How to Survive (Almost) Anything

bulgron

bulgron

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May 19, 2005
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One of my favorite survival topics is state of mind and mental models. Laurence Gonzales (Deep Survival) has written an excellent article on this subject for NationalGeographic.com. What he has to say makes good sense, regardless of whether you're planning a stroll in a park or heading out to work in the morning.

Here's my favorite point that he makes in the article:

Last December, three climbers were overtaken by a blizzard on Mount Hood and died as a result. The Oregon Legislature approved a bill to require climbers to carry emergency locator beacons so that rescuers could find them more easily. As Jim Whittaker, the first American to climb Mount Everest, argues in an op-ed piece in the New York Times, this is a misguided impulse that will discourage people from taking responsibility for themselves. ...

In May, five other climbers started up an intermediate route on Mount Hood. They were carrying a compass, an altimeter, a cell phone, a GPS receiver, maps, and locator beacons. By late morning they had strayed onto an advanced route and weren't sure how to get down. The group activated a locator beacon and called 911, which alerted Portland Mountain Rescue. Steve Rollins, who has been with PMR for more than ten years, urged the group to find its way down the mountain using maps and GPS. "These guys had all the tools they needed to get out of the situation," he recalls. "But beyond that there was just complete laziness." Rollins and his team started up the mountain as night fell. But by the time they arrived, the group was already nearing the Timberline Lodge. "Their attitude was kind of like: Well, it's your job to come get us," Rollins says. (Like everyone else in PMR, Rollins is an unpaid volunteer.)

Taking measures to increase safety suffers from the ratchet effect in the same way that technology does. It's a one-way process. Once you invent the car, you can't go back to the horse. Once you've established a safeguard, you can only increase it. The point is not that we should make the world less safe. It is that we should be aware of these unintended side effects. In addition, we should be aware that the safety we're being offered is often an illusion. Systems become more complex but not necessarily safer. When radar was introduced into commercial shipping, it was supposed to reduce accidents. Instead, accidents increased, because the captains drove their boats faster. .... Rollins doesn't believe requiring locator beacons will make anyone safer. "It's going to increase the number of rescues and put more search-and-rescue volunteers at risk," he says.
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The best advice he has to offer is, IMO, this. Learn to slow down, stop if you must, and pay attention to your surroundings:

When I was in survival school, I was taught the acronym STOP for Stop, Think, Observe, Plan. That's what smart people do when trouble comes. If you don't do that, your behavior will be whatever you've practiced. Most of us are practicing all the time without even recognizing it. We may be rehearsing our own death.

Dave Grossman describes in his book On Combat how one police officer had trained himself to snatch a pistol from an assailant's hand. During practice, he'd grab the gun, then give it back and try it again. One day, facing a real assailant, he snatched the gun out of a criminal's hand, taking him completely by surprise. Then he handed it back. ....

One of the most useful things I learned in survival school was not part of the lesson plan at all. It came from watching my instructor. I was eager to blaze through the woods and prove I could find my way with map and compass. My instructor, however, seemed to be stuck in slow motion. He ambled along, looking at flowers, and was in no hurry to complete our plan. After some days of this, I realized what he was doing: He was slowing down and paying attention. He was allowing himself to have second thoughts, because first thoughts are no thoughts at all. They're automated actions. This practice of his—which I had also observed in fighter pilots—makes all the difference in the world when confronting the models we create that lead to automated (unthinking) action.

...

At every step, we should strive to slow down and examine what we are really doing. And to become believers: Yes, I tell myself. It really can happen to me. It's out there waiting for me now. It will come unannounced. Out of a fog. And chances are good that I won't even know what it looks like when it comes. Dozens of people have fallen to their deaths off the rim of the Grand Canyon—nearly 20 percent of them while taking or posing for a photo. Their model of what they're actually doing could not be further from reality.
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All in all, I think it's an excellent article that ought to explain a lot to anyone who's interested in the topic of survival. Give it a read, I'm sure you won't be disappointed.
 
I just saw this article a little while ago and put it up on my site when looking through their survival articles. There is some excellent stuff there. I need to go see if I can find the full issue on a newsstand somewhere.
 
Thanks for the heads up. Its interesting and instructive.
 
The article is pure BS.

PLB's have been used for decades on boats and the only thing thats increased is the survival of people who needed to use them.

He smells of an elitest piss on territory type of guy. The exact kind of guy who'd get you killed as he wouldnt stop and take stock in that his team is screwed.

The same thing was said with GPS and cell phones, flares etc.... The volume of common lost hikers has stayed the same or gone down in the SAR world because of GPS.

My 2 cents.

Skam
 
While I would not state it as strongly as skammer, I tend towards his perspective. No amount of mindset will save you from an open femur fracture while on a solo hike. On the other hand, a cell phone or PLB might. In fact, if am ever to incurr a disabling injury while in the wilderness, I will (if lucid) first pull out the cell phone and dial 911, and if I do not have signal, I will then activate my PLB.

I permanently cancelled my subscription to Backpacker Magazine about a decade ago for an article that stated outright that people who carry and use technologically advanced equipment are not true survivors.

Seems like technology and common sense need to be merged into some sort of gestalt to be realistic and helpful.
 
asfried2 said:
While I would not state it as strongly as skammer, .
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Never been accused of mixing words, life's less complicated that way;).

On rereading the article only half is BS, he makes some decent wishy washy points but not about electronics or his survival theories.

Again my 3 cents.

Skam
 
The article mentions RADAR...not PLB's....and I know slow people, and I wouldn't follow them anywhere:D
 
I try...this is my favorite place on the internet to come...I have said it before, we should all learn and have FUN here...sometimes my wiseass comes out, and I am sorry. And if you laugh at my BS, then I have done something today. G
 
Taking measures to increase safety suffers from the ratchet effect in the same way that technology does. It's a one-way process. Once you invent the car, you can't go back to the horse. Once you've established a safeguard, you can only increase it. The point is not that we should make the world less safe. It is that we should be aware of these unintended side effects. In addition, we should be aware that the safety we're being offered is often an illusion.
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and

Rollins doesn't believe requiring locator beacons will make anyone safer. "It's going to increase the number of rescues and put more search-and-rescue volunteers at risk," he says.
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The author is not saying that technology and PLBs, in particular, are bad. Rollins, not the author, said that. The author is just saying that you need critical thinking in addition to technology, because technology will not always be able to save you. What happens when technology fails? Or what happens when technology is overwhelmed from people who are not truly in need?

In the second Mount Hood incident, that group put SAR personnel at risk when they were not in serious danger and had several tools available to aid their path finding. Crying wolf only serves to diminish emergency personnel's availability and response time to people who are truly in need.
 
I appreciate the authors point that anyone who goes afield has to know the basics, and that idiots with high speed technology are just high speed iddiots.

I also think the paperwork for PLBs should have the following question
" Do you think that use of this device absolves you from personal responsibility for you own saftey in the field"

If they answer yes you deactivate the PLB and let Darwin do his thing.

Im sure that you will have false alarms and lazy people who use these Items inappropriately, but the same thing can be said of the 911 system or Fire Pull Stations. anyone in emergency service will tell you that they would rather respond to ten false alarms than have one person die because they diddn't or couldnt call for help.
 
One last thought on the Oregon bill. I'm pretty sure they are trying to protect SAR personnel from idiots. By this I mean that if the SAR folks will have to go look for people like the Mt. Hood climbers on a regular basis, then the SAR folks should be protected by requiring the climbers to at least carry some sort of locating device. That way you don't have dedicated public servants exposed to a week of truly dangerous conditions when it might only have been a few hours instead. I'm not sure that a law is the right approach, but I think (hope) I understand the motivation.
 
It seems to me that the spirit of the article is that people rush off to do things without training under a false technological safety net.

By and large we are conditioned in society to be sheep and our entertainment industry actively promotes the 'simulation' model that compromises real experience for safety. The safest thing in the world to get your adrenaline pumping is to watch a movie. Then again, if you want that sense of vertigo, then you might go to the amusement park and try the roller coaster. There will be a sign on the park entrance that guarentee's your safety. Video games are now surpassing the movie industry in sales because people want more of the interactive experience. These activities are really attractive because you don't have to spend time training. Anybody can be strapped into a rollercoaster regardless of their IQ, training, physique (the exception being your head has to exceed the height indicated by the Mickey Mouse statue in front of the ride). The public really buys into this because it hits us wherever you go.

Now you start publicizing all these safety implements -GPS with track back feature, satellite phone ect. People start to view real wilderness experiences in the same way they view the amusement park. If I have this widget and that widget, my safety is guarenteed. I don't need training because I am really entering a simulation of how it was in the real world.

The point isn't that GPS and satellite phones are bad - they really do help experienced/trained people in situations that inevitably can come about. However, when you have masses of untrained people who take more by number of users or unnecessary risks by lack of training then the incidence level increases.

BTW - the radar analogy is something I totally agree with even with professionals. I do drive faster in waters when I have my GPS/chart map and sonar hooked and the system is subject to failure. Likewise, if you want to slow down traffic on a highway - take out that little fluorscent dashed diving line in the middle.
 
I've seen first hand how the knowledge that help is close at hand leads people to do things they really shouldn't.

Myself and a few friends had driven 300 miles to climb Ben Nevis. Not very big or exciting really, but it was something to do. It can get *very* exciting though if the weather goes bad.

It did.

We looked at the weather in the morning, and decided no way were we going up, even though we were all reasonably experienced outdoors-types who knew no fear. We weren't stupid.

No one else in the campsite was going up either.

Later that day, we saw flares in the clouds, soon followed by a rescue helicopter. We found out later that a group of disabled hikers had tried to get up the Ben, got stuck, and called 999. Idiots!

They were all pulled off well below the summit.

Want to know the *really* stupid thing about this story? Read on...

The next day the weather was even worse; low cloud, freezing, high winds and driving rain - really nasty. Needless to say, we stayed in camp and played cards etc.

Have you guessed yet???

The same group of disabled hikers, having not got to the summit the day before, tried again. They had to be rescued at about the same place by the same helicopter. I was amazed the heli even took off in that weather.

Would these idiots have gone up in such weather, if they hadn't been sure of rescue? I very much doubt it. And going up a second time, well personally I would have refused to rescue them. But I suppose that's why I'm not on a rescue team.

I can only imagine the arrogance of those idiots with regards to expecting others to pull them out of the sticky. Believing that they had the right to do it twice!!!

When I used to go wilderness hiking alone, I knew that if I got into trouble, I was most likely not going to get any help. I was on my own with just myself to rely on; in fact that was partly the point of what I did. It helped make me think about the risks I took; and I still took some big ones. But the knowledge of full self-relience probably kept me alive by keeping me from going too far past the limit of what I could handle.

I have the same attitude even in more crowded places because, well, that's me. I don't want to have to rely on being rescued and thereby putting other people at risk.

I've met many people though who don't have this attitude. It's why in Britain we have this thing of "the police are there to protect us, we don't need the right to do it ourselves". You can imagine what I think of this.

</rant>
 
Scottman said:
Anybody like his DEEP SURVIVAL book?
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It's got several good and interesting ideas in it. I'd recommend it. It's certainly an interesting and exciting read. Not necessarily a guy I'd want to go on a trip with, or study survival techniques from; his valuable stuff has more to do with the psychology of panic, and interestingly-thought-about anecdotes about how some people get themselves killed. Get it used via Amazon, etc.--lots of copies out there.
 
It is like on earlier air force planes when they didn't put in a parachute because it said "If the plane is getting shot, just jump out!"
 
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