The BeeGees had their collective finger on the pulse of something when they wrote "Staying Alive," because that's more or less the shared project of all humans on this weird, space-floating rock we inhabit. So, when Redditor u/standardgenre45 recently asked,
"What is a survival myth that is completely wrong and could get you killed?"
we picked out answers on 15 topics that we hope you never really need to know—but in case you ever do, we're more than happy to be the place that brought you this particular safety-first round-up. Although we always recommend that you do your own research since after all this is the internet (and since recommended safety protocols are always changing for any given scenario).
1. Rationing Water
"Rationing water is generally a terrible choice - drink what you have until it’s gone. Use that time with good hydration levels to take stock of your situation and make good choices.
Decision making and physical ability drop off very quickly when you are dehydrated. The first decisions you make after realizing you are in a survival situation are critical and pay long dividends.
Most survival situations are resolved within 72 hours and many hikers are found dead in the desert with full water bottles."
2. Drowning
"Perhaps not really a myth, but something people may think is true after watching people get rescued from the water on TV. 'get them breathing and send them on their merry way'
If you rescue someone from a near drowning, they still need to go to the hospital, even though they are safely on land now.
The lungs are coated with a slippery mucous like substance called a surfactant. It's kind of a lubricant and it keeps them from collapsing and sticking to themselves. If they ingested a lot of water into the lungs, chances are they have washed away the surfactant. Their lungs could collapse at any moment and their ability to uptake oxygen is reduced. Get the survivor on oxygen.
source: rescue trained scuba diver here."
3. Bears
"That bears can’t run down hills. They can. They’ll get you too."
"I was actually going to try and find this fact and what do you know, it’s at the top!
Bears are no joke, they run, climb and swim like a damn CrossFit junkie jacked up on meth.
Another thing is they don’t gas out quickly, I’ve seen videos of bears running full speed than swimming across a river and running full speed again to catch prey.
Insane..."
4. Car in a Lake
"If you go into a lake when in a car don't wait until the car fills with water, just open the window and get out ASAP. If you wait, you could be 200 feet down or flipped over on the bottom. The power will still work for a short time. It only takes a few seconds.
Edit - Source: must buddy did his master thesis on exactly this and I got to practice it several times in a pool."
5. Outgoing Voicemail Message
"Changing the voicemail on your mobile phone to tell incoming callers about your plight. That bullshit just wastes battery
At the first sign of trouble, send a SMS with your best location details to everyone on your contact list, even if you have no signal and set it to max power save with WiFi, Mobile Data and Bluetooth off. Your phone will continually try to get the SMS out if even if you get a little signal for a few seconds and will use a lot less power doing it."
6. Tornado
"Wait until you hear the freight train sound to go to the tornado shelter.
I was always told as a kid, if you can't hear it you're alright. At 20 years old I was caught out in the woods with a few friends thinking we had 10-15 minutes to get back to the truck after the tornado warning went out. 3 minutes after the warning we heard what sounded like a freight train and this loud hissing sound. Like a thousand rattlesnakes. Within 30 seconds we were watching trees get plucked up into the air.
We all made it out alright. Luckily there was a large ravine that was dry that time of year and we scrambled into it and flattened out gripping to each other and rocks for dear life.
It took 30 seconds from the time we realized it was in front of us till it was ontop of us.
Later in life I watched a F3 touch down. Because how tornados spin and the earth spins, and I was traveling at 75mph down a highway. I thought I was running along side it. About 1 mile from it. I couldn't hear it, I could see trees and barns going up into the air with it. I never realized it was coming towards me at about 30mph. By the time I heard it and felt a pressure change inside the cab of my truck I had no choice but to bail out and run into a culvert along side the interstate. This all happened within 60 seconds. If you've already heard the tornado. You need to be in your shelter. Not heading towards it.
A tornado watch is an advisory to be watching for tornados. It means it is highly plausible for a tornado to form and touch down. A warning means a radar indicated tornado has touched down and possibly even been spotted by human eye. If you cannot get in doors, get as low as you can.
I have made a habit, as soon as a tornado watch is released in my county, my go bag, the diaper bag, the kids stuff they WILL need all goes in a large duffel in the storm room. I'll watch velocity radar like a hawk until the watch is cleared. If it is elevated to a warning we all pile in. Tornados can drop out of the sky right on top of you in under a minute, leaving you with little to no reaction time."
7. You Can't Take It With You
"'You won't need that, we won't be gone long.'
Carry basic survival tools whenever you go out hiking, hunting, camping, etc.
Things like a magnesium with flint and steel fire starter, a life straw or water purification tablets don't weigh much or take up much space and can be a lifesaver.
Many get lost on short trips or get injured leaving them stuck in the wilderness. It doesn't take a massive forest or jungle to get lost.
In my personal hunting pack I always carry a survival knife, firestarter, and lifestraw. These three items may not guarantee survival, but they improve my odds."
8. Big Game
"Leave large animals alone.
Even if you find say a large track or droppings that make you think, 'hey that's probably a big enough animal to kill me!?' Leave the area.
Herbivores like moose or elk or Bison can kill you just as easily as a bear. Often far more likely because they see you as the predator.
Don't close the distance if you find a large critter. I don't care if the photo is shitty from that distance. Better to have a crappy photo of a Bison than get crushed and stomped in the middle of nowhere to bleed out alone."
9. Prison Rules
"Punching the biggest guy in prison on your first day"
"Former CO. Definitely don't do that lol. Speaking purely from my experience with a medium security prison in Mississippi, there's a rather decent chance the biggest and baddest looking guy is also in one of the many gangs or factions within the prison and you'll have painted a very large target on your back.
You're better off trying to act tough with a CO, but even then that's not smart, and a lot of your fellow prisoners will hate that too because they don't want their block/building catching heat in the form of a shake down for contraband or being on lockdown with no yard time."
"Real talk, from an actual former criminal, your best bet in jail/prison is to just be normal and blend in. It isn't as extreme as media makes it out to be."
10. Should I Stay Or Should I Go
"Building a raft to sail to civilization if you ever find yourself marooned on a deserted island. Stay on the island and be found alive vs never found or found dehydrated and dead of exposure.
Also walking to safety if you get lost and your car breaks down. Stay with the vehicle. They always find the vehicle. It’s inhabitants… not so much."
11. Birds
"'Follow flying birds to find water.' They could be flying anywhere."
"Like away from the water they were just at."
12. Diarrhea
"Most people probably are aware of this, but if you're legit suffering from diarrhea, you need to be doing more than just drinking water because you're also losing a lot of salts/electrolytes and not replenishing those can really f-ck you up.
You can make a pretty basic Pedialyte/Gatorade at home from adding 6 teaspoons of sugar and a half teaspoon of salt per liter of water. It won't taste super great, but you can throw in other flavorings to mask it like lemon juice or similar.
I did Peace Corps in a tropical region and most of the volunteers came to dread the inevitable parasite/GI infection episodes not just because of being incredibly sick but also because of having to drink liters and liters of ORS, which is peace corps' preferred pedialyte knock off haha.
Edited to show more accurate salt and sugar amounts. I wasn't aware that ORS was the unbranded, legit name for this electrolyte cocktail buuuut I do mention it in the third paragraph and I've already gotten fifty comments from people correcting me."
13. Exposure
"Everyone focuses on food and water but completely underestimates how quickly exposure will kill you dead. In some cases, you wont last 24 hours.
Bonus addition to this: every guide I have ever read says to make fire first. Making fire is f-cking hard sometimes. There are many environments where you flat cannot guarantee a good fire (deserts, because of lack of fuel and anything especially wet).
If you get halfway through the night and realize you cant make fire, you are going to have problems.
So make shelter. You can ALWAYS guarantee a shelter and insulated sleeping spot. Make sure your bedding is at least 4 inches thick when you lay on it. I guarantee youll underestimate just how bad the ground sucks the heat out of you.
Make your shelter as small, thick and weatherproof as possible."
14. Urine
"Distill it if you can. This removes the water from toxins like ammonia and many others. But no, don't drink urine! Like drinking the sea, the main ingredient IS water but the remainder of the compounds will further dehydrate and poison you."
15. Fire Rocks
"Not so much a survival myth but a common camping mistake that an amateur survivalist might make: never use rocks that are in or close to a river bed for a campfire. Ever. Many get tiny bits of water trapped inside the rocks, then when heated by a fire, it turns into a lovely grenade due to the water being heated amd turned intosteam, expanding quickly. Hot bits of rock everywhere. People like river rocks because they are smooth and easy to cook off of and they look cool, but they are crazy dangerous. Plenty of rocks all around. Find another."
The post 15 Survival Myths That Can Get You Killed Pretty Quickly appeared first on The Mother of All Nerds.
15 Survival Myths That Can Get You Killed Pretty Quickly
Source: Pinoy Inquirer News
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