5 Extreme survival tips
There are thousands of general survival tips out there, with information on everything from purifying water to carving your own spoon. But there are some things that you should never do unless you’re close to death, and I mean to the point where if you didn’t do it then you’d be dead by the end of the day. Here’s a selection of 5 extreme survival tips to be used in the worst-case and last-resort scenarios.
(Juliane Koepcke – Used Petrol to remove 35 maggots from a wound)
Eating raw meat
There is a big difference between eating a rare steak or some sushi and biting into something you’ve just killed in the wild. Prepared raw meats have been processed in a way that makes them safe for consumption, whether it’s in the form of a skilled chef checking for signs the meat is spoiled or in a curing process like salting or smoking, but raw meat from wild animals is nowhere near as safe.
Raw meat can include all kinds of nasty parasites and bacteria such as Campylobacter, E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria, Shigella, Staphylococcus aureus, and a whole range of other germs I have no idea about and can’t pronounce. Each one of these is killed by cooking so keep that in mind should you ever be hungry enough to bite straight into a rabbit you caught.
Drinking Bleach
Bleach is a substance highly toxic to humans and drinking it directly will kill you, but just the right amount dissolved into enough water can kill the bacteria and make it safe to drink. Bleach is great at killing germs but the trick is to never overdo the safe amount and don’t drink it for too long.
The most common ratio for bleach to water is one or two drops of bleach per liter of water, depending on how dirty the source could be. The bleach does make the water safe to drink but it goes without saying that drinking bleach isn’t the best thing to do, making this a method to use if there are no other options.
Using petrol to remove maggots from a wound
Unattended wounds can quickly become infected and even more so in a humid environment like a jungle. It doesn’t usually matter how careful someone is, stopping the flies from getting in and laying their eggs in there is almost impossible. When an infected wound is at the stage that maggots are eating away at it, it’s time to get them out fast or risk losing the limb or developing something nasty like gangrene.
Trying to pick them out won’t work because they’ll be too deep to grab with your fingers, so the best thing to do if you have some handy, is to pour gasoline/ petrol into the wound or soak a rag and place it over the wound. The maggots will try to escape and wriggle out, looking to get away from the fumes. This method was used by Juliane Koepcke who was stranded in the jungle alone for 11 days and did this to save her arm.
Drinking your own urine
Urine is around 95% water and 5% waste matter your body is trying to get rid of. When it’s first produced it is usually sterile and technically safe to consume, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. It contains all the things your kidneys filtered out and tried to get rid of, and putting that back into your system is obviously not a good idea.
The other problem with drinking your own urine is that it goes off really fast. It wouldn’t be possible to keep any real quantity of it safely for more than a few minutes as bacteria can build up very quickly when it has contact with the air. This is one of those things you should only do in the event you’re about to die of thirst.
Eating non-crunchy insects and grubs
Insects are a staple in the cuisines of many cultures around the globe, but as with raw meat, they have been prepared in such a way that makes them safe to eat. Crunchy insects are much safer to eat than anything with liquid innards such as slugs and grubs. Dry and crunchy insects like grasshoppers, crickets, and beetles are much safer since they don’t usually harbor as many bacteria, but the juicer an insect is the greater the danger from eating it.
They can contain all kinds of strange and dangerous bacteria and parasites that could end your survival journey in hours, but as with the germs that can be found in raw meat, cooking kills them and makes them safe for consumption. You’d have to be in a very desperate situation indeed to munch down on some grubs without even trying to cook them first.
