Aron Ralston Quotes (Images)

Aron Lee Ralston was born in Marion, Ohio. He is an American outdoorsman, engineer and motivational speaker. He survived a canyoneering accident in south-eastern Utah in 2003, during which he amputated his own right forearm with a dull knife in order to extricate himself from a dislodged boulder, underneath which he had been trapped for five days and seven hours. After he freed himself, he had to abseil down a 65-foot (20 m) sheer cliff face to reach safety. He is a graduate of Cherry Creek High School in Greenwood Village, Colorado. He received his college degree from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, finishing with degrees in mechanical engineering and French, with a minor in piano. He left his job as a mechanical engineer with Intel in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2002 and moved to Aspen, Colorado in order to pursue a life of climbing mountains. He had the goal of climbing all of Colorado's "fourteeners" — peaks over 14,000 ft high, of which there are 59; solo and during winter.