Trapped Under Rubble

An earthquake, tornado, hurricane, landslide, explosion, or a structural failure in an old building (or even a poorly built new building) can all result in your being trapped beneath a pile of rubble. If you are fortunate enough to survive the collapse of building materials, your next priority is to survive long enough to be rescued.

Self rescue might be possible — digging yourself out from beneath the pile. But there are risks involved in that strategy, and you need to weigh the options.

• Are you in a place where a rescue effort is likely to begin soon, or are you in some remote place where nobody will even know that the collapse has taken place? 
• Are you injured to the point that your self rescue attempt might make the injuries more serious?
• Is the pile of material loose enough to crawl through?
• Is the material unstable and likely to come crashing down even more if you disturb it?

You must analyze the situation and use your best judgement. But here are some things to keep in mind.

• Don't light a match to see in the darkness. There might be a gas leak that could turn the place into your own crematorium.
• Don't kick up a lot of dust, or you might end up inhaling toxic materials. Then, even if you survive, you might end up with lingering illness. 
• Cover your mouth and nose with a handkerchief or other bit of cloth to help filter out some of the airborne debris. 
• Signal for help, but try to find some other method besides shouting. Yelling for help causes you to inhale deeply when you are trying to keep from sucking up the dust. And hearing your own desperate cry for help can cause you to panic. The best way to signal for help is to use a signal whistle (a good reason to always have a small one hanging around your neck like a piece of cheap jewelry). Banging on pipes or making some other kind of racket is good, too, but those sounds might be lost in the ruckus being made by rescuers trying to dig though the rubble. The shrill pitch of a whistle, on the other hand, carries well and is totally unlike other sounds so it will be noticed. 

Being trapped requires patience on your part. Don't needlessly exhaust yourself and become dehydrated. Survivors are pulled from wreckage days after the collapse, so you want to conserve your energy so you can survive as long as possible. 

Boat Survival

There was a deadly incident this past week in Indonesia involving the sinking of a passenger ferry. The latest official death toll is 28. That's pretty light for Indonesia, because last January a ferry went down and took 335 people with it. And in December 2006, a sinking ferry killed more than 500. Bad weather and overloading of the vessels is the common reason given for these accidents.

But you don't need to go to Indonesia to be at risk of drowning in a boating-related incident. Right here in the good old USA, we lose right around 700 lives per year on the water. As might be expected, the greatest cause of death is drowning, followed by trauma, followed by hypothermia. Let's compare a few statistics — When a life jacket is not being worn, drowning kills more than forty times more than hypothermia. When a life jacket is being worn, the number of deaths by drowning is only seven times greater than deaths by hypothermia. That should tell you something.

Cold water plays a huge role in drowning.  Sudden immersion in cold water creates such a shock to the body that you can actually suffer an immediate cardiac arrest. Hitting the cold water will also cause you to involuntarily inhale, and if your face happens to be under water you'll fill your lungs. If you live past that, you'll quickly lose your ability to grasp and hold onto things such as a flotation ring or a line that is tossed to you. Cold Shock Swimming Failure causes you to lose coordination as you flail your arms and legs in a vain attempt to swim. None of this has anything to do with hypothermia. In fact, if you fall overboard in cold water without wearing a life jacket you almost certainly won't live long enough to die from hypothermia, because you'll drown first.

 If you're wearing a proper life jacket, you'll float face up so you can breathe and won't have to worry about drowning right away. This is where you need to be concerned about dying of hypothermia. Doesn't take long in cold water.

Personally, I don't like the idea of the life jacket just keeping me afloat long enough to die of hypothermia and give the rescuers a dead body to find. That's why I equipped my life vest with two strobe lights, three flares, a signal mirror, a signal whistle, a waterproof VHF (marine band) radio, and a waterproof GPS. The plan is that if I go overboard, I immediately get on the radio with the Coast Guard or other boaters in the area, and give them my GPS coordinates. If it's night, I fire up the strobe light and/or use the flares. If it's daytime, I use the signal mirror. When a boat is nearby, I use the whistle.

There is no question that a life jacket significantly increases your chance of survival. But if you really want to improve the odds, equip the vest with signaling devices that will help bring rescuers quickly.

Lightweight Shelter

The problem with most shelter is that it weighs a lot or is big and cumbersome to carry. But when it comes to the raw basic need for protection against the elements, shelter is not something you can do without. One of the shelter-related items I carry weighs only 3.5 ounces and can be packed in a cargo pocket. It's called the Heatsheets Emergency Bivvy and is available for $16 from Adventure Medical Kits (www.adventuremedicalkits.com).

This bivvy is made of the same kind of material that is used in their Emergency Blanket, except that it's in the shape of a sleeping bag so you are totally protected once you're inside.  The bivvy is orange on the outside (good color contrast to attract attention of rescuers) and reflective silver on the inside. The shiny interior reflects 90% of your body heat back toward you, helping protect against body core temperature loss. The material is impervious to wind and precipitation.

If you're overtaken by nasty conditions and need a place to get out of the elements, crawl into the bivvy and pull it up over your head. It's nice if you can lie on some forest duff to provide insulation underneath, and tuck in under a bush to help deflect some of the wind and rain or snow.

Whether the survival situation is in the wilderness or an urban environment, you always need protection from the elements and a way to preserve your core temperature. This is a potentially lifesaving piece of gear that you really should not be without. Carry one in your car for each person you normally travel with, and have one in each 72-hour kit for family members.

Avoiding Doom and Gloom

Anxiety and panic are caused by a sense of being overwhelmed by conditions beyond our control. People who are trained or experienced at handling crisis situations, or at least knowledgeable about what to do to mitigate the risks, are less likely to slip into a mental state of shock when things go wrong.  Here are some steps you can take to help ward off the sense of doom and gloom in a crisis.

Take A Deep Breath

Unless you’re in immediate danger (surrounded by a raging fire — a grizzly has you in his lips — drowning), the first step is to sit down and take a deep breath. I’m not kidding. The most important thing you can do when panic starts to raise its ugly head is take a seat on the nearest log and try to relax your thoughts. The most dangerous urge is to run down the trail looking for salvation. That wastes energy (both water and food), might result in an injury, and will probably take you farther away from safety. So take a seat, inhale long and slow, then exhale the same way until your heart rate returns to normal. While you’re sitting there, take the next step.

Assess The Situation

Start with an analysis of immediate threats to your life. If you’re lost, night is coming on and you’re hungry, that is not necessarily an immediate threat to your life. It might be frightening and miserable, but it probably won’t kill you unless you lose your mind and so some foolish things. On the other hand, if a cold rain is falling, the wind is howling, you’re exhausted, and you are poorly equipped, that can kill you as surely as a grizzly bear (although more slowly). It’s imperative to understand which conditions are truly dangerous and which ones are merely a nuisance that you will easily survive.

Take Action

Now get busy. This step of taking action will do more than just get a variety of jobs done — it will also help calm your nerves as you feel like you’re taking control of the situation.

Make a mental list of the greatest needs and put them in order of priority. Then get up and start to knock off the biggest challenge first. Do one thing at time and don’t get distracted unless it’s to resolve an emergency. For example, find or build a shelter, then work on the fire, then get your signal system operating, then find water to drink, etc. until you reach the bottom of your priority list.

Don’t worry if you can’t get everything done as quickly as you want. By following this method, at least you know that you are taking care of the most important needs first, and that alone will help calm you. As you accomplish each task and your living conditions improve, anxiety will begin to diminish and your confidence will grow.

Make Camp

A powerful action to help calm the situation is to organize a secure camp. With a shelter over your head, everything feels more civilized and safer. Indeed, you will be safer from the most threatening aspect of the outdoors — the weather. With protection from the wind, cold and wet, your spirits will be higher, and you will recognize that you have accomplished a very important survival task. This, in turn, will elevate your confidence and turn away panic.

Make Fire

The warm glow of a fire works miracles to calm your mind and heart. Even aside from all the primary reasons for having a fire (purifying water, cooking food, drying your clothes, staying warm), the companionship alone is a powerful way to dispel anxiety. And if you arrange the fire to serve as a signaling device, you’ll feel good, knowing that you are assisting your own rescue.

Rest

Mental and physical exhaustion bring anxiety, depression and panic. Those conditions lead to poor judgment and bad decisions, which in turn increase risk. Even a few hours of sleep will restore the psychological strength you need to carry on.

Eat

When you get some food in your stomach, the situation seems like it’s not so bad. It isn’t so much about the calories (although they are important) as it is about the emotional comfort that comes from eating. It’s like your stomach says to your brain, “Hey, we’re not going to die after all.”

Laugh

Whether you’re talking to yourself or with other survivors, exercise your sense of humor and find something to laugh about. Humor reduces stress through a number of physiological and hormonal mechanisms. In times of crisis, dark humor is often what saves the day. When I was a young paratrooper, we used to sing “Blood on the Risers” when the tension got high in the airplane we were about the jump out of. It gave us something to chuckle about, along with a sense of heroism in the dangerous situation we were facing.

Survival is 90-percent mental. If you keep your brains intact and your emotions under control, you will probably come out of the event with great stories to tell.

Terrorist Threat Level

I just checked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Advisory System to see what the current threat level is. On this particular day the nation is at Yellow (Elevated — significant risk of terrorist attacks), and the airlines for all domestic and international flights are at Orange (High — high risk of terrorist attacks).

You can interpret that any way you want to, but take note that the word "terrorist" resides at the core of this advisory system. Terrorism is the key word. The way the government defines terrorism is "…the use of force or violence against persons or property in violation of the criminal laws of the United States for purposes of intimidation, coercion, or ransom."

Acts of terrorism include all types of mayhem ranging from individual assassinations to mass murder. And in between are such evil acts as kidnapping, hijacking, bomb scares and actual bombings, cyber attacks, and the use of chemical, biological  and nuclear or radiological weapons.

Even just voicing the threat of terrorism is consider an act of terrorism. In fact, the threat without the actual fulfillment of the act is one of the most efficient and effective ways to disrupt society through fear and intimidation. The U.S. is experiencing that type of ongoing terrorism right now, and has been ever since 9/11/01.

All it takes for terrorists to succeed is the creation of fear sufficient to force us to change our routines. Often, a single violent act, followed up by threats of more of the same, will cause us to change the rules of society, imposing new restrictions, enlarging government bureaucracy, disrupting the freedom that has made America the envy of the world — and the bad guys win without even lifting another finger.

For the record, terrorists don't always strap bombs around their waist or fly commercial airplanes into skyscrapers. Targets can be wide-ranging and include the food and water supply, places of public gathering (sporting events, amusement parks, concert halls, etc.), utilities, government services, transportation corridors, etc.

As citizens, we watch the threat level go up and then come down, never knowing for sure what caused that to happen. We can't see what's going on behind the scenes. After a while, it's easy for this routine to become a case of "the boy who cried wolf," and we become complacent. However, when the threat level goes up, we should never assume that there isn't an actual risk, just because nothing happened the last time the level was up. What we need to do is follow these safety guidelines:

• Be vigilant and take notice of what's happening in your surroundings. 
• Get out of the area if you feel uncomfortable or something doesn't seem right.
• Take precautions when traveling — Be aware of conspicuous or unusual behavior. Never leave your luggage unattended, and report to security personnel any unusual behavior you witness, or any suspicious or unattended packages or strange devices that you see.
• Always be aware of the location of emergency exits from buildings or arenas, and constantly run a scenario in your head about how you would get out in an emergency.
• Be prepared to live without normal services such as electricity, water, natural gas, telephone, gasoline stations, cash registers, ATMs, internet, medical facilities, grocery stores, restaurants, public bathroom facilities, police, fire and ambulance services, transportation, television, radio. 

Make sure your emergency preparedness kit is fully stocked (see my post made on september 30th about 72-hour kits) and update your emergency response plan to suit any changes in life, such as a new job, new residence, different commute arrangements, etc.

Pemmican

Among the Native Americans and mountain men, there was a traditional method of preserving meat that was collected and processed during the hunting season, so it would still be available during the winter when meat was hard to come by. It was called pemmican. Think of it as the earliest known energy bar.

Originally, the recipe called for the use of melted suet (hard, crumbly fat that surrounds the internal organs of animals) as a binding agent to hold the ingredients together in a small ball. But for the sake of our modern taste buds, the recipe I'm presenting here replaces melted suet with peanut butter and honey. The use of cayenne is optional, depending upon individual taste.

• 1 cup of jerky
• 1 cup of dried berries
• 1 cup of raw sunflower seeds or any type of crushed nuts
• 2 teaspoons of honey
• 1/4 cup of peanut butter
• 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne [optional]

Grind or pound the dried meat until it is reduced to a mealy powder. Crush the dried berries, seeds and nuts and then mix the meat with the mashed dried berries, seeds and nuts. Warm up the honey and peanut butter until they are soft, then blend in cayenne to taste. Pour all the ingredients together and mix. Separate small portions into golfball size batches and allow to cool. After the pemmican has cooled, either freeze or store it in plastic bags in a cool, dry place until you're ready to use it. 

Foot Survival

What you wear on your feet can either make or break you when a crisis happens. It doesn't matter whether you're at home, at the grocery store, at the office, or somewhere in between, when disaster strikes you need to be able to walk your way out of it. And if you are wearing unsuitable shoes, you're in trouble.

You know what unsuitable shoes are. In the business world, both men and women are, unfortunately, stuck with bad footwear for survival. They might look great with your business clothes, but they're horrible if you have to walk any distance.

I remember a few years ago when there was a massive power outage in the Northeast. An editor I work with was stuck in New York City as night fell and traffic lights failed, bringing traffic to a standstill, and subways stopped running. When the building security people where he worked cleared the building, sending people out into the dark and dangerous city, he ended up having to walk a long distance to get to an overnight shelter.

You never know when something is going to happen. It might be a flat tire, or you run out of gas, or something else about the vehicle breaks. If you're within reasonable distance to civilization, you might end up on foot going for help. You might be somewhere on vacation when a flood, earthquake, mudslide, tornado, or hurricane happens and you end up having to evacuate on foot.

Even if you're at home, a fire might cause you to have to flee immediately, an earthquake might shatter windows and mirrors and toss stuff off shelves onto the floor, creating a minefield to walk through.

No matter what the circumstances are, if you damage your feet, you cut your chances of survival by a huge margin. So the rule is, whenever you leave your home or your office, always wear good walking shoes. I'm talking about shoes you could easily walk 5 miles in without discomfort or blisters. If the constraints of your business wardrobe don't allow you to wear walking shoes, at least have a pair tucked under your desk. If it were me, I'd leave the dress shoes under the desk every night, and wear the walking shoes to and from the office. And around the house, be able to immediately put on protective footwear in an emergency.