Beyond impossible

The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible..." ¬ Arthur C Ward

Aron Ralston had an engineering degree and a good job.  A regular mountaineer, he also had a dream of climbing Colorado’s ‘fourteeners’ i.e. peaks over 14000 feet.  At the age of 28 (2003), he resigned and pursued mountaineering.  One day while hiking in Utah, descending a slot canyon, a suspended boulder from which he was climbing down became dislodged, crushing his right hand and forearm, pinning him against the canyon wall.  As he did not tell anyone of his hiking plans, he knew no one would be searching for him. 

He rationed his water supply and for three days tried to free himself.  His self-control was beyond comprehension; only allowing himself one scream per day.  Then he realised that he would have to amputate his arm to rescue himself. 
It took him another two days and 7 hours, after several practise runs, to break the bone and cut through his arm with a multi-tool that also had a 2-inch knife.  Thereafter he still had to rappel down a 20m cliff and walk 7 miles to his vehicle! 

Aron was saved and his life story is captured in a book ‘Between a rock and a hard place’.  His heroic survival is also the subject of the film 127 hours.  In 2005 he became the first person to climb all 53 of Colorado’s ‘fourteeners’, with only one arm.  Aron Ralston is a living example of sheer determination, a man who went beyond impossible.