In 2003, 27-year-old Colorado native Aron Ralston was rock-climbing in Bluejohn Canyon in Utah when he accidentally set loose an 800-pound rock.
Trapped with only a liter of water, no jacket and a small, dull knife, Ralston realized what he'd have to do.
"It was a conversation I had out loud with myself. You're gonna have to cut your arm off, Aron. 'I don't want to cut my arm off.' Dude, you're gonna have to cut your arm off," he told CBS News.
Ralston considered suicide, but ultimately chose to break his own bones, cut off his own arm, rappel down a 60-foot cliff, then hike seven miles before being rescued by a helicopter that his mom had sent out.
"This is something I would not have believed that I was capable of doing. If you had told me eight years ago that I would do this, I wouldn't have believed it," he told CBS.
Rather than an animal instinct to survive, Ralston says he simply did what he had to do to see his loved ones again.
"Really it was a very simple thing, like, 'I'm gonna do what I have to do in order to get back to the people who are important to me,'" he said.
We'd want to see our loved ones again too