Aron Ralston Fact File

Aron Ralston Fact File

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Aron Ralston

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Aron Lee Ralston



Ralston in 2008

Born October 27, 1975 (age 36)

Indianapolis, Indiana

Alma mater Carnegie Mellon University

Occupation Motivational speaker, mountaineer, engineer

Spouse Jessica Trusty

Aron Lee Ralston (born October 27, 1975) is an American mountain climber and inspirational public speaker. He is widely known for having survived a 2003 canyoneering accident in Utah in which he was forced to amputate his own right arm with a dull pocketknife in order to free himself from a dislodged boulder.[1]

The incident is documented in Ralston's autobiography Between a Rock and a Hard Place, and is the subject of the 2010 film 127 Hours.

[edit]Personal life



Ralston 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. At Carnegie Mellon, he served as a Resident Assistant, studied abroad, and was an active intramural sports participant. He left his job as a mechanical engineer with Intel in 2002 in order to pursue a life of climbing mountains. He had the goal of climbing all of Colorado's "fourteeners", or peaks over 14,000 feet high, solo and during winter—a feat that had never been done. He has subsequently achieved this feat.

In August 2009, Ralston married Jessica Trusty, and their first child, Leo, was born in February 2010. [2][3][4]



In April 2003, while he was hiking Blue John Canyon (in eastern Wayne County, Utah, just south of the Horseshoe Canyon Unit of Canyonlands National Park), a suspended boulder from which he was climbing down became dislodged, crushing his right forearm and pinning it against the canyon wall.[5] Ralston had not told anybody of his hiking plans and knew no one would be searching for him. Assuming that he would die, he spent five days slowly...

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