It was Thursday, May 1st, five days after Aron Ralston had first entered Utah's Bluejohn Canyon on what should have been an eight-hour, 13-mile (21-kilometer) day hike. But on his way, while scrambling through a narrow section of the sandstone slot, Ralston dislodged an 800-pound (363-kilogram) chockstone that rolled on its pinch points and pinned his hand and forearm. His supplies—two burritos and three liters of water—were now gone, and there was virtually no chance of rescue. Unless Ralston did something drastic, he would not make it out alive.

Ralston, a 27-year-old mountaineer from Aspen, Colorado, is an experienced outdoorsman and a former member of the Albuquerque Mountain Rescue Council. Bluejohn Canyon was well within his technical and physical ability,