credit:espn.com

Rescue workers in Utah are marveling at the decision of a rock climber, who cut off his own arm to free himself after he became trapped under a fallen 1,000-pound boulder.

 

Police in Utah say Aron Ralston, 27, was pinned for five days in a canyon in Canyonlands National Park in eastern Utah.

 

Ralston decided to free himself by amputating his arm below the elbow with his pocket knife, then rappelled to the bottom of the canyon. A bloody and dehydrated Ralston walked about eight kilometers before he found help. What was left of his right arm was wrapped in a tourniquet he had fashioned after severing his arm.

 

Utah rescue helicopter pilot, Terry Mercer, says if Ralston had not made the decision to cut off his own arm, he would never have survived.

 

"Where he was pinned, we went back in there and looked at the spot he was pinned and it was such a narrow canyon and the overlap was so bad that we could fly right directly over the top of it we would have never seen him down there," he told ABC news services.

 

Ralston was airlifted out of the canyon and was listed in serious condition Saturday at a hospital in Grand Junction, Colo. Ralston is from Aspen.

 

Ralston began his "canyoneering" trip last weekend, and it was only supposed to last one day. He was climbing over a boulder when it shifted and landed on his right hand and forearm. He ran out of water by Tuesday, and then made his decision to amputate his arm two days later.

 

After severing his arm, Ralston found a way to set up his climbing ropes and hooks, and rappel to the canyon's floor.

 

Ralston has a mechanical engineering degree, but decided earlier this year to quit a corporate career at Intel for mountaineering.

Brass balls *T-H-I-S* big, man...

 

You know he just did it so no one could ever beat him in a drunken bar room pi$$ing contest about who's tougher! :mischief