The internet dispels myths
So, Sam and I were chatting away, and she told me about a guy who was on Richard and Judy a while back. Apparently this guy was skiing in the Alps or somwhere, and got caught in an avalanche, and his arm was trapped beneath a boulder. And he couldn’t get free. He was pinned there by his arm for three days, and the end was in sight. With the old guy with the scythe, as he thought, just around the corner, the pinned skier came to a drastic decision. He’d have to lose the arm in order to survive. But he had no tools.
So he bit through his own arm. Amputated his own living arm with his teeth.
That’s the worst and most horrible story I had ever heard. I couldn’t stop shuddering at the thought of biting through your own arm.
Then reality reasserted itself a bit. So I looked it up on the internet. And the story, while generically accurate, was actually wrong in almost all particulars. The guy wasn’t skiing, he was mountaineering. In Utah. And, most importantly, although he did come to the blood-chilling decision to remove his own arm, and then actually did it, he did it with a pocket knife. Not his teeth. Now, don’t get me wrong; cutting off your own arm takes nerves of steel, I admit it. But biting through it? Tasting your own living flesh and feeling all that pain? I’m bloody glad it didn’t happen, that’s all I can say.
ladyfingers…they taste just like ladyfingers…
Rannalph Fiennes chopped the ends of his own fingers off when the pain of frost bite got too much. What a man!
Maddox mentions this also: http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=real_men
23 hours later
Ranulph Fiennes is the greatest living Englishman, no two ways about it. I did think about mentioning him :)
25 hours later
Not only that, but he wrote his own quite compelling account of the experience. Highly recommended (by me, at least).
3 days later
Funny thing is, this guy was caught in an avalanche just a few months before this accident. I think he had a death wish.
4 days later
Ladyfingers… Lol. King is certainly memorable, if not enjoyable. As I was blithely Googling my way along I happened to come across this blog. I happened to see the hiking guy on 20/20 or so and it was funny how they asked him to relive the entire experience and show us his tragic episode for our viewing pleasure… my curiosity has never been so strong as to demand a man show me something of that nature after he has already experienced it. I’ll take his word for how terrible it actually was.
5 days later
His name is Aron Ralston. He was inside a canyon in Utah and got his arm stcuk when a boulder crashed down. He then eventually broke both bones in his arm and then proceeded to cut through his arm using a dull pocket knife and pliers.
Amanda
avw@shaw.ca
18 weeks later