Sunday, May 19, 2019

“Survival Drill”, Updated and Explained©


 

  

Do you know what to do first, second and third, and what questions to ask, if you find yourself “misplaced” in the wilderness?  Do you know the “Survival Drill”?

 

The “Survival Drill”, created in 1972 by North Frontier Communications, is an excellent tool to help you organize and prioritize survival tasks and ask the important questions that you must ask if you are to survive.  It is a checklist of actions and questions, which includes two smaller checklists. 

 

There are three problems, with the “Survival Drill” as it was originally presented by North Frontier Communications.  First, North Frontier Communications didn’t offer much explanation of the steps of the drill.  Second, they left out an important question, which they assumed you would ask, even though it was not explicitly stated in the drill.  Third, the order of the steps of the “Unable To Walk Out” checklist doesn’t agree with the “Rule of Threes”.  Therefore, I have fine-tuned and built upon the original ideas of the writers of the North Frontier Communications by adding an additional question, reorganizing one of the checklists and explained the ideas behind the steps of the “Survival Drill”.

 

First things first, though, just what is a drill?  A drill, as in, “you know the drill…” is a checklist of steps or actions performed in a particular order, which you take in a high stress situation: a drill is similar to a “Standard Operating Procedure” or SOP.

 

The first step on the drill is “Lost”.  The word lost is used in a couple of different ways in the “Survival Drill”; at best, it means that it is too close to nightfall for you to safely walk out, even if you know where you are.  It could also mean that you do not know where you are or you are injured and in either case, you cannot rescue yourself safely.  At worst, it means that you have let your sub-conscious and its closet full of fears take control, and you have panicked.  Once you give into “woods shock” and panic, you will most likely die.  A way to control your fears is to never you the term “lost”, and instead use the word “misplaced”.  Lost is a very scary word, as lost things are not found, since, they are lost.  Misplaced things are found and if you are misplaced, you just have to wait for the searchers to find you.  For more on “lost” versus “misplaced” and on woods shock, read my article “Getting Lost And What To Do About It”, Circa 1915” found HERE.

 

North Frontier Communications addressed the issue of fear, when they wrote the following, below the drill: “REMEMBER – Fear is the only real enemy.  Searchers will be out looking for you as soon as you are missed – make things easy for them.” 

 

Step one, “Face The Fact”; you are now having and “unexpected adventure” or an “unplanned overnighter”!  You are “misplaced” so, now what are you going to do about it?

 

“Stay Cool, Sit Down, Think”: a quote from “Trainee’s Notebook MATS Survival School”, by Belmore Browne.  Photo by the Author.


After realizing and accepting that you are “misplaced”, step two is to “Stay Cool, Sit Down, Think”.  Your brain is your number one survival tool -- use it!  The next few decisions that you make might be the most important one you will ever make, remember.  Do not give into your fears and panic, the best thing you can do is to sit down and think.  Many time lost people who are scared, keep moving, walking or running, and that just their wastes time and energy and makes it harder for searchers to find them.  More recent survival experts use the acronym S.T.O.P. to describe the “Stay Cool, Sit Down, Think” stage of a wilderness emergency.


 

The Boy Scouts of America S.T.O.P. Card, picture by the Author.  For more on S.T.O.P. go HERE.


At step three, you ask yourself two very important questions and your answers to these questions will determine what you will do next.  Question one is “Are You Injured”: I added this question to the “Survival Drill”, because while it was implied it was not actually stated.  If you are injured, then your very first task, provided the situation is safe and you are not hanging from your fingers on the edge of a cliff or are almost surrounded by a wildfire, will be to perform first aid on yourself.  If you are injured, depending on the nature, location and severity of your injuries, you may be “Unable To Walk Out”.


 
How to determine how much daylight you have remaining, picture by the Author.  For more information on how to determine how much daylight you have remaining, go HERE.

 

The second question deals with how much daylight is remaining, so “Check The Time”.  Often, this very important question is ignored or forgotten by wilderness travelers.  You only have so much time before dark, more in the summer and less in the winter, and often, when by the time you accept that you are “misplaced”, it will probably be late afternoon.  It is important to remember, that you should never attempt to walkout of the wilderness when it is dark, even if you know where you are, because the risk of injury or death is very high if you do.  The authors of “Survival Drill” assume that if it is close to dark, and that means that the Sun will be down below the horizon in two hours or less, you will be “Unable To Walk Out”.  If you have enough time to walk out, without crossing the two hours until Sundown deadline, then you might be “Able To Walk Out”.

 

If you are uninjured or have only minor injuries which will not prevent you from walking and there is enough daylight remaining that you can walk out before dark, then you should proceed to the “Able To Walk Out” step.  If, on the other hand, your injuries are severe and affect your ability to move easily or there is not enough time before nightfall for you to walk out, then you should begin the “Unable To Walk Out” step of the checklist.

 

CHECK MAP – Carry a large scale map of the area if possible.  Otherwise fix the position of local rivers and roads, etc., in your mind before starting out from camp so that you have a good mental map”, “Survival Drill” by North Frontier Communications, 1972

 

Your first step in the “Able To Walk Out” checklist is to “Check the Map”.  You should always carry a map of the area that you are going to be exploring, and you should study it before you head into the wilderness.  Once you have pulled out your map, you must orient it, by turning it so that the North on the map is pointing to compass north.  This is the first half of the “Orientation” step of the checklist. 

 

ORIENTATION – Carry a compass, but you can also check direction by using a watch (point hour hand at sun; bisect angle between hour hand and “12” to find South), stars (mark direction of pole star with line on ground to provide basis for next day’s navigation), woodpeckers (they drill for grubs on South side of tree), snow (melts soonest on South-facing slopes), prevailing winds (sometimes distort growth of exposed trees)”. “Survival Drill” by North Frontier Communications, 1972

 

You should always carry a compass with you in the wilderness, and I hope that you did, as it will make orienting the map much easier.  If you did not bring a compass or yours has been lost, then you will have to determine the general directions from the movements of the Sun, which in the northern hemisphere rises in the East to Southeast and sets in the West to Northwest, depending on the season.  You could also use a traditional or digital watch or a shadow stick to find the cardinal points, North, South, East and West; for more on how to do this check back for future article on “How To Find Your Way Without A Compass”.

 

After you have oriented you map and know which way is North, South, East and West, it is time to orient yourself.  This is the second half of the “Orientation” step.  If you have a map, you can attempt to locate where you are by observing the terrain around you and finding it on the map.  If you don’t have a paper map but have a good “mental map” of the area instead, you can try to find landmarks and terrain features that you recognize.  Hopefully, you remembered to turn around and look behind you at your back trail, as you traveled into the wilderness, as this will make it easier to recognize landmarks as you try to orient yourself and as you travel back out.

 

If you are certain that, you know where you are then you can try to walk out.  With any luck you will find your way out of the woods, however you should mark your trail by blazing trees or breaking branches or pushing sticks into your trail, pointing in your direction of travel, or by arranging rocks or sticks as trail markers; in case you must return to your starting point because you are “misplaced” again.  For more on how to do this check back for future article on “Trail Marking: How To Find Your Way Back”.

 

The Rule of Threes, graphic by the Author.


But what do you do if it is less than two hours to nightfall or if you are injured and cannot walk out on your own, safely?  This is the time when knowing the “Rule of Threes” will become important to your continuing survival.  The “Rule of Threes” is a planning tool, which helps you prioritize which actions are the most critical to your survival.  The “Rule of Threes” states that you cannot survive for more than 3 Minutes without air or with severe bleeding.  You cannot survive for more than 3 Hours without shelter from a harsh environment, whether it is hot or cold, or if you are in cold or icy water.  You cannot survive for more than 3 Days without water or sleep, but you can survive for 3 Weeks without food.  The “Rule of Threes” assume that the rules above them have already been met, for example, if you have a large quantity of water, yet are bleeding severely, according to the three-minute rule, the most important action to take at that moment, is to stop the bleeding.  For more on the “Rule of Threes” go HERE.  I rearranged the steps in the “Unable To Walk Out” checklist on the “Survival Drill”, so that the steps would agree with the “Rule of Threes”.  The original “Survival Drill” had the “Unable To Walk Out” steps in this order: pick a bivouac site, light fire, prepare signals, build shelter, and prepare food, drink.  I have always taught that it is important to build a shelter before you light a fire, because you AND the fire, will need shelter from the wind, the weather, and the Sun.  The only exception to the building your shelter before you light a fire rule, is if you have been in cold or icy water, in which case you will need to get a fire lit before you become too cold to light one.

 

Since you are going to spend the night in the wilderness, it is time to “Pick Bivouac Site”.  This when the “5 W’s” of wilderness survival are important: wind, water, widow-makers, wood, and wildlife.  Wind in a survival situation can dramatically reduce your core body temperature and the primary function of a shelter is to block the wind.  Ideally, your site will have trees, rocks, or other natural features that you can use to shelter from nighttime breezes and the weather.  Water, you need water for drinking and therefore your site should be near water, but not so near that you have to worry about bugs, flooding, in the case of creeks or rivers, or wind and weather, in the case of lakes and other large bodies of water.  Widow-makers are the most dangerous of the “5 W’s” and one of the most frequently overlooked, simply because people forget to look up.  Widow-makers are dead trees or trees with large dead branches or snags stuck in their crowns that could come crashing down on you in case of a storm.  Wood, your site should offer plenty of downed wood for building a shelter or for a fire.  Fallen branches or downed dead trees are important, because in a survival situation you might not have an axe or a saw or be too badly injured to use one.  Lastly, wildlife, mostly animals will leave you alone, but selecting a bivouac site near their den, near an insect nest, on a path they frequent or near a food or water source might bring you into conflict with them.  Once in Algonquin, I was caught by nightfall and I had to camp on a portage path, that night a moose wandered down the path and kicked into tent guy-lines.  Looking back, a better plan would have been to pitch my tent in the brush besides the path.  Other things to look for in a bivouac site, would be a nearby, large open area, visible from above, where you can put out rescue signals and where the trees won’t disperse a column of smoke.  Lastly, a good shelter site should not be the near the largest tree in the area, as they are the most likely to attract lightning.

 

Your first task is to get out of the wind, the sun and the rain or the snow, so “Build Shelter”.  If it is rainy, snowy, or windy, and you have remembered to bring a poncho or a trash bag, find a natural shelter, get out of the wind and the wet and use your rain gear.  Do not be out in the wind and the wet building a shelter, when you can huddle in your rain gear and conserve scarce body heat.  For more on “Using your poncho or a trash bag as an Emergency Shelter”, go HERE and HERE.  If it is daytime in the desert, get out of the sun and the wind as soon as possible to conserve precious body fluids.  Also, in areas where it gets cold at night, remember to build an emergency bough bed, because you will lose much of your precious body heat to the ground by conduction.  For information on “Making an Emergency Bough Bed”, go HERE and HERE.  Also, for more on emergency shelters check back, as I will be publishing an article soon on how to build emergency shelters. 

 

Your next step is to “Light Fire” and for that, you are going to need kindling, tinder, fuel, and a source of ignition.  One mistake people make, beyond not bringing matches, a lighter, kindling, a candle, etc., with them is not gathering enough fuel.  You want to have all your wood gathered before it is dark, as it is difficult to gather wood in the dark and it is very easy to get hurt.  It takes a lot of wood to get through the night and a good rule of thumb is to gather what you think you need and then double or even triple that amount.  You can also measure your fire’s consumption of wood for an hour and then multiply this amount by the number of hours it will be dark.

 

Now that you have the shelter built, the wood gathered and fire going, it is time to “Prepare Food, Drink”.  Sit down, conserve energy, if you have some food you can either eat it or save it, depending on how hungry you are.  Never eat if you do not have enough water, as digestion uses up body fluids.  If you have water drink it, do not save it: if you can warm it up over your fire, warm it up.  For more on water, survival and dehydration, read my article “What is Dehydration and How Do You Avoid It?” found HERE.

 

After you have rested and had something to eat and drink and if it is still light out, “Prepare Signals”.  Remember three of anything is a signal of distress and signals must be large and stand out from the background: dark on light or light on dark or brightly colored.  The U.S. Coast Guard recommends that each letter of an SOS be 18 feet by 3 feet.  Signal fires should be in groups of three, in either a straight line or in a triangle, since one fire looks like a campout and two in a line looks like a party.

 

Tell people at camp where you are going and when you’ll be back” “Survival Drill” by North Frontier Communications, 1972

 

I hope that you told someone where you were going and when you would be back and you didn’t change your plans without telling someone, because now comes the hardest part, where you sit and “Wait For The Searchers”.  The searchers should find you in the next 72 hours, as long as you stay put, if you wander you simply make it harder for the searchers to catch up with you.  Devon O’Neill, writing in Outside online, noted that statistically most “misplaced” persons are found within 72 hours of being reported missing.  He also wrote that, according to Paul Anderson a 42-year veteran of the National Park Service who spent 11 years as superintendent of Denali National Park, 85% “misplaced” persons are found within the first 12 hours and 97% within the first 24 hours of being reported missing.  So, gather more firewood, improve your shelter, improve your signals, boil some water, and talk to the trees, but do not leave your bivouac site, help is on the way. 

 

 

Sources

 

Anderson, Gareth, Safety Officer and Marsh, Col. John F.; YOU ALONE in the MAINE WOODS, [Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, Maine, 10th Edition 2003] p. 26 https://www.maine.gov/ifw/docs/aloneinmainewoods.pdf Accessed 5/17/2019

 

Browne, Belmore; The Airman’s Arctic Survival Guide, [Salty Press, 2014]

 

Garza, Dolly; Outdoor Survival Training For Alaska’s Youth: Instructors Manual, [Alaska Sea Grant College Program, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, Third Printing 2005] p. 30-31

 

O’Neill, Devon “How Backcountry Search and Rescue Works”, [Outside, March 4, 2016], https://www.outsideonline.com/2059616/how-backcountry-search-and-rescue-works, Accessed 10/09/2018

 

Risk, Paul H.; Outdoor Safety and Survival, [John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY 1983] p. 284-285

 

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