The 5 Basic Survival Skills

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Acquiring survival skills is an ongoing process that will last for your entire life. There is always more to learn and experience, which is part of the fun of being a survivor.

As your survival expertise grows the knowledge and abilities you gain are often useful in other areas. For example survivors prepare ahead of time, and they are experts in the art of ingenuity and inventiveness. Excellent attributes for anyone.

The possible environments and situations you could find yourself in are innumerable. Although each situation has its particular requirements for successfully surviving, in the final analysis it is mastery of five basic survival skills that are essential. Proficiency and preparedness in these 5 basic skills will give you the edge and put you on your way toward becoming a talented survivor.

First Basic Survival Skill - Fire

Knowing how to build a fire is the best survival skill you can have. Fire provides warmth, light, and comfort so you get on with the business of survival. Even if you do not have adequate clothing a good fire can allow you to survive in the coldest of environments.

Fire keeps away the creatures that go bump in the night and so you can have the peace of mind and rest you need. And that is not all. Fire will cook your food and purify your water, both excellent attributes when you want to stay healthy when potential disease causing organisms are lurking about. Fire will dry your clothing and even aid in the making of tools and keeping pesky insects at bay.

But even that is not all. Fire and smoke can be used for signaling very long distances.

Always have at least two, and preferably three, ways of making a fire at you immediate disposal. With waterproof matches, a butane lighter, and a magnesium fire starter or firesteel you should be able to create a fire anytime anywhere no matter how adverse the condtions.

So the lesson here is to learn the art of fire craft. Practice and become an expert. Your ability to create a fire is perhaps the most visible mark of an experienced survivor.

Second Basic Survival Skill - Shelter

Shelter protects your body from the outside elements. This includes heat, cold, rain, snow, the sun, and wind. It also protects you from insects and other creatures that seek to do you harm.

The survival expert has several layers of shelter to think about. The first layer of shelter is the clothing you choose to wear. Your clothing is of vital importance and must be wisely chosen according to the environment you are likely to find yourself in. Be sure to dress in layers in order to maximize your ability to adapt to changing conditions.

The next layer of shelter is the one you may have to build yourself, a lean-to or debris hut perhaps. This is only limited by your inventiveness and ingenuity. If the situation requires, your shelter can be insulated with whatever is at hand for the purpose. Being prepared, you may have a space blanket or tarp with you, in which case creating a shelter should be relatively easy.

Before you are in need of making a survival shelter, be sure to practice and experiment with a variety of materials and survival scenarios on a regular basis. Should the need arise you will be glad you did.

Third Basic Survival Skill - Signaling

Signaling allows you to make contact with people who can rescue you without having to be in actual physical contact with them. There are a variety of ways to signal for help. These include using fire and smoke, flashlights, bright colored clothing and other markers, reflective mirrors, whistles, and Personal Locator Beacons. Three of anything is considered a signal for help: 3 gunshots, 3 blows on a whistle, three sticks in the shape of a triangle.

In a pinch, your ingenuity in devising a way to signal potential help could very well save your life.

Fourth Basic Survival Skill - Food and Water

Whenever you plan an excursion be sure to always bring extra food and water. Having more on hand than you think you need will give you that extra measure of safety should something happened and you have to stay out longer than anticipated.

It is important that you know how to ration your water and food as well as find more in the environment in which you find yourself. You can go without food for a number of days, but living without water for even a few days will cause your efficiency to drop dramatically.

If at all possible, boil any water you find in order to kill disease organisms that may be in even the cleanest looking water. Filtering or chemically treating water is second best.

Fifth Basic Survival Skill - First Aid

Always bring along your first aid kit and a space blanket. Most injuries you are likely to encounter in the wilderness are relatively minor scrapes, cuts, bruises, and burns. Larger injuries are going to need better facilities than that which you have at your disposal, which means you will need outside help.

Panic is your number one enemy when you are in any emergency situation, be it injured, lost, or stranded. What you need in these situations is first aid for the mind.

Think STOP:
Sit
Think
Observe
Plan

Your best defense in any emergency is your ability to think and make correct decisions. Building a fire is often the beginning first aid for the mind. Doing so will keep you busy and provide an uplift from the warmth, light and protection fire provides.

Practice Survival Skills

The expert survival skills and know-how you have accumulated through practice and experience will serve you well. When the real thing comes along, you will be prepared and adept at staying alive. Where others have perished, as a survivor you will know you can make it. And that is a good feeling to be sure.

HOW TO PURIFY WATER

Lost in the wilderness near a river or lake, half the battle is over. In order to safely drink this water, you need to purify it. Boiling is the best and easiest way to make fresh water safe -- 10 minutes at a steady boil is a good rule of thumb. Of course, boiling water means you need a source of fire and a container of some kind. If you don't have a container, you can probably find one or more of these items:

• Aluminum can
• Tin can
• Large shell
• Plastic bottle
• Glass jar

Use your shirt or other cloth to filter out large bits of sediment before boiling. Believe it or not, plastic bottles do work for boiling. One method is to completely fill the bottle with water, cap it and drop it into some hot coals. The lack of air in the bottle should keep it from melting. If you don't have enough water to fill the bottle, suspend it above the fire with rope or vine so the flames just touch the bottom. The risk of boiling in a plastic bottle is that your bottle and main collection device may be gone. If you can't start a fire, leave the water in the sun in a clear container to help kill bacteria.

Purification tablets are another way to purify water. You can find them at hardware stores, also many companies manufacture them, and they're mandatory in any survival kit. Purification tablets use either iodine or chlorine to treat the water. Many people are allergic to iodine, so make sure you know if you are before you use them. Murky water often needs more than one tablet to make it safe, and any tablet needs at least 30 minutes to be fully effective. Like with boiling, it's best to give the water some type of an initial straining. Warm water is also safer to drink, so if it's from a cold mountain stream, allow it to heat up a little in the sun first.

Drop the tablet in the bottle, swish some of the water onto the cap and the mouth's threads. After boiling it or treating it with tablets, pour the water back and forth between two containers. It will add oxygen and improve taste.

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SOLDIER KILLS COMRADES

A U.S. soldier fired on fellow troops Monday, killing five before being taken into custody, the U.S. command said.The White House said President Barack Obama is shocked by news of the shooting.White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday that the shooting was a "terrible tragedy" and that Obama plans to meet with Defense Secretary Gates later in the day to discuss the matter.Gibbs said the president's heart goes out to the victims' families and that he wants to know what happened.

The shooting occurred at Camp Liberty, a sprawling U.S. base on the western edge of Baghdad near the city's international airport and adjacent to another facility where Obama visited last month.A brief U.S. statement said the soldier "suspected of being involved with the shooting" was in custody but gave no further details. It was unclear what provoked the attack."Any time we lose one of our own, it affects us all," U.S. spokesman Col. John Robinson said. "Our hearts go out to the families and friends of all the service members involved in this terrible tragedy."Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman called the shooting an "unexpected and tragic event," adding that the incident is under investigation.The names of the deceased are being withheld pending next-of-kin notification and release by the Defense Department.Separately, the military announced Monday that a U.S. soldier was also killed a day earlier when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Basra province of southern Baghdad.The death toll from the Monday shooting was the highest for U.S. personnel in a single attack since April 10, when a suicide truck driver killed five American soldiers with a blast near a police headquarters in Mosul.Attacks on officers and sergeants, known as fraggings, were not uncommon during the Vietnam war as morale in the ranks sank. However, such attacks are believed to be rare in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.In 2003, Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar was sentenced to death for killing two officers in Kuwait just before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq of 2003.In June 2005, an Army captain and lieutenant were killed when an anti-personnel mine detonated in the window of their room at the U.S. base in Tikrit. A National Guard sergeant was acquitted in the blast.Additionally, there have been several cases recently of gunmen dressed as Iraqi soldiers opening fire on American troops, including an attack in the northern city of Mosul on May 2 in which two soldiers and the gunman were killed.Also Monday, a senior Iraqi traffic officer was assassinated on his way to work in Baghdad. It was the second attack on a high-ranking traffic police officer in the capital in as many days.A car cut off Brig. Gen. Abdul-Hussein al-Kadhoumi as he drove through a central square in the capital and a second vehicle pulled up alongside and riddled him with bullets, police said, citing witnesses. Al-Kadhoumi was director of operations for the traffic authority.The gunmen were armed with pistols equipped with silencers, the police added on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.Incidents involving gunmen armed with sophisticated weapons, including silencers, have been on the rise since a string of high-profile robberies in April.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM CONTRACTING H1N1 Swine Flu

As the swine flu sweeps the world we are all concerned with protecting ourselves and our families from contracting this virus. There are many ways that we can be pro-active and protect ourselves and families. First we must understand how the virus is spread. Whenever a person who has the virus coughs, sneezes, spits, blows their nose or even talks and laughs the virus escapes their body in their respiratory secretions. It is spread by droplet infection. That means that the tiny droplets of moisture from their mouth and nose escape and carry the virus with them. These droplets in the air are then breathed in by others or land on surfaces and the virus is there, waiting for a victim. Once the virus enters another person's system it must fight that person's immune system to cause illness. Since this is a new virus strain, people do not have immunity to it and our immune systems frequently fight a losing battle and the the newly infected person becomes ill. There is currently no vaccine in the world that can be taken to prevent contracting this virus once it has entered your body. It will take several months to develop a vaccine. To avoid contracting the illness, we must break the chain of infection and contamination. So, what can we do to break that chain. Here are some simple steps we can all take to keep that virus away.

Plane Crash The Only One Who Lived

On Christmas Eve 1971, German teenager Juliane Koepcke sat next to her mother in the window seat of a Lockheed Electra. She had just graduated from high school in Lima, Peru, and was on her way to Pucallpa, where she and her mother would rendezvous with her father, biologist Hans Koepcke. But the plane never made it. The Electra hit a freak storm, and the 17-year-old girl looked out the window to see the right wing aflame. She turned to her mother, who said, "This is the end of everything." The last thing Juliane remembers is feeling herself whirling in midair.

She awoke three hours later, still strapped into her seat, in the Amazon. Miraculously, she had only fractured her collarbone, gashed her right arm, and lost vision in one eye. She began looking for her mother, but all she found were empty seats and a row of three young women, covered in flies. Of the 92 people on board, Koepcke was the lone survivor. Although in shock, she remembered her father's advice: Heading downhill in the jungle leads to water, and water leads to civilization. Koepcke bushwhacked along the rainforest floor, frequently hearing planes above, but she had no way to signal them. On the tenth day, she came across a hunter's hut, outfitted with salt and kerosene, which Koepcke used to clean worms out of her skin. The next day, a group of Peruvian hunters arrived. They took her to the town of Tournavista, where a local pilot flew her to her father, in Pucallpa.

"She was in the middle of the jungle," says Herb Golder, who in 1998 revisited Peru with Juliane—now 50 and a zoologist living in Germany—while working as assistant director on Wings of Hope, Werner Herzog's documentary about the ordeal. "And this 17-year-old girl in a torn miniskirt and one sandal walks out alive."

TRAPPED UNDER A KAYAK

As Told to Christian DeBenedetti
MY VERY FIRST THOUGHT was: Holy shit, you're in a vertical pin. It's a rare situation. Your kayak goes over a waterfall and sticks, standing straight up. My legs were trapped in the boat, and the force of the water on my back was folding me in half, battering me against the deck. I was completely underwater and running out of oxygen.

I fought, but my legs remained pinned. So I decided to break them.

We were in Little River Canyon, Alabama, in the spring of 1996, on a run called Suicide. There's a ten-foot drop to a short platform in the middle, then another 25-foot fall. If you go too far right on the last drop, you'll land on a big rock. But to the left, at the bottom, there's a square rock that you can get pinned behind. I went too far left, and my bow wedged behind the rock. The stern fell back against the falls, and the water pinned me. My friends said they'd never felt so helpless. They were only ten feet away, but because of all the water, they couldn't see me, even in a bright-red kayak.

I fought and got partway out of the cockpit, but my legs remained pinned. So I decided to break them. I clasped my hands together and reached out into the falls, hoping the force would snap my legs and rip me from the boat. Instead, my body became a lever, and it pried the boat loose. "Yes! I'm going to live!" I didn't feel any pain. But at the bottom of the falls, I couldn't walk. My legs just collapsed. I had torn a bunch of ligaments. I had to stay in the boat and run 12 miles of rapids—including three more miles of Class V—to get to the ER.

I'm not the kid I was then, but I'm not going to say I wouldn't run it again. I'm about to go kayaking right after this.

Expert Analysis: Vertical pins were more common with boats built in the nineties. But designs have changed over the years, and now the bows of creekboats rise up when plunging into deep water. Considering how small the cockpit in the boat was—and the force of the water—David did everything right, turning what could have been a recovery into a rescue. When running technical drops like this, groups should be prepared for the worst-case scenario. My advice: Always listen to your gut. —Chris Jonason, owner of Wave Trek Rescue, a company specializing in river-safety courses

IMPORTANCE OF SURVIVAL KITS

Anyone can purchase a pre-made survival kits off the shelf. The problem with this approach is that the survival kit you select may not be ideal for your particular needs or may even have inferior survival gear. The best survival kits are those made by the people who rely upon them.

Importance of Survival Kits

For those of us who travel in the wilderness on a regular basis, the idea of equipping oneself with a survival kit seems trivial. Survivalists are sure to have a survival kit on hand at all times and are prepared to use it. This is because the experienced survivor knows the unexpected can happen without a moments notice.

Help or rescue may not always be immediately available so you need to be able to take care of yourself come what may. Making your own survival kit from a judicious selection of gear is the first step towards getting out alive.

Below is a discussion on how to make your own survival kit. Of necessity it is a bit wordy, as I believe it is important to know something about why certain items should be included in a survival kit, rather than just blindly following instructions for creating a kit without understanding why pieces of gear are included.

Why Make Your Own Personal Survival Kit?

Consider making your own survival kit before acquiring a pre-made kit off the shelf. Store bought survival kits are not necessarily made for the environment in which you may find yourself. Often survival kits are created from inferior materials or are lacking certain critical components. In a survival situation you do not want to find that the pre-made survival kit you have been packing has let you down. Poor quality gear can threaten your very survival in the wilderness.

Making a survival kit of your own has the added advantage of learning why each component of the kit is necessary. When you make a personal survival kit you are more likely to know how to use the individual components of the survival gear collection.

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