September 2, 2003
Ever Come Face-to-Face With Your Life?... Let's take five with Moira Gunn. This is "Five Minutes".
If you don't recognize Aron Ralston by name, you will definitely recognize him by his story. He is the hiker who amputated his arm when it became hopelessly pinned by an 800-pound boulder in a remote Utah canyon.
That was May, but it was not until July that I learned something I couldn't put aside. In an interview on the "The Late Show with David Letterman" on CBS, Ralston told us that he had a video camera in his possession, and at one point during his five-day ordeal, he propped the camera up on the boulder and recorded a final message to his mother, father and sister.
While I was conjuring up the logistics of all that - and the emotions it might have called up - he surprised me once again by saying, "My mom won't watch it, but my dad has seen it." And that brought me up short.
Few among us find ourselves in unexpected life and death situations where we have time to ponder our demise, much less that we must face it conscious and alone.
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This has to be one of the very first instances that a person by pure happenstance had the capability to record a final video message and then made it out alive.
If his video camera works liked most these days, he could delete and re-shoot it. Work the message over a few times to make sure his face was centered in the lens. Ensure he really conveyed what he wanted to. I wondered if he did just that, or simply thought about it a bit and did it in one take.
It had to have been a small consolation, but a very real one. It let this young man say goodbye, at a time when he had come to the realization that saying goodbye was in order.
Aron Ralston also described how he finally came to amputating his arm, and how he rappelled down a 60' cliff and hiked out 6 miles before he could be evacuated.
He didn't have to pick his video camera up and hike out with it - but he did. And then at some point, when he realized he was going to survive, he must have remembered his farewell message. Did he think to replay it? Did he contemplate erasing it? No matter what, he clearly chose to share it with his family.
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While my normal inclination is always to know as much as I can about anything, presented with this scenario I can definitely understand why his mother might decide against viewing the video.
When you come that close to losing someone you love, when you believe that in fact you may well have, and it turns out that they truly almost died - even now they are safe - it's just too much to contemplate. Who would want to see the agony in their son's or daughter's face at that moment? On the precipice between life and death?
I would say - only if there were no more moments left.
I was glad to hear Aron Ralston declare his video to be "something that will probably never see the light of day." I agree. This is a personal moment, far beyond reality TV or the needs of the media to report the truth to society.
Clearly, this signals the dawning of a new age for humanity. It gives new meaning to the term "personal technology."
I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.
