week 5 part 2

This section begins at day 5 of Aron’s entrapment. He once again attempted the amputation of his right arm but failed due to the dullness of his knife not being able to break his wrist bones. Another problem is his deathly case of dehydration. Right now, he is solely relying on his own urine as a beverage, being that he drank all of his water a day or two ago. At first, he planned to not even make it to Tuesday night, which is where is now, so his new goal is to survive until Wednesday at noon. As night enters Aron’s realm for the fifth time, so did the cold temperature. He constantly dozes off and has flashbacks of events that have happened in him that he would enjoy at that specific point. One example would be while he is at his grandma’s and he is enjoying a 7-Up in a Styrofoam cup with cylindrical ice cubes. He continues escaping into trances all the way until the next morning. Aron also continues to etch things into the wall with his knife as well as leave love notes in his camcorder. Believing that he will die very soon, he etches his name “ARON” and then “OCT 75-APR 03” with a “RIP” just above that. Suddenly, he envisions a little boy, perched on his right shoulder, giggling and prancing around, and Aron realizes that he is going to live, somehow, someway, he is going to live.

At 9 a.m. on Wednesday, April 30th, Aron’s manager at work, Brion After, came into work and realized that Aron has missed his second day of work (which is extremely out his character). Brion begins to worry, and from that point on, Aron’s search begins. Brion begins by calling his mother, and the two decide to try to come into contact with someone who Aron had spoken to regarding his whereabouts for the previous weekend. Brion calls his roommate, Elliot, as well as the Aspen Police while Aron’s mom tries to hack into Aron’s e-mail to see if he sent out any e-mails telling people where he would be. When Brion gets a hold of Elliot, Elliot is sent to search Aron’s room and finds his Denali ’02 file (the file of his climbing team). Brion then sends out an e-mail to the leaders of that team, Janet, Bill, Jason, and David. Brion then has Elliot come to work to keep up with the e-mails and messages regarding Aron because he was scheduled to go on a 2 week vacation the next day. Aron’s mom contacts Sonja, Aron’s sister, as well as his dad to discuss the issue even though both are already busy and are unable to come and help. Brion and Elliot were also able to talk to Brad Yule, the last known person to see Aron. Brad informed them of his canyoneering schedule. Another helpful resource was Daniel Hadlich, another friend of Aron, who was told that Aron would be at Holy Cross Couloir on Friday and Saturday. Meanwhile, Aron’s mom and Elliot are having a rough time locating his truck because they both are unable to recall his license plates. Leona, however, was able to figure out his license number and would call the sheriff’s office in the morning when they opened.

It then becomes day 6 for Aron, and he cannot believe that he is still alive. He shocked that he has survived the nights’ hypothermic conditions. He then adds another portion to his camcorder journal. He attempts one final time to chip at the boulder with a smaller rock, and once again fails. Angered, he begins to thrash his body from side to side, when he suddenly feels his arm bend unnaturally. That’s it. He realizes that he can bend his arm enough and break the bones, virtually splitting his arm in two, which would make very easy for him to cut through his arm. He then keeps attempting to break his arm when POP. It’s broken. Aron quickly grabs his knife and begins cutting and opens up a hole in his wrist. He moves his fingers around, making a mental image of what he needs to do to free himself. His first pattern is sorting, pinching, rotating, and slicing the nerves and veins. After a while, he comes to a very strong tendon which he can’t break. Eventually he takes his pliers and rips it apart, and he then continues with a new pattern: grip, squeeze, twist, tear. After a good hour, Aron is free. However, he now needs to hurry up and get to a hospital, which could take 6 to 7 hours.