If you've paid any attention to the media lately, you've probably heard of the story of Aron Ralston, the hiker who was forced to amputate his own arm to escape from a boulder that pinned him down during a hiking accident. Before doing the grisly deed (with a pocket knife), he spent several days slowly dying of thirst in the desert, with no way to contact help. Later, he wrote a book about his adventures (Between a Rock and a Hard Place, which I highly recommend), and later was the subject of a major motion picture (which I haven't seen).
But before the book and the movie, and several months after the accident itself, this article appeared describing the eerily similar story of Mark Swinton, the "impatient hiker," who was similarly trapped after a similar fall and used a similar tactic to escape. There were a few glaring differences, though: Mark Swinton had lost his pocket knife, and instead used his keys. And rather than waiting almost a week before resorting to such desperate measures, Swinton only waited ten minutes.
So, which is more likely? That two hikers, within months of each other, suffered nearly-identical accidents and resorted to the same desperate, unbelievably gutsy move to survive, and that one simply went on to be famous while the other ended up the subject of a measley two Google hits? Or that a writer with an eye for the bizarre heard Ralston's story, added a few humorous and exaggerated details, made up a new name and location, and, depending on the relative obscurity of the pre-famous Ralston to protect himself, presented it as true?
Actually, neither, it seems. The source of the Swinton story is The Brushback, a site whose other news stories have headlines like "Indiana Governor Turns Wife Over To Connecticut Governor After Losing March Madness Bet" and "Jets Win After Bengals Forget Helmets". I'd guess The Brushback is basically the sports page's equivalent to The Onion.
