One Survived — One Didn't

Paula Lane and her boyfriend Roderick Clifton decided to go on an off-roading trip through the Sierra Nevada Mountains — then they got stuck in the snow.

This is how so many survival stories begin. It all starts with an innocent venture into the backcountry, with total intention to make just a short trip of it and get back before nightfall.

Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out that way. This is one of those cases. 

The trip started on November 29th, but didn't end for Paula until  7 days later when she was discovered, still alive, by her own brother as she wandered near a highway.

During her recovery from frostbite and hypothermia, she was able to tell her story. After the vehicle became stuck in the snow, Roderick Clifton decided to hike out of the area to look for help. When he never returned, Paula Lane wrapped herself in blankets to stay warm, then headed out on foot to try to reach a road. During her 7-day ordeal, the report says she slept in hollowed-out trees and ate snow and tomatoes (which she must have carried with her from the vehicle) to stay alive. 

 The official search and rescue effort was called off by authorities after they found no trace of the couple. But her family refused to give up the search. Her brother took off into the wilderness, looking for the lost pair, and eventually found Paula wandering alongside the highway. He took her to a medical facility where she was treated for frostbite and severe hypothermia. 

So, what can we learn from all this? 

• To help searchers find you quickly when you become stranded, always file a trip plan with friends and family members, saying where you're going and when to expect you back. Then stick to the plan. If you don't show up on time, at least the search can be conducted in the right place. 
• Be prepared to stay longer than expected. Take shelter and sleeping bags, even if you don't plan on staying overnight. Have redundant methods of starting a fire, and carry enough food and water to keep you going for a week or more. 
• Take communication devices such as cell phones, or 2-way radio. The ultimate way to call for help when you're in a life-threatening situation is to use a personal locator beacon (PLB) or a SPOT Satellite Messenger (www.findmespot.com).
• Rather than wander away from the vehicle, risking becoming lost, and having to face the elements without shelter, stick with the vehicle and get to work on signal techniques that might attract someone's attention. A smoky fire by day, a bright blaze by night. Use every strategy to make yourself seen and heard. 
• The reason to stay with the vehicle is because it offers shelter from the elements, and it's easier for searchers to spot from the air or from a distance. Finding a single person wandering in the forest is a long-shot. 

Ammunition Fire Survival

Have you ever wondered what happens to ammunition that is stored in a house or garage when the place catches fire?

Or what about the danger of dropping a box or case of live ammunition? Can it blow up? Or can individual rounds go off and kill somebody?

Good questions. And for those of us who are reloaders, hunters or keep ammunition around the house for self defense, it's the kind of question that deserves to be answered.

When I served on a volunteer fire department years ago, I entered a burning house where it was reported that there was a large quantity of live ammunition stored. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't concerned. But that was back before the kind of testing you about to see in this video was performed.

So sit back and watch this excellent demonstration of how safe sporting ammunition really is. Click on the link below.

http://youtu.be/3SlOXowwC4c

Winter Survival

There’s nothing quite like buckling into a set of snowshoes and hiking across a pristine meadow of crystal-white, hearing only the soft crunch as the snow gives way beneath your feet.

It’s magical. The forest is flocked like a Christmas tree lot in the high-rent district of the city, but there is no city here — only the silence of wilderness. The stream is decked out with soft mounds of snow on every rock above the waterline, and along the edges are diamond chandeliers of ice dangling from every overhang. Imagine the prettiest Christmas card you ever saw — this is even better.

But all this beauty and adventure can come at a price. Winter, for all its stunning glory, can be a cruel schoolmaster, always ready to teach harsh lessons about suffering and survival. Macho attitudes swiftly wither as the windchill strips the life out of those who fail to understand that Mother Nature takes no prisoners during this season. My advice — go prepared or don’t go at all.

Preparation begins with knowledge, then grows through experience and the development of expertise in the use of relevant skills. But there’s good news, and the first part of the good news is that preparation is half the fun. The rest of the good news is that we live at a time when there is excellent winter camping equipment available at a reasonable cost. So being prepared is neither difficult nor expensive.

But even when you’re prepared, winter is a tough season for survival. You need to take care not to get into trouble, but if it happens, you need to know how to get yourself out.

Let’s take a look at a possible scenario. You leave your vehicle, intending to hike around on snowshoe for a couple of hours. The day is clear and beautiful, and you're lured on and on through the forest until you're a couple miles from your vehicle. Suddenly, the ground gives way beneath you and you realize, too late, that you're standing on a snow bridge across a stream. The next thing you know, you're hip deep in frigid water.

Another possibility — While out hiking, you are overtaken by a sudden snowstorm that blows up out of nowhere, obliterating your tracks and blinding your visibility. Suddenly, you’re lost.

Or — Your hiking buddy takes a spill and breaks his leg, a long way from the vehicle. Or perhaps you are overtaken by darkness, having lost awareness of the time and the fact that in the winter sudden nightfall seems to come in the middle of the afternoon.

These things happen every winter, and one of two outcomes will be the result — the people involve in the incident either come away with survival stories to tell, or they die. I have personally known people in both categories.

Regardless of what happens that causes you to have to survive in a winter environment, the most important things you need to do are to establish a shelter to protect yourself from the elements (wind, wet, cold), take care of any injuries, and then do everything possible to alert people that you need help.

Here are some fundamental rules that will help keep you out of trouble to begin with, or help get you out of trouble if you end up stranded in the snow.

• Never travel alone. I know, one of the best things about winter hiking is the solitude. But think of it this way — you’re going to be seeing a lot of fantastic scenery and wildlife, and it is always more fun to share those experiences. Hike silent, if you want to enjoy the quiet, but always have a hiking partner.
• Stay dry. Don’t sweat. Don’t brush up against the snow.
• Stay Warm. Don’t sit on, lie down on or touch cold objects. Stay out of the wind.
• Carry communication gear. It might be a cell phone, an FRS (Family Radio Service) radio, a GMRS (General mobile Radio Service) radio. Remember the limitations of the equipment — the cell phone may or may not work where you go hiking. FRS is good for about two miles and the more powerful GMRS signal will carry perhaps five miles (line of sight), but in both cases you need to have someone on the other end and within range who is monitoring the same frequency. It’s not very difficult to get an amateur radio operator’s license these days, and having a handheld HAM radio along for the hike might just save your cookies.
• Carry signaling equipment with you at all times. This includes a signal whistle, a mirror, methods of starting signal fires, lightweight colored cloth panels. All of that stuff is cheap. If you don’t care about cheap and just want to be able to call for help to save your life, carry a personal locator beacon (PLB). Activate and maintain your signaling efforts as soon as you realize that you are in a survival situation.
• Always leave a “flight plan” with trusted friends or relatives, detailing where you're going and when you intend to return. Then stick to your plan.
• Always be prepared to spend an unplanned night or more in the woods. Carry an emergency shelter, a Space blanket, a pocket poncho, a bivvy bag and fire-making equipment with you.
• Know how to construct a variety of expedient shelters. Snow caves can be a challenge to make (and stay dry at the same time), unless the depth and consistency of the snow are just right. Consider a tree pit shelter, in which you seek out a large tree with overhanging branches that have kept snow from collecting around the trunk. Dig out what snow is around the trunk, pile it over the branches, perhaps using your pocket poncho to help enclose the roof, and use that as a nearly ready-made natural shelter. Lacking trees, dig a trench and cover it (leaving one end open for an entrance) with your pocket poncho with snow piled along the edges to hold the “roof” taut across the trench. The snow trench is easy to build and will get you out of the wind.

Survive a Rip Current

Three family members died as they attempted to save their dog that was swept out to sea while chasing a stick playfully tossed into the surf. 

The 16-year-old boy was the first to race into the ocean to try to save his dog from the high surf. The father, seeing the danger his son was in as he fought through 8 to 10-foot waves, went in after him. The boy managed to struggle back to the beach, but when he realized that his dad was still out in the surf looking for him, both he and his mother went into the water to try to save the man.


The waves and currents were too strong for them. Rescuers were able to retrive the mother's body, but it was too late. Eventually, the father's body washed up on shore. As I write this, the Coast Guard is still searching for the teenager.

Ironically, the dog managed to get back to shore on his own.

There is something to be learned from all this. Water on the move is powerful. It doesn't take much current to overpower a swimmer. Even a very powerful swimmer cannot fight a current very long. Eventually, exhaustion sets in, and then you're at the whim of the ocean, and you're too weak to save yourself.

Rip currents are caused by the water that has rushed ashore as waves, turning around and heading back out to sea. The worst rip currents happen when an offshore sandbar is breached, leaving a funnel for the receding water to channel through. When that happens, the outgoing current becomes extremely strong, sweeping anyone caught in it straight out to sea, away from the shoreline.

If you're ever caught in a rip current, the best way to survive is to simply relax and allow the current to carry you out. This sounds counterintuitive, because the farther you get from the beach, the more you start to fear that you're going to be carried to the middle of the ocean. The natural tendency is to start swimming as hard as possible against the current, trying to make it back to shore.

Wrong!

All that will get you is exhausted. You won't be able to make headway against the current. You'll end up drowning, after you've worn yourself out and can't swim anymore.

Allow the current to carry you. Eventually it will weaken, as it gets farther from shore, and you'll stop drifting out. That's when it's time to start swimming. But rather than trying to swim directly back to shore, where you'll just meet the outrushing rip current again, swim parallel to the shoreline until you reach a spot where the rip current is no longer present. Then turn toward shore. Try to pick a spot where the waves aren't going to dash you onto rocks as you make your approach.

Survive a Solar Storm

It sounds like science fiction, but it's actually science fact. A solar storm is predicted to wipe out society as we know it. 

Tom Bogdan, director of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, and American physicist (and co-founder of the string theory) Dr. Michio Kaku are both very concerned about the impact of a solar storm on civilization. 

If their prediction comes true, life will change dramatically as the power grid goes offline, taking communication and transportation with it.

For more information about this predicted event, link to http://www.theblaze.com/stories/could-a-solar-maximum-event-spark-food-riots-and-meltdowns-one-respected-scientist-says-yes/.

Frostbite

For those who believe Mother Nature is warm and fuzzy, I have some troubling news to share. She’s a killer.

Well, maybe that’s a little harsh. But nature plays by some very strict rules, with severe consequences for violators. Play by the rules, and everything’s fine. But keep in mind that the real outdoors is no soft and cuddly Disney movie.

Every season has its challenges, but the cold-weather months are among the most daunting and dangerous. The trouble is that human beings are warm-blooded, and we have to take measures to protect our soft, warm flesh from the chilly elements. To neglect this is to sacrifice our flesh to frostbite.

Frostbite

Flesh exposed to extreme cold will freeze, and the result is frostbite. Depending upon conditions, this can sometimes happen very quickly — like in a matter of minutes. For example, you grasp a frozen bit of metal with a bare hand, or worse yet, you splash some intensely cold gasoline (which won’t freeze until far below zero) on your hands or feet while refueling a vehicle — instant severe frostbite injury.

Slower frostbite sneaks up on you over a span of time during which your raw skin is exposed to the cold elements, or circulation is restricted to your hands and feet due to boots and gloves that are too tight.

Under normal slow-frostbite conditions, the initial process isn’t particularly painful. Other than mild tingling, you might not even notice, because the flesh becomes numb as it freezes. And because you can’t feel it happening to yourself, it's important to be vigilant to guard against the onset of frostbite. If you're with friends, watch each other for signs of freezing tissue. If you're alone, use a signal mirror or other reflective surface to do the best you can to detect the telltale signs of frostbite. Check hands and feet to make sure they still have warmth and feeling.

So what does frostbite look like and feel like?

As skin freezes, the affected spot loses sensation and turns gray/white or yellow/white in color. The flesh becomes stiff, resilient, crispy to the touch. Mildly frostbitten flesh still yields under moderate pressure, but as the freezing deepens, the flesh becomes solid and wooden feeling.

Frostbite is most likely to happen to exposed flesh where the wind and cold have direct access to the skin (cheeks, nose, chin, forehead, ears, etc.). Also vulnerable are hands and feet, where circulation is restricted by tight clothing and is relatively distant from the warmth of the body core.

How Serious Is It?

Mild frostbite, if caught and treated early, does not pose a serious health threat. But it can be painful during recover. If the freezing is allowed to deepen, the flesh may be terminally damaged, resulting in eventual loss. Gangrene in injured flesh, leading to eventual amputation, is not uncommon among expedition climbers who suffer extreme frostbite and can’t get treatment soon enough. But you don’t have to be an expedition mountaineer to fall victim. All you have to do is fail to prevent frostbite, then neglect immediate treatment.

Prevention

The first line of defense is your clothing, protecting the flesh from exposure to the cold and wind. Dress in layers, with a breathable wind/waterproof shell covering effective insulation layers. A neoprene face mask, full coverage headgear to protect the neck and ears, adequate footgear and mittens will go a long way toward fending off the surface damage caused by bitter cold. Keep boots and socks dry and loose enough to permit the free flow of blood circulating to your toes. Mittens are more effective than gloves because they don’t isolate fingers and they’re roomy enough to not restrict blood flow.

Next, eat high energy foods and warm drinks often during the times of peak exposure. Stay away from alcohol, because it not only numbs the brain and results in poor judgement, but it also causes the circulatory system to dilate, which can speed you on your way to an even bigger problem — hypothermia.

Check your skin often, inspecting for telltale spots. Check your buddy. Check fingers and toes.

To increase circulation, wriggle your face, move fingers and toes, mildly exercise those areas most vulnerable. Periodically, hold a warm hand over cheeks, nose, ears, etc., to share the warmth. If your hands are affected, pull off your gloves and insert hands under bare armpits. If your buddy has cold feet, you may have to take shelter, pull off his boots and hold his chilled feet against your warm stomach. This is where you learn who your true friends are.

Get out of the cold as soon as possible. Then get out of cold clothing and into something warmer. Frozen boots are like an icebox, and feet will just get colder if you leave them inside. Start working on creating a warmer environment.

Treatment

When it comes to treatment of deeply frozen flesh, you should get to a medical facility as quickly as possible. If a seriously frozen area is thawed and then allowed to freeze again, extreme damage will result. Treatment of profound frostbite is best left to professionals. In cases of solidly frozen feet or hands, do not attempt to remove boots or gloves. Just transport the victim to an emergency medical facility as fast and safely as you can.

But if the injury is only mild and you can’t get real medical help in a reasonable amount of time, the recommended procedure is to immerse the frostbitten area in warm (not hot) water. A temperature between 102 and 105 is generally safe. Expect some excruciating pain, as the flesh thaws. After thawing, take all precautions to ensure against re-freezing that part of the body. It will be vulnerable, so you must be careful.

Do’s 

• Do — Periodically check yourself and your buddy for frostbite

• Do — Eat and drink hot stuff

• Do — Stay dry

• Do — Use gentle warming techniques to thaw mild frostbite

• Do — Prevent re-freezing of the injured area

Don'ts

• Don’t — Rub the injured area with snow (very dangerous)

• Don’t — Drink alcohol

• Don’t — Smoke

• Don’t — Attempt to thaw a deeply frozen injury. Transport the victim as quickly as safely possible to a medical facility.

Day Hike Syndrome Strikes Again

The outdoors is big and hostile when you're out there overnight but didn't plan to be.

Two men out for a day of snowboarding on the slopes of Mount Rainier didn't make it back.

At least they didn't make it back when they intended. Derek Tyndall and Thomas Dale (20 and 21 years old respectively) became disoriented (aka lost) in a snowstorm while descending from Camp Muir. Unable to find their way, they used their cell phones to called for help.

The search began, and more than two dozen people hit the snow-covered mountain to assist in the rescue operation. Eventually, the rescue crew was able to make visual contact from about a half mile away, but were unable to reach the stranded men before nightfall. Then the weather got worse, forcing rescue crews off the mountain.

Tyndall and Dale reported via cell phone that they were cold but otherwise unhurt. As night approached, they dug a snow cave for shelter, but reportedly had no overnight gear with them.

There is so much to learn from an incident such as this one. The surprising thing to me is how often it is repeated. This whole scenario falls into what I call Day Hike Syndrome — which, in my opinion, is one of the greatest dangers when you trek off into the outdoors.

Day Hike Syndrome is that misaligned mental attitude in which people think nothing can go wrong because:

• I'm only going for a short hike (ski, snowmobile ride, canoe ride, hunt, day of fishing, mountain bike ride, afternoon of snowboarding…you name it), and I'll be back before nightfall. 
• I've done this before and nothing bad happened. 
• I'll be with friends who are experienced 
• yadda-yadda-yadda…plug in any excuse you can think of 

These are nothing more than lame attempts at rationalization about why you fail to carry overnight gear. It all stems from the misbegotten belief that you will surely be able to make it back home (or to your vehicle) without getting trapped outdoors overnight.

The problem is that you can't see the future. You can guess at it and place your bet, but trust me, the future can outguess you and deal you a losing hand. It can be even a slight injury that slows you down enough that you can't make it out before dark. It can be the sudden onset of unexpected weather. It can be that you simply take the wrong fork of a trail and lose your way.

Regardless of what causes it, you end up staying longer in the outdoors than you planned. All because you failed to plan for the eventuality that you would be spending the night (maybe several) out there. And then you end up in a survival situation with search and rescue teams risking their own lives to come and save yours.

So, what's the solution? Every time you take off for a "one day" trip into the outdoors, for whatever reason, take the kind of equipment that would be appropriate for an overnight stay in the wilds in your location and season.

• Emergency shelter 
• Fire starting equipment 
• Water purification system 
• Extra high-energy food 
• Overnight clothing (I'm not talking about pajamas here) 
• Flashlight 
• Signaling devices (cell phone, mirror, whistle, PLB, SPOT) 

Never take anything for granted in the outdoors. It only takes a minor mistake to end up staying longer out there than planned.