Survival Skills

These seem to be all the rage currently, spurred on by various TV programmes which invariably send out a subtle message, then of course they introduce competition between people which sends out another subliminal message, and of course there are things such as people surviving naked (so I am led to believe) to get the perverts and sexually deprived watching, desperation in anyones book.

Yet, despite all this basic survival skills remain the same and most are easily and readily learned and the key to survival is keeping a clear head and thinking correctly, and understanding the environment you are in; in most cases believe a fire is the first thing to make so is this right or wrong? the answer depends on your environment as a snowy or icy Alaskan environment may mean fire is the most essential item, but a summer day in the Peak District may mean a fire is not the most essential item you need as water may be the correct answer in these conditions. In many fatalities in hostile environments it is exposure which kills people so a shelter becomes more important then water or fire, and a correctly built shelter will protect us from rain and wind and it is a combination of wet clothing transferring heat out of us and wind which makes us cold which are the main elements leading to exposure.

How many people understand environments? what is the use in watching that online video about making a shelter in the woods from fallen branches when they are stranded in marshes, or they know how to make a basic water carrier from Birch tree bark when there are lots of pop cans knocking about which can carry water and be used to carry it in, and to boil it in; or those who are in an area where there are no birch trees to strip bark from.
Survival means understanding environments and working with what you have in that specific environment to keep you alive.

Many of the basic skills can be learned online by watching videos of people in different environments to give you the knowledge and in many cases they can be practised in a back garden, you can get a simple metal pot or tray and practise fire making using many different methods such as a lighter on leaves, or using a kitchen knife and thin branches to make feathersticks, or if you have a tarpaulin you can tie a string between a washing line post and a fence post and hang the tarp over it and peg it down overnight to see how it stands up. Basically you can practise these skills and sleep under them if you like, and see what work and time actually goes into doing things so you dont get too ambitious.

the vote doesnt quite work for a multiple choice

I would imagine in any suvival situation its about food, water, shelter and health care.

In terms of first aid, there is not much worse than having a broken, rotten tooth starting to hurt. Eventually the pain will inhibit all survival instincts accept to defend ones own life in the act of assualt by another.

Anti bubbly ar*e tablets are also high on list of my priorites to.

I wouldn't carry nothing special and to me prevention is better than cure, so if your talking about putting yourself in a situation by choice where you have to survive, I would pass on doing that. If your talking about surviving after say a natural disaster or an act of war or something out of your own control then a strong will is what is needed, after your worn down and feel like you can do no more your mind kicks in to give you that extra push.
Survival takes different forms depending on the circumstances and the strongest willed are the ones who will survive. You have to loose all morals and be prepared to be ruthless and trust no one.

Hi mate, not posted it properly, my own fault.

Spot on Jinxer, you can often end up in a survival situation for many reasons and you are thinking and hit the nail on the head.

If we take a typical situation, we are driving our car in a remote area in bad weather and we skid off the road and badly damage our car, what can we do.

In most cases, a lot can be done or carried in a small pouch, a multi tool with a couple of cutting blades, pliers, and a saw is a useful thing to carry, if you are a smoker then they often carry a couple of spare cigarette lighters so if non smokers also carried them and the type with the LED light in they have two sources of ignition and light. Packs of these lighters are £1 for a pack of four lighters, a couple of bottles of water are beneficial as you have clean water and two containers, a decent all weather jacket is readily carried and they are waterproof and keep you warm, and a few antiseptic wipes in the sealed pouches can also be carried. Small LED torches are brilliant as you can keep them in a car and they are useful for changing tyres to minor repairs as small torches can be held in your mouth leaving two hands free to work.

Understanding a vehicle is essential, most cars have a very basic toolkit and if you have tools then you have options, most rear bench seats are slid into catches and are held by two bolts and removing them and sliding the seat squab means you have a sprung bed, remove the seat back and you have a full bed off the ground. With tools you can often remove a car battery and you have a power source, remove a sidelight bulb with its holder and cut a length of its wire and you have light, you have car mats which can form shetlers and you have the car carpets which can form larger shelters to lay debris over to keep you out of the wind and rain.
Seat belts can be fully extended and cut, then cut the other end and you have a substantial strap, repeat this with all the seatbelts and you can tie them together for a rope, if your car is diesel it has a diesel filter and most have a water drain which drains diesel out of the filter and you catch it in one of your bottles, or coat a cloth in it, useful fire starter.

There are many things you can do in such circumstances to save your life.

we  used to keep 2 blankets on the back seats in case of breakdown in winter.
Diesel isnot a good fire starter, it takes quite a bit of energy to get diesel alight. I remember a bonfire party at my friends , his dad tried starting with diesel but he couldnt ignite it. It needs to be warm , thats why diesel uses glow plugs to vaporize the fuel so it ignites.Our old diesel van didnt like cold starts.

Depending on the emergency, I would probably leave the car battery in as running the engine on tick-over for brief periods with the windows closed heats up the air in the car. Once bedded down this only needs to be done once for 10 mins. Well, it worked for me at least when I spent some of my youth living in a car over winter.  

In addition to some basics, I have one of these in the car :=

Which is a radio, lantern, solar, wind-up, mobile charger. Some seem to have had different experiences with them but the one I purchased has worked fine.

Maybe the instructions could include a line such as 'user must have patience'.

Hi Lopsum, in an emergency situation any oil can assist a fire, diesel is a refined oil which burns easily and anyone with basic fire starting knowledge can get a simple fire started, when a fire is started dipping thin sticks into diesel at one end really helps sustain a fire once it is started and begins flaming.

Diesel engines? me engineer and have possibly forgotten more about diesel engines than most people know, not all diesels have glow plugs and my diesel engined vehicle started perfectly over a winter with snow on the ground for 3 weeks as the glow plug fuse blew, just need how to start them as it is experience.

Hi ALAB, you know the mileages I drive are excessivs and I carry a survival box in my company car during winter and people often laugh at what it contains, I also carry a 12v kettle and coffee as you have to have the necessities, along with a couple of bottles of water and a cup and spoon.

My survival box contains thin clothes, spare socks X 3, basic dried sachet soups and basic dried foods, small bag of 59p kitty litter from the £1 shop, small bag of rock salt, small folding shovel I made myself in stainless steel, and numerous other things.

My company car is a BMW and instead of bluetooth I have the fitted hard wire phone holder, this allows me to remove it or leave it in the car and use it via steering wheel controls, this is on permanent charge, in addition I have a small site torch which is LED and rechargeable and can plug into a cigarette lighter, several lighters as site guys lose theirs when they need them. My site clother are in another box and my long site coat is in there along with site boots which have so much grip they are brilliant in snow and ice, spare boxes of gloves and goggles for site guys who damage/lose theirs, and things such as lanyards.

Went up to a remote location in N. Yorks in winter so took a company 4X4 instead and put my boxes in there and got caught by the weather (weatherman lied again) and stayed in this for 3 days and lived perfectly, glad I took toilet paper though.

Kitty litter under driving wheels gives lovely traction and rock salt gives deep snow something to think about as it melts it, my shovel cleared around my car and I cut a ramp from the exhaust pipe upwards to prevent monoxide poisoning by venting the fumes away, and clearing the front of the car prevented radiator snow blocking. I adopted a different strategy and set my radio to a local news channel which gave news and weather on the hour and set my phone alarm to go off 5 minutes to the hour to wake me up, every 2 hours I was woken and turned the engine on and ran it at idle for a couple of minutes and plugged my kettle in and boiled water to make a drink or food. This fully charged my phone and it kept the engine warm as the heater was run full crack to heat the vehicle and dry out anything wet. Ater the oil had circulated for a couple of minutes the PTO hand throttle was used to run the engine at a fast idle.

Jinxer wrote:I wouldn't carry nothing special and to me prevention is better than cure, so if your talking about putting yourself in a situation by choice where you have to survive, I would pass on doing that. If your talking about surviving after say a natural disaster or an act of war or something out of your own control then a strong will is what is needed, after your worn down and feel like you can do no more your mind kicks in to give you that extra push.  
Survival takes different forms depending on the circumstances and the strongest willed are the ones who will survive. You have to loose all morals and be prepared to be ruthless and trust no one.

On this theme there is a good article floating around the net, an interview with a bloke who surivived the Bosian war back in ...... He said people got so afraid they simply shot at anyone they saw coming in their direction because they did not know if the person was friend or foe. They used to go out looking for food at night time and walked through the bombed out building rather than walk the streets. Eye opening stuff it was really.