Cody Lundin, who runs Aboriginal Living Skill School here in Arizona wrote a book called 98.6 degrees: the art of keeping your ass alive. Its a unoriginal in skill set, but a hippy trippy entertaining look at how to maintain a sense of peace, positivity and ultimately how to stay alive long enough to be rescued.
The key is proper preparation and knowing a few things. With proper personal gear and a good disposition, local search and rescue organizations have an extremely high success rate finding lost people within 72 hours. After 72 hours the chance of being rescued drops to 3%. Also that a person can live for several weeks without food and a few days without water but a person in a survival situation focusing on those two things to the detriment of saving energy and protection of homeostasis can die in just a few hours.
My example is that in the winter of 2006, a husband, wife and baby from San Francisco became stuck on a snowed in side road in the mountains. We all may remember that the search for the husband took ten days and ultimately he was found dead after walking some ten miles through the snow. Do you remember that a helicopter found the mom and baby within 72 hours safe in their car? This primarily is due to the extended family knowing the route the family was taking and alerted authorities when they were late arriving. Good communication prior to departing is key.
The last hundred pages of the book give a description of what the author carries on him at all times in the field and additional pieces that complete a full kit able to keep him or a reasonable person alive for a minimum of 72 hours, fits into a small fanny pack and weighs less than a bottle of water. What is actually refreshing about the book is that instead of just a cut and paste checklist, the author gives full page descriptions of each item, why its in the kit over similar items and how to use it. I review this section occasionally to reinforce my own sense of security and update the list with my own personal choices that might be lighter specific to my area. I promise you will not learn how to catch a deer with your shoelaces, nor need to spend more than about $50 for a full size first rate emergency kit and about $20 for a 24/7 kit.
If you want something light to read at the beach, in your chair watching tv, or on a flight, you wouldn't be disappointed. Worst case scenario-you give the book to someone else when your done with it.
See you can survive a Worst Case Scenario after all.
The key is proper preparation and knowing a few things. With proper personal gear and a good disposition, local search and rescue organizations have an extremely high success rate finding lost people within 72 hours. After 72 hours the chance of being rescued drops to 3%. Also that a person can live for several weeks without food and a few days without water but a person in a survival situation focusing on those two things to the detriment of saving energy and protection of homeostasis can die in just a few hours.
My example is that in the winter of 2006, a husband, wife and baby from San Francisco became stuck on a snowed in side road in the mountains. We all may remember that the search for the husband took ten days and ultimately he was found dead after walking some ten miles through the snow. Do you remember that a helicopter found the mom and baby within 72 hours safe in their car? This primarily is due to the extended family knowing the route the family was taking and alerted authorities when they were late arriving. Good communication prior to departing is key.
The last hundred pages of the book give a description of what the author carries on him at all times in the field and additional pieces that complete a full kit able to keep him or a reasonable person alive for a minimum of 72 hours, fits into a small fanny pack and weighs less than a bottle of water. What is actually refreshing about the book is that instead of just a cut and paste checklist, the author gives full page descriptions of each item, why its in the kit over similar items and how to use it. I review this section occasionally to reinforce my own sense of security and update the list with my own personal choices that might be lighter specific to my area. I promise you will not learn how to catch a deer with your shoelaces, nor need to spend more than about $50 for a full size first rate emergency kit and about $20 for a 24/7 kit.
If you want something light to read at the beach, in your chair watching tv, or on a flight, you wouldn't be disappointed. Worst case scenario-you give the book to someone else when your done with it.
See you can survive a Worst Case Scenario after all.
2 comments:
"Deep Survival" is another good book on this subject. I don't remember if you've plugged it here before, but it mainly focuses on the mental qualities of those who survive difficult situations.
Interestingly, a lot of those mental qualities are the same ones you need in endurance sport.
Here's the Deep Survival website: http://deepsurvival.com/
that is actually one of my next books to read. I just havent picked it up yet.
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