Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Time lapses unnoticed for me now; I’m wholly attuned to my endeavor with the rope system. I call upon my training in search and rescue and design a scheme in my mind that will replicate the technical hauling systems we use to evacuate immobilized patients from vertical rock faces. The Albuquerque rescue team taught me two standard systems, and I choose between them, deciding on a Z-pulley system with an additional redirection of the haul line. Modifying the typical system layout for my space and equipment constraints, I add Prusik loops of tied runners clipped to carabiners to connect the rope back to itself. With two such changes in direction, I’ve theoretically tripled the force applied at the haul point-a mechanical advantage ratio of 3:1. Due to my improvisations, the friction in my system is probably halving that advantage, but 1.5:1 is still better than 0.5:1, like my first attempt.

Still, the system is too weak. The boulder ignores my efforts. At the end of the haul line, I tie a set of slipknots that slide onto stopper knots, creating foot loops. Stepping into the loops makes me about two feet taller in the canyon, and though I’m in an awkward position due to my stuck hand, I can now put most of my body weight into service on the haul line. I’ve probably tripled or quadrupled the force that I could apply when I was gripping the rope with one hand. The haul line is taut, even through the bends at the carabiners, and my system is working as designed. However, because I’m using a dynamic climbing rope, meant to stretch and absorb the energy of a climbing fall, I lose much of the force I’m exerting on the haul line. Flailing through hours of taxing work, and several unsuccessful iterations of raising the anchor webbing a few inches by tying another knot above the rap ring, I never once budge the rock. I’m doing the best I can with my available materials. Maybe I could rig a 5:1 system-I have enough carabiners and webbing-but I would need another foot of space between the anchor and the rock to fit all the bends of the larger system. Discouraged from the effort and the lack of measurable progress, I stop for a break and glance at my watch. It’s after one o’clock in the afternoon, and I’m sweating and panting.

Suddenly, I hear distant voices echoing in the canyon. My mind swears in exhilarated surprise, and my breath abruptly catches in my dry throat.

Could it be? It’s the right time of day-a group would get to this part and be able to return out to the West Fork or to Horseshoe Trailhead in daylight. And just like you figured, the odds are better that others will come through on a weekend day. After all, that’s how you came to be here yesterday afternoon.

Even reasoning it through, I’m afraid I may be delusional, that the sounds are in my head. Holding my breath, I listen.

Yes! The noises are distorted and far off but familiar: shoes scrabbling on sandstone. It’s probably a group of canyoneers descending the first drop-off, back at the S-log.

“HELP!”

The caterwauling echoes of my shout fade in the canyon. Forcing myself not to breathe, I listen for a reply. Nothing.

“HELLLP!”

The desperation of my quivering shout disturbs me. Again I hold my breath. After the dying fall of my shout, there is no returning sound besides the thumping of my excited heart. A critical moment passes, my hopes evaporate, and I know there are no people in this canyon.

My morale slumps in a pang, like the first time a girl broke my heart. Then I hear the noises again. This time I know better and I wait. The echoes I took to be approaching canyoneers resolve into the scratchy sounds of a kangaroo rat in his nest in the debris jammed around the suspended chockstone above and behind my head. I rotate and see his tail whip across a pile of twigs as he disappears into his hole.

In that moment, I promise myself that I will yell for help only once a day. Hearing my voice’s shaky timbre nearly panicked me, and to yell out any more often would undermine my effort to maintain a calm and clearheaded demeanor. Rationally, I know there will be no one coming down this canyon until perhaps the next weekend, when the search teams will be scouring the backcountry for my body. Since my voice can be heard fifty yards away at most, and the nearest people would be five to seven miles away, it serves no positive purpose to shout myself scared.

Around two o’clock, I reconsider my status and my options. Waiting, chipping, and lifting have all played out unsuccessfully. For the first time, I seriously contemplate amputating my arm, thinking through the process and possible consequences. Laying out everything I have on the surfaces around me, I think through each item’s possible use in a surgery. My two biggest concerns are a cutting tool that can do the job, and a tourniquet that will keep me from bleeding out. There are two blades on my multi-tool: The inch-and-a-half blade is sharper than the three-inch one. It will be important to use the longer blade for hacking at the chockstone and preserve the shorter blade for the potential surgery.

I instinctively understand that even with the sharper blade, I won’t be able to saw through my bones. I’ve seen the hacksaws that Civil War-era doctors used for amputating patients’ legs and arms in battlefield hospitals, and I don’t have anything that could approximate even a rudimentary saw. I’ve made an assumption that I want to amputate as little of my arm as possible. This unstated parameter leads me to think strictly in terms of cutting through the bones of my forearm, as opposed to going through the cartilage of my elbow joint. The latter possibility never occurs to me, preemptively eliminating the likeliest method.

A vivid memory from a movie of a heroin user shooting up, with a length of surgical tubing wrapped around his arm, gives me the idea to experiment with a tourniquet of tubing from my empty CamelBak. I cut the tubing free from the reservoir and manage to tie it in a simple knot around my upper forearm, just below the elbow. The placement comes to me without consideration of the pressure points nearer my biceps. I’m thinking I will have to twist the tubing so tightly that it will permanently damage part of my arm; therefore, I should put it as close to the cutting site as possible. The knot in the tubing is loose, and I can’t cinch it down even after redoing it three times: The plastic material is too stiff to allow a small knot that would stay snug around my arm. I look around for a stick to put in the tourniquet, but there aren’t any thick enough for my needs. To tighten the tubing will require a force that would snap any stick I can reach.

So much for that idea.

I have a piece of purple webbing knotted in a loop that I untie and wrap around my forearm. A five-minute effort yields a doubled knot, but the loops are too loose to stop my circulation. Again, I need a stick…or I can use a carabiner and twist the loops tighter with that. I clip the gate of my last unused carabiner through the loops and rotate it twice. The webbing presses deeply into my forearm, and the skin nearer my wrist takes on the pallor of a fish belly. I’ve fashioned an effective tourniquet, and seeing my makeshift medical setup working brings me a subtle sense of satisfaction.

Nice work, Aron.

What else will I need? Basic first aid says to put direct pressure on a wound, so I’ll need something to wrap the end of my arm, minimizing any blood flow that sneaks past the tourniquet. The cushioned crotch of my biking shorts would make a good absorbent pad, and with the four feet of unused yellow webbing that I could cut from the anchor, I can secure the shorts around the end of my arm. Then I can stick my stump into my CamelBak mini- backpack, and with both straps around my neck, the pack will act like a sling, immobilizing my arm across my chest. Perfect.

Despite my optimism, there’s a darker undercurrent to my brainstorming. Though my mind is working on the amputation scenario, the operation is still only a theoretical possibility. I’m thinking, “If I cut off my arm, how will I stop the blood loss?” and “If I cut off my arm, how will I pad and sling my stump?” Because my knife is too dull, the rest of the plan is no more than an idle mental exercise. Until I figure out how to cut through the bones, amputation isn’t a practical choice; it’s more a point of theory that allows me to follow through on all my options. I wonder about my courage level and how my mental state will change if I can solve the riddle. As a test, I expose the shorter blade of my multi-tool and hold it to my skin. The tip pokes between the tendons and veins a few inches up from my trapped wrist, indenting my flesh. The sight repulses me.

What are you doing, Aron? Get that knife away from your wrist! What are you trying to do, kill yourself? That’s suicide! I don’t care how good a tourniquet you have, you’ve got too many arteries in your arm to stop them all. You’ll bleed out. You slice your wrist, and it’s as good as stabbing yourself in the gut. If you manage to get through the bones and free yourself, say you make it down as far as the rappel. That tourniquet won’t make a damn difference-the rescuers will find your depleted body sometime next month, pecked clean by buzzards down in that canyon. Cutting your arm off is just a slow act of suicide.