Mountaineer's ordeal

2003 USA: After six days of trying to lift and break the 400-kilogram boulder that had his arm pinned, 27-year-old Aron Ralston, a mountain climber in Blue John Canyon, near Moab in south-eastern Utah, amputated his lower right arm with a dull pocket knife in order to release himself.

After Ralston was rescued, his arm was retrieved from under the boulder by park authorities, cremated, and the ashes were given to the young mountaineer. In 2005, Ralston became the first person to climb all of Colorado's mountains over 14,000 feet in elevation solo in winter, a project he started in 1997 and had to put on hold due to his accident. During his ordeal, Ralston was forced to drink his own urine for two days after having run out of his rationed water ...