A survival situation can be described as any type of situation were your life is at risk that you cant immediately escape from. In terms of location it really doesn’t matter, but things usually don’t get desperate unless you’re far from rescue, or in an area hidden enough so you cant call for help. When you get into such a situation the first few moments can normally dictate how the rest of your experience is going to go, and doing the right things from the start can mean the difference between life and death.
Here’s a few things to keep in mind if you find yourself in an emergency survival situation, but please note these tips only apply if you are stranded in the wilderness as i cant recommend wrenching a car tyre off and setting it on fire for a rescue signal if you crashed round the corner from your house.
1) Don’t Panic
Possibly the most important thing on the list, panicking can cause you to make a decision that could alter your fate in seconds. The amount of people who have wrecked a vehicle and immediately left for where they thought safety was is much higher than you’d think, and normally they find they are much further from rescue than they thought, only to now be in the same situation but this time without much needed supplies and gear.
Take a few deep breaths and level your head, try to put your priorities in order and assess the situation. Try to get the best idea of your location as you can and make sure you have everything you can gather if you leave where you currently are.
2) Asses the immediate danger
This is more applicable if you get into a vehicle wreck as opposed to a walking accident, but in the event your boat springs a leak or your plane crashes, there may be a limited amount of time for you to get out of immediate danger.
Obviously if the boat you’re on is sinking then you need to get out of there, but in a land vehicle or plane crash there may be the risk of an explosion or fire breaking out, and if you’re still fastened in your seat which could now be twisted and broken then this is more of a threat than a lack of water of shelter.
If you get into a crash then escape the area and make sure its safe before trying to go sorting through the wreckage to find your things. The only exception is rescuing other people who may be trapped, but putting your life at risk in this way is personal choice.
3) Try to call for help
The most obvious way to get out of danger is to be rescued, but the only way this can happen is if someone knows you’re there. Boats and planes always have a built in radio that you usually wont be able to take with you, they also normally have some flares on board which can come in handy.
The on-board radio would be the preferred choice, with flares depending massively on where you are. After that mobile phones may be able to get an emergency signal and you might even get lucky enough to find a satellite phone on board, and don’t be afraid to grab someone else’s phone from their luggage or body if they no longer need it for whatever reason.
4) Gather supplies
Even if you weren’t prepared in the slightest to be in a survival situation, as most plane crash victims never are, there’s no reason you can’t improvise and stock up on useful equipment. A piece of metal twisted off the body of a vehicle with cloth wrapped around the handle will make a useful knife further down the road, and a car wing mirror makes a great signalling device. When gathering equipment there are generally three main areas which are consumables, clothing and tools/equipment.
Consumables
This includes water, food and medicine. Any commercial form of transportation will have a medical kit on board and most likely carry some kind of emergency food. In the event that food and water are minimal then don’t be afraid to search a few bodies if there’s any present. It isn’t disrespectful to search someone for food if it could save your life, and a single candy bar could be the difference between you making it through a forest to safety or going to sleep from exhaustion in the cold, never to wake up again.
Gather all the food you can and in the event there’s lots of it, aim for high calorie and high energy foods that weigh as little as possible. Another good idea would be to gather some spare cloth for filtering water through should it come to that, as your own clothing it to important to sacrifice unless forced to.
Clothes
This one is obvious but don’t just look at your own things. If you have the chance to grab a load of water proof rain coats or something similar then you’ll be glad you have them to put on the roof of your shelter later on. Belts are another good idea since they are so strong and can be used to fasten pieces of your shelter together or make an improvised carry bag.
When grabbing clothing and materials consider your situation later on. If your in the middle of the desert then taking a thick wool jumper out of someones luggage may not seem like a good idea at the time, but you’ll be glad you did when temperatures drop to freezing at night.
Tools and equipment
Anything that’s related to survival equipment would be the first choice, such as a knife or hatchet and anything you can use to start a fire. You probably wont be so lucky as to find things intended for the situation you’re in, so you may have to improvise. String and rope will come in handy for shelter building, but in the event you cant find any you may be lucky enough to find an expose cable you can rip out, or some material you can easily tear into strips.
Get creative and try to think of things you’ll need dependent on your situation, Ive even heard of people removing their car bonnet and kicking it into a large bowl to boil water in to make it safe, and people zipping together a load of coats and tying them up with shoe laces to make a shelter.
5) Make rescue your priority
The only way a rescue party will know your location is if you either get lucky or have some way of letting them know you’re there. If any kind of electronic communications aren’t an option, such as phones and radios, then your going to have to make a signal yourself. Mirrors of any kind are a good choice, and nothing creates a signal fire like the burning tire off a car. If you can get hold of some rubber from a vehicle then take a few pieces with you to use later on when someone might see it, as nothing creates thick, easy to spot black smoke like rubber does.
A rescue party will most likely search from the air, depending on where you are of course, and they will look for anything un-natural like old campfires or anything man made. Whenever you reach a clearing or any area someone in a helicopter might see then leave clues as to your location. Writing “south” in sticks or making an arrow pointing in the direction you plan to walk can help shorten the time it takes for them to find you.