Can you lend a hand?

Aron Ralston, is the man who cut off his own hand after getting it stuck after taking a fall while mountain climbing. You can read about his ordeal in his book, Between a Rock and a Hard Place.

He was recently interviewed on the Howard Stern Radio Show. Aron explained that while he was climbing a mountain in Utah, he accidentally pulled a large rock out and it ended up crushing his right hand and trapping him. He was out alone and couldn't free his hand. He immediately thought about amputating his arm to get free. He tried chipping away at the rock but figured it would have taken a month to get himself out that way. Aron said that a vision of a young boy appeared to him and recommended he amputate his hand. Aron commented that he thought the image was of his future son, so he needed to take his advice.

After a day of being stuck, Aron made his first attempt at cutting off his hand since his hand was already dead, without circulation and developing gangrene. Aron had a dull knife with him and putting the knife into his skin felt like cutting through room-temperature butter, and that as soon as his dead hand was punctured, a gas came out of it. He was unable to saw through his hand.

After six days of being stuck he realized he wasn't going to be able to cut through his bones with the knife he had. Aron decided he had to snap the bones off to get free of the rock if he had any chance of surviving. In order to accomplish this, Aron maneuvered his weight to use the leverage of the rocks to break the bones. Once his hand was off, Aron still had the task of climbing back to his vehicle, which was eight miles away and then driving the manual transmission truck, without a right hand, two hours to get to a phone. Given the amount of blood he had already lost, two of his body's five liters, doing so would have been nearly impossible. Fortunately, a rescue helicopter appeared as he was heading back to his truck and took him to a hospital within hours of his probable death.

Aron said there was a time when he was trapped that he figured he was going to die. He even shot a goodbye tape for his family with a video camera he was carrying with him on the trip. However, when he figured out that he needed to break his own bones to survive, he did so without hesitation because, as he said, the worst pain imaginable would've been better than dying.

Because he was so dehydrated, Aron talked about the fact that he had to drink his own urine while he was stuck. Apparently, the top part of a cup of urine is easier to consume than the bottom portion, so Aron used his water bottle and camel back to get only the urine he thought he could stomach. He commented that the urine didn't quench his thirst, but it did give him enough nourishment to survive.

Ralston isn't upset by what happened and plans on climbing alone again adding that the rush he gets from the activity outweighs any pain it may have caused him. Aron said that the lesson he learned from his amputation was that anyone can overcome adversity by turning it into an advantage.

Howard Stern reasoned the real lesson was for people to never leave their homes.

My thought exactly.

BONUS POSTING: Sen. John McCain was on Sean Hannity's radio show last night talking about the recent federal court decision affirming the ruling that the reciting of the pledge of allegiance in school was unconstitutional. The court held that the pledge's reference to one nation "under God" violates school children's right to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God." McCain said the ruling won't stand and that in the meantime it's great news for the Republicans for fund raising purposes. He also said the case won't survive review in the Supreme Court and if it does, he said the right of the government to force little kids to swear an oath every morning to god will be protected by a constitutional amendment voted out of Congress and supported by W. Forced to read a written statement? I guess one prisoner of war's coercion is a religiously obsessed man's constitutional amendment. And to think I once had respect for this guy.

"More Jesus, less freedom. McCain '08"