Hello Everyone
Even though I've been questioning a SHTF situation's likelihood, and what defines it, I thought I'd bring in a bit of survival planning into everyday thought.
Okay, let's start off with a basic question.
Do you have a car kit?
It's a simple question, and the wrong answer could lead to you not surviving a bad situation. Not that the right answer guarantees you'll make it, but it will guarantee a better chance of making it.
A simple car kit would include things like:
Spare fuel
Jump Leads
Spare Tyre + fitting kit
Change of bulbs
Bottled water
Sleeping bag
Food
Torch
etc
It's a pretty simple question, and it's very seasonally dependent.
I meet up with SD the other day, and he seems to have 2 car kits! So it's good to know he practices what he preaches.
The idea of a car kit is that you'll be better able to survive if something happens and you're stuck in your car, or something like that. But as we all know, there are some country lanes that we travel down, that might not have traffic for another 2 days.....or even a week! Those are the kinds of roads it sucks to be on when your car decides it wants to go to sleep.
With the weather coming in, it's possible that emergency service vehicles will be super busy and if you're in trouble......you'd better hold tight and wait it out. But what if you can't? Let's say something happens and you're forced to leave your car. Could be a crash and your car is on fire. Could be that you're on ice and worried about the car crashing through the ice and you're stuck in freezing water! It could be any number of situations.
When you're in a bad place, and you're unable to wait it out in the vehicle, you have to start a self-rescue. This is where a seatbelt cutter comes in handy, and a glass breaker too. If your door is locked, you'll have to go out the window. You could always go out the boot, but not all car boots have an opening handle inside them. If yours doesn't, you might want to look into how your boot opens, then fit a bit of wire on the inside of the boot, so that whenever you pull it the boot mechanism opens. This is super useful, even if you get kidnapped in your own car....or a kid is playing hide and seek...or you're playing hide and seek.
Okay, so, self rescue time.
You grab your car keys, use the glass breaker and belt cutter on your keyring......you do have one right? If not, check out the Res-Q-Me (awesome piece of kit) and then you get out of the window. Maybe you're able to open the boot of your car to get a bag out of it. Maybe not. But lets say you did.
You'd hope people would be looking for you, but if you've only just had the accident, odds are you're still to notify people. You'd better hope that phone battery is working and that you have phone signal. If not, it could be time to start walking. If you have phone signal, make the call, and wait. A helicopter is more likely to see a car than a person.
Now, this is where it gets interesting. Many preppers and survivalists are getting ready for a catastrophic event where they have to lay low and remain hidden. But in the example we're looking at now, all that camo gear will be warm, but not much good for being rescued.
The self rescue has begun, you're out of direct danger, and you're still not safe. You're rescued when you're assisted by other people to get you to safety, or when you complete a self-rescue and get back to civilisation (no jokes about cities not being civilised. If you do, you're just trying to be funny. Guess what......it didn't work).
If you're walking away from that situation, which should be a last resort, what you want is to be seen! One of the best ways to be seen.....high viz jacket or vest! You know the kind, those bright orange or yellow ones, with reflective strips on them. Those hideous monstrosities of fashion-faux-pa! You need to forgo style for practicality and visibility. Guess what else is a nice benefit for dark days. Glow sticks! The kind usually seen at raves! Best one's I've been experimenting with are Cyalume, available at:
http://www.sids-surplus.co.uk/Cyalume/ca...33864.aspx
Mine has been burning for over 12 hours now. Even the ones that say 'High Intensity 30 mins light' are lasting a good few hours.
But those should be a part of your self-rescue kit, with the high viz jacket/vest. A torch is brilliant, but batteries don't last forever, and they provide more focussed light. A glow stick (snap light) is a much more 'all round' light, that will make you visible for longer. But just because you have chem-lights, doesn't mean you should neglect that torch on your keyring. You do have a torch on your keyring right?
Okay, you've crashed, you're on the move (last resort), you're highly visible......but there's nobody about to see you. You need a solution.
What does an emergency life vest on a plane have? A whistle! Why? Because for very little effort, you can make a noise that can be heard a long way off. Much further than shouting, and much less effort too.
Let's look at the characteristics of whistles available.
You have the classic school whistle. The little metal ones, with a pea bouncing around inside it. Those are LOUD. Can't deny them that. But they are also the least recommended ones. Any whistle with a pea inside is going to be subject to the problem of freezing the pea to the side of the whistle, especially after you've blown it and the moisture from your breath freezes it solid against the wall of the whistle.
You can shake the whistle about and dislodge it, but that might be too little too late, or it might not work. Hit the whistle harder, or against a stone to dislodge the pea, and you risk breaking the whistle. Not cool! However, what will be cool, will be the whistle itself. Let's say it's -5 degrees, and your put your lips to a metal whistle that is also -5 degrees. Have you ever licked frost and gotten your tongue stuck to the frozen surface? Sucks right? Well a metal whistle is going to be a similar risk. Remember to keep it warm, and it should be okay. So that means, when choosing a whistle, no pea, and no metal. On a quick note, the pea style whistle will usually be much larger than the non-pea versions.
Next thing on our whistle list, after no pea, no metal, comes 'no cheap plastic'. This is obvious, but often overlooked. A cheap plastic one is affordable, but could easily break if you fall down, or even if it gets a bit cold and is dropped. Non-Brittal is also a benefit. A brittle whistle can ruin your day at the drop of a hat....or whistle.
So, you're looking for a decent plastic, no pea, whistle. That makes being heard sorted, right? Wrong. You should have you mobile phone fully charged at all times. There might not be signal where you are, but if you're heading somewhere else, there might be signal there, so keep checking.
One trick with a mobile phone, the screen on a phone is very shiny and can easily be used to reflect light, just like a rescue-mirror does. This is another reason why it's smart to carry a mobile phone with you.
Okay, so you're walking away from the crash, you're visible, you can be heard....what next?
This is the weirdest thing I will ever explain to anyone. Place your arms above your head, fully extended, hands in a wide fan shape. Move those arms in large semi-circles down to your sides. Repeat as many times as need be, while jumping up and down. This is the international distress signal for 'I'm screwed! Help me out' Imagine if you are driving along and you see some dude in a high viz vest, with glow sticks in their hands, walking along the road. You'll think they're a prepared hiker or something like that. Now imagine that same person waving their arms frantically....yep, they're in a bad situation and need your help. I'd rather be the dude waving my arms and getting help, than the one walking along hoping people will recognise their distress from the slow sombre walking style. See how that works? Sometimes it's good to show you're in trouble and need help.
Self rescue is cool, and if you can do it safely, awesome. But it should ALWAYS be used as a last resort. I'd rather make a phone call and wait for the AA, or someone like that. Maybe call the wife and have her pick me up. But if it's impossible to get the signal across to a rescue party, you may have to self-rescue. It's nearly ALWAYS better to be by your car. But if you must leave, then do so. While you leave, make sure you assist the rescuers in locating you, and you make yourself as easy to find as possible. Stick to main roads, or places with lots of potential traffic. It's better to walk on a road, around a field, hoping to catch an oncoming car, than it is to walk through a field to cut a corner, an then miss an oncoming car that could have been your ticket out of the situation.
The items described really increase your chances of being noticed in a self rescue attempt. If you're picked up by helicopter, or something like that, then you're doing an awesome job and have made yourself very noticeable from a distance. But a rescue could just as easily be an old granny in a Micra who picked you up and took you back to town.
If you walk all the way home, or back to civilisation, then you've completed a self-rescue. If you've managed to get someone to help you out and are rescued as a result (maybe you can across a house and knocked their door in the hope they have a working phone, and they were cool with you using it) then you've done a good job. If you've made yourself noticeable and people have come over to tell you to stop waving your arms like a nutter, and blowing that whistle, then you've also done a great job of an assisted self-rescue.
We are preppers and survivalists, but if we can't survive everyday possible events, then we really shouldn't be labelling ourselves as such.
A car kit should include the above items.
Get noticed, get rescued.
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