MSE series hosts self-amputee Aron Ralston

On Wednesday, outdoor adventurer Aron Ralston gave a presentation in Shriver Hall as a part of the Milton S. Eisenhower (MSE) Symposium. He is best known for surviving a hiking trip in the Blue John Canyon in Utah, during which he was forced to cut off his own arm to free it from a loose boulder.

Before the event, students and community members filed into Shriver Hall in large numbers.

“I saw the movie, and thought it was a really inspirational story about the will to survive. I haven’t come to many of these events, but I really wanted to see what he had to say,” junior Caitlin McDonald said.

Ralston’s presentation focused not on what the boulder took from him, but on what it gave him.

“It showed me that accomplishments and success are not important in life, but that the people you build relationships with are, because the only thing stronger than the will to survive is the will to love,” Ralston said. “It showed me that I was capable of more than I thought I was... We all have boulders in this world, but we also have the choice to make them tragedies or triumphs.”

After the event, the audience rose to give Ralston a standing ovation.

“It was probably the most motivational presentation I have ever seen,” freshman Brian Kim said. “It is so easy to give into trials and hardships, but this guy takes these hardships and makes it into his own strengths, and I think that is something we could all learn from in order to make this world a better place.”

Ralston’s story started when he went hiking in Canyonlands National Park in Utah on April 23, 2003. He was alone and had not informed anyone of where he was or what he was doing. While descending a slot canyon, a rock suspended above him dislodged and wedged his hand between it and the canyon wall.

Ralston was trapped there for five days, with only a few milliliters of water and some granola bars. He was slowly dying, so he decided to carve his name into the rock and made a farewell to his parents with his video camera. With nothing left to do, and dehydration, starvation and infection setting in, Aron began the amputation.

He had only a dull knife, so he needed to break the bone against the rock first. He used pieces of his backpack to create a tourniquet. It was a slow and painful process, but eventually Aron was free. He still had to hike out of the canyon and back to civilization. On the way, he was found by some hikers who called for emergency personnel.

“That moment when I got free was like all the happiness I had ever experienced and all the happiness I had yet to experience, multiplied by a thousand,” Ralston said.

Afterward, Ralston, an engineer who got his degree from Carnegie Mellon University, decided to write a book. It was called Between a Rock and a Hard Place and was released on Sept. 7, 2004.

The book made The New York Times Best Seller list and was produced into a movie directed by Danny Boyle and starring James Franco.

The movie, which was named 127 Hours for the length of time that Ralston was trapped in the canyon, was released on Nov. 5, 2010. It received six Oscar nominations.

The theme for this year’s MSE Symposium is Generation Electric: Recharging the Promise of Tomorrow. Organizers of the event felt that Ralston’s story of overcoming opposition would be the perfect inspiration for the year ahead.

“He was dealt a terrible hand, did everything he could to survive and even came away better for it. Just hearing his story, we knew it would fit perfectly with our theme,” MSE Co-Chair Daniel Elkin said.

“In the past, we have had a lot of politicians, but this year we wanted to get away from that so we could expand people’s experiences and knowledge. We really believe in our theme this year,” MSE Co-Chair Annabel Barnicke said.

The MSE Symposium is an annual fall lecture series that began in 1967 as a way to present important topics to the Hopkins community. It is entirely run by undergraduate students and is sponsored by the University. Presentations have included talks by many famous writers, scientists, politicians and entertainers, and they are always free and open to the public.

Upcoming presentations will include talks by R.J. Mitte from Breaking Bad and B.J. Novak from The Office, as well as journalist Laura Ling, who is famous for being trapped in North Korea while covering a story there, and Tom Donilon, former national security advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama.

The co-chairs of the symposium said they credit the symposium’s sponsors, including the Office of Student Life, the Parents Fund, the Student Government Association (SGA) and the Hopkins Organization for Programming (the HOP), all of which have contributed to the symposium’s support.