If you want someone to show up and help you if something bad happens, you'd better tell someone where you're going. And of course I wanted someone to know - but I'd made a choice and it was a choice I was going to have to live with.

Assuming that he would die he spent five days slowly sipping his small amount of remaining water approximately 350 ml (12 imp fl oz) and slowly digesting his small amount of food two burritos while trying to extricate his arm. He returned to the accident scene with Brokaw and a camera crew six months later on his 28th birthday for two reasons: to film a Dateline NBC special about the accident and to scatter the aAron Ralstons of his arm where he says they belong. television show Minute To Win It where he won $125000 for Wilderness Workshop.

After he freed himself he had to rappel down a 65 foot (around 20m) Aron Ralstoner cliff face to reach safety. The incident is documented in Ralston's autobiography Between a Rock and a Hard Place and is the subject of the film 127 Hours.