demise. He tried to schedule and divided the amount of water he had left, estimating that it would last him for 3 days and that rescue won’t come for 5 days; but after dropping the container and losing some valuable water, he wildly drank it all and waits for his death. Instead, he drank his urine as a replacement for liquid. At night the wind and air turned cold, compared to during the day, and he has little material to keep him warm. There are times when he would speak and confess to his video camera, saying his farewells to his friends and family. Then the time came: he tried to amputate his arm off. Using a dull knife, he whacked it on his arm, not feeling pain below the outer layers of his arm. Then he opened it up and started poking around at the yellow tissue. There wasn’t much blood as he thought there would be and saw that he couldn’t cut through his bone; this leaves him stuck. In the chapters about his past, he talked about more mountain climbing, and once he got caught in an avalanche with two friends. The three-some survived but his friends blamed Aron for triggering the life-death situation and never spoke to him again. The talk was mostly about how he ended up living in Aspen and heading out for this adventure, leading up to where he is now. The viewpoint strays away from Aron’s as it makes its way to the two women Aron met before venturing off on his own. They had agreed to meet up later that day and not seeing him, began to worry a bit. Back home, Aron’s friends start to wonder where he’s at, since he didn’t arrive home or to work. They called the police to notify a missing person, but the operator didn’t tell them that Aron wasn’t lost long enough for a rescue party to start looking.
“Fascinated, I poke at the gash with the tool” (Ralston 386).
I chose this quote because this was during the middle of his ‘surgery’. While reading Aron poking around his arm, I also got curious. I don’t know why it got me curious all of a sudden, because I had already knew that he was going to do this, but still. While some people would feel disgusted while reading his detailed description on observing his gash, I was quite…entertain (?) somehow. Maybe because I have read gorier books and shows than this…but anyways! I mainly chose this quote because out of the many sentences about his examination, this one clearly relates to how I was feeling during the time I was reading this.
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