[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AmericanEmpire', 'S')o one of the things I can look forward to post crash is hallucinating when I'm starving huh?

[Jake_old]

I was once with a few people and some of us took things to make us hallucinate.

The strange thing was, everyone hallucinated whether they took anything or not. I don't mean flashing lights or anything but a rock that looked like a cow eating grass and a giant stood under a lamp post.

I would like to know what made everyone see the same things too.

[seahorse2]

Here's an organization that has many different types of survival courses. I've been to several of them, including a 15 days course, 11 days of which you aren't allowed to take any food, or anything that you didn't make. For example, no knives, no blankets, no food. You eat and drink only what you can find. The other courses are all very similar. They eat lots of cattails, nuts, dandelions, etc, including noodling for fish (fishing with your hands).

Boulder Outdoor Survival School

[frankthetank]

Schwein~ I don't know if you ever watch Pilot Guides (Lonely Planet) or i think it use to be called Globe Trekker. The episode on Costa Rica and Nicaragua... In Costa Rica, a guy who runs a place in Montezuema right on the ocean had this to say (about living 1 full year in solitude)..

"I watched what the monkeys did, ate what they ate eating tree leaves and whatever wild fruit there was. In that time i spent $5, in 1 whole year, on tomatoes and stamps to send letters to my mother and father."

This is in the heart of the tropics, which would help.

[PrairieMule]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AmericanEmpire', 'S')o one of the things I can look forward to post crash is hallucinating when I'm starving huh?

[PrairieMule]

FYI-If I were some sort of bad-ass I'd change my handle to 9mmDeathmule or 5thMuleoftheapocalypse.

[Falconoffury]

If you are stranded out at sea, and you drink a lot of sea water, your hallucinations will get much worse than if you didn't drink the sea water.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrairieMule', 'F')YI-If I were some sort of bad-ass I'd change my handle to 9mmDeathmule or 5thMuleoftheapocalypse.

[PrairieMule]

PMS,

Renaissance mule you say? To big to post, click on link..

http://users.ez2.net/louetta/packmule/Mula%20Lisa.JPG

[holmes]

I was hiking in Grand Gulch, Utah. Grand Gulch is a canyon for your information. I drove ten miles out into the desert near the rim of the cnayon and headed out on foot to the trail that climbed down in to the canyon. This was 7 miles to the trail head down in. I had a camel back with 100 litre hydration bag and a 1 litr bottle of water. alone. I was heading out to the big man pictographs 7 miles up the canyon. Summer time 118 degrees peak temp. My way of hiking in the summer in the desert is get up early hike till noon and then get inshade and zone out till around 6pm and then hike through the evening till around 10pm or so. so anyway I went to the pictographs and then on the way back got sidtracked and lost off on a canyon. I became dehydrated drank all my water. I ended up becoming delusional and dehydrated and drank all my water and did not stop hiking. I found my way out and got to the trail out of the canyon and hiked for ten miles in the dead sun. if i stopped then I would have died just had to go for it. My brain pan over heated my mouth dried shut. when I got to the truck i was nearly unconsciuos. I wetted my lips and mistakenly chugged a cold drink choked on the first gulp and layed there for hours going in and out of consciousness. really needed and IV. So in other words I became irrational and should have just sat and waited till sundown.

[NonToxic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RedJake', 'I') was once with a few people and some of us took things to make us hallucinate.

The strange thing was, everyone hallucinated whether they took anything or not. I don't mean flashing lights or anything but a rock that looked like a cow eating grass and a giant stood under a lamp post.

I would like to know what made everyone see the same things too.

[Schweinshaxe]

Great! So we have at least two people here at PO.com who have been fighting for their lives against Mother Nature. PM and holmes. In none of those situations however, the survivalist had a survival kit on his person.

We also have a few links to people who make money from playing survival i front of a camera.

I still wonder if there has ever been a situation where a person was saved by his or her survival kit.

[PrairieMule]

Well, I wouldn't call it so much survial situation as much as camping in bad weather. .

This little piece of gear is a hennessey hammock and it's the best thing ever to come out of Canada
.

Halloween 2004 I camped on a floodplain during a 8 hours of thunderstorms in a 100yr flood. This hands down is the best piece of gear I have in my backpack. Try and imagine how Spec loves his AR-15, thats how I feel about this hammock. It's a treasue.

[Schweinshaxe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Laurasia', 'W')ell, in the sixties I walked the Lyke Wake Walk across the Yorkshire Moors in winter with a small group. We walked steadily for nineteen and a half hours. During that time I drank a small amount of water and crunched a few glucose tablets I'd been advised to bring. After walking about twelve hours I "hit the wall" and almost fainted. I was revived by a swig of brandy that one of the guys had brought. Without the brandy I would have caused severe hardship on the rest of the group, especially since we were hit by a sleetstorm later that evening. The point I'm trying to make is that, between us, we brought the right emergency supplies. Incidentally I always have brandy around now!

Oh and I started hallucinating too - I saw a gentleman in a top hat and tails playing a grand piano in the middle of a field!

Regards,

L.

[seahorse]

Schweinsaxe,

I guess I'm not understanding the point of your question. If you're simply asking if anyone has ever had to use a survival kit to survive, I'm sure the answer is yes; however, a list would require a search of many news articles. One that comes to mind is a hiker that amputated his arm after being caught in a rockfall in Utah. There was another where a doctor amputated his own leg in Colorado, so in both those cases, the knives they were carrying, along with the water etc where essential to their survival. I can also think of several "day" expeditions in the mountains that have turned ugly, and people were saved by just a few prethought essentials.

It used to be state law in Alaska that all motorist had to have a sleeping bag in their cars at all times, I think a few other items too. I'm sure these were put to use many times. All bush planes in Alaska are required to carry survival kits; there have literally been hundreds of bush plane crashes over the years. Go on a hunt up there sometime, and you will see a few of the crash sites down below. So, those plane survival kits have been put to use.

Any time a person goes outside camping, their backpack is their survival kit. Adventure racers are required to carry certain minimum items. Lifeboats all carry survival kits. So, again, I'm not sure what your asking. People carry survival kits for good reason, and over the years, they have been put to use. I put mine to use on a mountain bike accident with my brother where he broke his femur on a trail ride.

Can a person survive in an emergency survive without a survival kit? Sure. Is it wise to go out without some basic survival kit? No.

[seahorse]

Schweinshaxe,

I re-read your original post. You asked has anyone ever survived in a traditional "survival situation." My answer was yes, 11 days with nothing but some figure 4 traps made by hand, the clothes on my back (for example, no canteens, no matches, no knives, no watches, no toilet paper, nada, but what you are wearing). So, how much more basic do you want?

Besides the primitive courses in Utah I've been to, I've also been to Alaska and hunted bear up there, living out of my pack. Alaska is a very forbidding place. There is no rescue if you get hurt, cold, sick. My guide and I were alone for 14 days, with only a pick up date given to the bush plane to get us in 14 days. A lot can happen in 14 days.

In the military, I completed Army Ranger School, which is 9 weeks of pretty primitive living. For example, out of the 58 day course, 45 of them were spent wearing the same uniform and not taking a shower or bath. There are no comfort items in a course like this. When you sleep, you sleep under whatever tree you stop at. You never have a fire, no beds, no ice, you drink out of whatever streams you find. You don't wear things like underwear, bc they never dry and give you crotch rot, you don't wear bug repellant in the Florida swamps, bc it doesn't do any good anyway, not to mention the alligators, snakes and other critters in the chest to waist deep water that is there. How much more primitive "surviving" do you need?

In the military, I also lived like an Orc on deployments to Germany, the Italian Alps in the cold of winter, Turkey, France, England, in all these places, living out of nothing but the ruck on your back. No tents, no fires ever allowed, no white flashlights, fairly basic, living like a cow. Usually, no sleeping bags (Italian Alps excepted).

Your problem Schweinshaxe, is you live in a modern world with computers, hot showers, beds, and thermostats, and can't simply imagine that survival kits could ever be needed. Well, if you ever go to Alaska, you need to pack one.

Further, you simply can't believe that man evolved from being naked. He didn't always have blankets, clothes, heaters, computers. There was a time when men were steel and ships were wood. There's some steel in you too Schwinshaxe, deep in your genes, there's thousands of years of evolutionary steel in you. You've just never looked for it.

[SinisterBlueCat]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seahorse', '.')..
Well, if you ever go to Alaska, you need to pack one.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Living in the wild or surviving with nothing but a backpack survival kit seems not to be the issue to me as that can only be a short term matter anyway. The issue that concerns me is how to get food and water on a long term basis for myself and family if the infrastructure collapses. I rate my chances as slim on that score, but not impossible. Another question that concerns me is to what degree should I invest in a plan to put together long term survival strategies in the event of total meltdown of the American system that we have now. There's two things to consider here: how likely is it that there will even be a total meltdown, and if there is, how likely is any plan to survive such a catastrophe to work. Since I consider both to be of slight probability, the math suggests that I do nothing: say the probability of the first is 1 in 20, and the second is 1 in 100. The net result of these two probabilities is 1 in 2000. Should I order drought-resistant heirloom seeds over the internet given these numbers? Maybe my estimates are wrong. I don't know. I don't want to do stupid things with my financial resources, but I worry what would happen if I did not plan and the worst did happen.

[jimk]

Planning for an uncertain future... one would want to plot out some number of the most likely scenarios, and then find a strategy that comes out pretty well in most of the most likely situations. Most strategies will involve keeping tabs on the situation and adjusting one's behavior to fit as things evolve. The main game is to try to avoid getting boxed in somehow.

In general a diversified portfolio is your friend. Get the basic equipment that will cover the basics through some decent range of scenarios.

In general I would say that the #1 universally valuable investment is in one's frame of mind, to stay relaxed and aware and not to get stuck and blinded by one's own delusions, e.g. that things won't change, or that one knows how they will change. Whatever comes along, pretty much guaranteed to be something other than what you expect. My recommended tool here is meditation. See e.g. Thich Nhat Hanh.

A very close #2 is physical health. If you're healthy, you can handle lots of situations. If you're sick or weak or disabled, your options are severely limited. Diet and exercise are the keys here. For diet, I recommend Walter Willett's _Eat Drink and Be Healthy_. For exercise, hard to beat just long walks around your neighborhood. Get to know where you live and get in shape at the same time. Or take bike rides. Take a knapsack and haul your groceries in it. In every season and weather. Get the clothes you need to be able to carry your groceries home in any weather you are likely to encounter where you live.

Probably #3 is to cultivate community. Get to know your neighbors, make friends. Take classes in various crafts like wood working or sewing or whatever. Or teach classes.

Absolutely you want at least five gallons of water per person stashed and keep non-perishable food in the house.

Who can say how things will play out. Earthquakes, forest fires, floods, epidemics. Stay light on your feet, keep your head up and your eyes open.

[J-Rod]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Schweinshaxe', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('J-Rod', 'W')ell, haven't been in the situation myself, but this show is really good imo.

http://www.survivorman.ca/