I am thirsty, what next?

B

bigvon

Joined
Jan 3, 2001
Messages
23
I am out hunting and become "disoriented"...(never lost, ha ha). As the evening of the next day is approaching I am THIRSTY. What do you do?
Drink raw water out of any source you find?
Attempt to boil water in a field expedient bowl?
Create a make shift filter out of a pants leg?
The reason I ask is that I am getting ready to attend an outdoor survival class where for 10 days we are only allowed a knife and the clothes on our back. I do not mind being hungry but dehydrated is another matter. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated...
Bill
 
where I live if you get thristy you can always look for coconuts, it should hold you over for a little while.
smile.gif
sorry couldn't really help
 
I would definitely try to find something to boil the water in (like an old beer or soda can). After all, you don't want an intestinal parasite or a urinary tract infection, or dysentery just from training.

Remember that the pants-leg filter will not purify the water. It may look clean after passing through the filter but it will still have plenty of micro-organisms swimming around.

I would have to be extemely desperate to drink unpurified water.

Good Luck!


[This message has been edited by allenC (edited 04-27-2001).]
 
I'm going to make every attempt to first strain and then purify any water intended for consumption before I resort to drinking raw water, no matter where I am on this earth. There's too many potential long term threats to health in the water to advise drinking raw supplies. After a somewhat related thread in this forum a while ago, I went to my favorite northwoods tromping grounds to see what I could come up with if I was caught there for some reason without any supplies. Within a 1/2 hour of searching the area, I found several old glass soda bottles, a couple of tin cans, and several pieces of wood which would have all made makeshift boiling containers. I've since made it a habit to look everywhere I go for items such as those to increase my survivability. Best advise here is to think creatively and make decisions based on safety.

------------------
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, It's the sudden stop at the end.
 
If worst comes to worst and you just can't find squat to boil the water in, you can boil it in a leaf. You'll obviously need quite a large leaf, so in some forests this won't work very well. You fold the leaf up to form a little cup. Fasten the edges somehow to get it to hold it's shape - -sewing works if you're skilled enough with the knife to make a needle. Fill it with water and hold it over a fire. The edges of the leaf will burn down to the water's level, but the water will keep the rest from burning. Needless to say this is a very last resort as it's a royal pain to make a leaf cup, and you don't get tons of water at a time for the effort.

 
Why not just sip the water straight out of that slow moving, tropical stream using a poison hemlock stem for a straw?

No, really, you need to assess the dangers in the water. All water should be treated, but different pollutants take different treatments. Do a search on Google for water filters. You'll get more info that you could ever use on water purification processes.

While biological pollutants can be killed by heat, chemical pollutants need to be filtered. By filtering, we're talking down to one micron filters. Charcoal will also draw out a lot of chemical pollutants.

For your trip, I would suggest trying the three-tier filter. Suspend three pieces of cloth above each other. Place grass in the top level, sand in the second, and charcoal in the third. Pour your water over the grass. This will filter out the big stuff. The water will pour through into the second layer, where the sand filters out the smaller stuff. It then pours onto the charcoal, which acts as the chemical filter. Take the resulting water and boil it to get rid of the bio-nasties.

Good luck! I hope you post a follow-up after your trip. Experience is the greatest educator.

------------------
Camine con tranquilidad, sirva con humildad, y viva en paz.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top