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Endurance In Extremity (Tales Of Stubborn Survival Or Persistence)

escargot

Disciple of Marduk
Joined
Aug 24, 2001
Messages
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Location
HM The Tower of London
Run over, shot and nearly frozen dog

The animal's ordeal started on April 15, when Dosha, a 10-month-old mixed breed, escaped from a backyard and got hit by a car. The Clearlake police officer who reported to the scene shot the dog, who didn't have a collar, when no one could tell him who owned her.

Presumed dead, the dog was taken to the local animal shelter, where she was put in a freezer. About two hours later, the center's interim director opened the freezer door and found the dog standing upright in a plastic orange bag.

Awwwwww! Brave little doggie!
 
Hopefully, she'll be back to licking her genitalia and eating her own poop in no time flat.
 
Climber amputates own arm

MOAB, Utah (AP) -- A Colorado climber amputated his own arm Thursday, five days after becoming pinned by a boulder, and he was hiking to safety when he was spotted by searchers, authorities said.

Aron Ralston, 27, of Aspen, was in serious condition late Thursday at a hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado.

Ralston was climbing Saturday in Blue John Canyon, adjacent to Canyonlands National Park in far southwestern Utah, when a 200-pound boulder fell on him, pinning his right arm, authorities said.

He ran out of water on Tuesday and on Thursday morning, he decided that his survival required drastic action.

Using his pocketknife, he amputated his arm below the elbow and applied a tourniquet and administered first aid.

He then rigged anchors, fixed a rope and rappelled to the canyon floor.

He hiked downstream and was spotted about 3 p.m. by a Utah Public Safety Helicopter. The search for Ralston had begun the same morning, after authorities were notified he was four days overdue reporting for work.

Ralston was described by authorities as an avid outdoorsman in exceptional physical condition. They said he was known to have climbed 49 of Colorado's major peaks.


http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Central/05/02/climber.amputation.ap/index.html
 
You'd think someone that experienced would have the foresight to inform someone of his activities in case he didn't come back.

Brave boy tho. Not sure I could do that.
 
Never climb alone. It's rank stupidity. If he'd had a partner and left a copy of his route with someone, then his playing the piano might still be a possibilty.
Personally, I'd rather have dug away the ground under my arm...
 
i wounder whats the etiquet of looseing ahand in these cases...does one go back and dig it up latter or just leave it to mother nature?..(if only to retrive ur watch)..u can get fined for littering the national parks u know...
 
Inverurie Jones said:
Never climb alone. It's rank stupidity. If he'd had a partner and left a copy of his route with someone, then his playing the piano might still be a possibilty.
Personally, I'd rather have dug away the ground under my arm...
Assuming of course, that the ground wasn't solid rock as well. Still you're right about climbing solo - it was a stupid thing to do. A 200 pound rock would probably have been no problem for two people, even if one of them was pinned under it.

As for being able to do it, I assume the "pocket knife" was a Swiss Army or a Leatherman, or some such with a hacksaw blade in it. Cutting through bone is not easy.

Neither is hiking anywhere just after a radical procedure such as an emergency amputation. Even with a torniquet on before he started cutting, he would have lost a fair bit of blood, and probably have been in shock.
 
Solid rock or not, I'd still be determined to dig my way out rather than hack bits off!
 
I agree with you on that. I'm just saying he might have already tried it and given up. (I wouldn't have that easily, myself.)

Besides, 200 pounds isn't that heavy. I think I'd be able to shift it myself, if I could brace properly.
 
Inverurie Jones said:
200lbs is piddling!
In fact, I reckon I could shift 500pounds!

I hope, for Fort's sake, that I never have to prove this...
 
anome said:
Besides, 200 pounds isn't that heavy. I think I'd be able to shift it myself, if I could brace properly.
..yes, given the use of both arms, an evenly distributed weight and unrestricted movement. Bearing in mind the one under the boulder was probably broken, and immobile anyway, I doubt he could get into a position to lever it. I do weights, and can snatch 200lb, but tbh I doubt I could move a boulder in that particular situation - apart from anything else everytime he'd have moved it probably hurt like hell.
 
I was actually thinking of using my legs, which can move a lot more weight than my arms. Could be difficult to get in the right position, though.

Besides, how bad does the pain have to be before cutting your own arm off becomes an option.
 
anome said:
Besides, how bad does the pain have to be before cutting your own arm off becomes an option.
It wasn't the pain so much as the time he'd been trapped:
Ralston was climbing Saturday in Blue John Canyon, adjacent to Canyonlands National Park in far southwestern Utah, when a 200-pound boulder fell on him, pinning his right arm, authorities said.

He ran out of water on Tuesday and on Thursday morning, he decided that his survival required drastic action.
 
according to the news report here, he put his arm between the boulder and the canyon wall, when it rolled back and pinned him...:rolleyes:
 
I saw on TV (bbc news) this morning that is was an 800lb rock, although the beeb website doesn't support that.

As for moving a 200lb rock, it really depends on how the rock is positioned (as his arm was trapped it's be awkward to position yourself to puch it), but like ryn said he'd been trapped for 5 days and was probably as weak as a kitten.

Tough lad :)
 
We only have his word that there was a boulder. Maybe the climber decided to
amputate his arm because it was there! :eek:
 
Let this be a warning to climbers everywhere about the dangers of going solo.
Climbing is very much like scuba diving in that respect.
 
Solo Oral Sex, Beak?

I feel you should amplify that remark.

:D
 
Well, you could put your back out.

Or so I'd imagine. Not that I've ever tried.
 
anome said:
Well, you could put your back out.
Exactly. As dangerous in it's way as solo scuba diving.

My humour just goes straight over their heads :rolleyes:
 
The guy must be so bummed, all that herioc act and pain and turns out that he probably would have been found that day.
I mean, he was probably sitting there thinking "it'll be like buses, you light a fag and one comes along."
"I'll just wait one more day..."
"Just one more"
"Ohhhh I can't take it...*chop*"

three hours later the helicopter shows up.
Hahahah.

pinkle
 
Last edited by a moderator:
James Whitehead said:
We only have his word that there was a boulder. Maybe the climber decided to
amputate his arm because it was there! :eek:

uhhhh... that's a totally different subject. Although, still tangentally Fortean.

(Didn't somebody just die from a botched self-trepanation?)
 
Ugh. This is all over the media over here. The big controversy right now is that there was a big effort made to go back to the spot, move the rock, and retreive the limb, not in any effort to reattach it, like the article said, but more because sensationalists were trying to get it. To sell on EBay!

However, the Forest Service is also saying that anything of this sort is considered a biohazard and can't stay in a park.

On an equally gruesome note, after basically whittling away the flesh with a swiss army knife that had already been dulled by trying to chip away the rock to free his hand, he had to brace the bones (radius and ulna) against the boulder to break them.

We've all heard that a fox will gnaw off it's foot to escape a trap but a human? A supreme act of will if ever I heard of one.
 
Anyone ever heard the story of the Russian (Soviet?) doctor who operated his own appendix in the Antarctica? I've seen a picture of that in the Musem of the Arctic and Anarctic. Just popped into my mind..

Also, in "Psychopatia Sexualis" there's at least one account of (female) solo oral sex.
 
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