I don’t know how many of you have seen the movie 127 Hours, but in case you haven’t, it’s about hiker Aron Ralston whose right arm became pinned beneath a bolder in a narrow crevice deep in the Utah wilderness. No one knew where he was and few people hiked in that area. Finally, out of desperation, Ralston cut off his own arm.

127 Hours is a stark reminder of the lengths people sometimes have to go to in order to survive. Fortunately, though, most people never find themselves in such a situation.

Just as Ralston didn’t expect to become trapped hiking the day his ordeal started, I hadn’t expected to become trapped when cutting down volunteer cedar trees in a hard-to-reach corner of our land Saturday. After felling scores of trees of various sizes, I took on the largest of the bunch, a venerable cedar with a trunk about a foot in diameter. I cut a wedge on the side where I wanted it to fall but an unexpected wind gust pushed it right down on top of me instead. It was a heavy tree and it was now resting firmly on my legs.

I was completely buried in branches – even if someone saw the tree they’d never notice I was under it. The chainsaw was still idling – should I shut it off to avoid accidentally cutting myself as I struggle to get free? Or should I keep it running in case worse came to worse and the only way I could free myself would be to emulate Aron Ralston and cut off my own legs. Eventually someone would come by to plant the adjacent field but that could be a week or more and again, I was sure I couldn’t be seen under the cedar boughs.

I thought maybe going days without food would cause me to lose enough weight that I could wriggle out. But could I survive the cold nights? And sooner or later the chain saw would run out of gas, depriving me of my last chance to escape. My heart raced — my situation was desperate.

And then, just as I was about to lose all hope, a voice came to me from nowhere. “Dad, are you okay?” my son William asked. William and my wife Lori had been helping me and had by some miracle noticed my life-or-death predicament.

“I told you not to cut that one,” Lori said. William suggested they hook a chain to the back of the pickup and pull me out – Lori thought they should attach it around my neck (okay – I got it – she had been right and I had been less-right).

Listening to them plan my rescue, I wondered if I was really any better off having them help. Finally Lori suggested I pass the chainsaw out to her and try wriggling out. I did so, and with the threat of cutting myself with the saw no longer an issue, I managed to claw my way to freedom.

“You’d better cut those branches off – they’re sticking out into the field,” was all Lori said, handing me the saw. I had returned from the brink of death only to be put back to work. But just as Aron Ralston’s 127 hour ordeal had changed him forever, my 127 second ordeal had changed me as well. A little while later when Lori told me it was time to go home, for the first time in our 30-year marriage, I did what she said without arguing.