Real life survival situations.

A

axlplayer14

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Dec 20, 2015
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Just wondering, how many of you beckerheads have been in a real survival situation? I always wonder this when I'm watching videos on survival gear and reading forums. What are your stories?
 
For starters... trips to survival school. And, there's always primitive camping trips. Had a few near emergencies, but made it out every time. Trail injuries, and the like.
 
Wilderness survival stories - none.

Nature survival stories - just surviving the house flooding with 11 feet of water down stairs and searching tornado damaged structures for victims.

As a volunteer fireman/EMT - working on extricating/bandaging/transporting vehicle crash and trauma victims, riding around in a little flat bottomed boat looking for people to rescue from flooded houses an businesses. The closest I've come to a personal survival situation was searching a smoke filled, burning house for the woman's "baby", which we later found out to be a dog that had already fled out the dog door. THAT one was a little dicey.
 
I forget the name (sorry), but one of our own was fishing on a jetty and he slipped down between some rocks and got his foot tangled in some old fishing line, rope and other debris as the tide was coming in and waves were kicking up.
He managed to free himself with the use of his BK16, iirc.
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Glad you both made it out of there ok, Airyca.
 
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Glad you made it out safely airyca.

I personally have not been in any situations that I would necessarily deem "survival", but I have had a few lost in the woods situations where I wasn't sure if I would make it out that day. A lot of those were in my high school days where my friends and I would just go into the woods and just never stop walking. One day we walked around for 18 miles and finally made it out...at 2am. No one's parents were too happy about that one.
 
It's hard to answer this question because it's a matter of perspective.

For example: I've been in a state of bad ketosis for about 6 weeks, starved of protein and spending my days hunting and fishing, unsuccessfully, in an unfamiliar area and rationing food out to a point where I was probably consuming about 500 calories a day the whole time. I smelled like cat urine after about two weeks due my body rapidly eating its own muscle but I'd done that before, so big deal. My wife thought it was a bit alarming but took it like a champ like always. A survival situation to me though? No. Ranger School was much worse. Besides, it leaned me out after I'd thrown caution to the wind during that years Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. :foot:

I will say that I have been in numerous situation where I have thought to myself, "Awww crap." I never felt near death though. I probably wouldn't feel near death though until the moment of death. Haha!

Survivormind
 
I have been lucky enough to avoid "emergency" survival situations, but, like many here I surmise, I have put myself to the test. Putting myself in situations in which I test my skills is common though.
 
Any time that I survive my wife's garlic farts is indeed a day of rejoicing for me. :thumbup: I can tell stories about falling off motorcycles at speed yada, yada, and hitch hiking across Canada twice decades ago. Ya, plenty of stories. But the only outdoor story that scared the crud out of me was almost getting lost in the remote Boreal Forest. Scared me pretty good a few times that day I'll tell ya. After that I decided to learn a few survival skills. I did have the presence of mind though to bring a few basics, tin sardines, button compass, folder, water, lighter. Things that fit a pocket. Only thing to say about this is, don't just bring gear and pull it out when buggered, practice with it first in increasingly challenging conditions. Then when the chips really are down, you KNOW that you can perform. What I used to think was a snap to do like make a fire with a fero rod and natural indigenous materials was a totally different ball game when the grass was frozen, after a 2 day rain, -20 cold hands, whatever. Just practice in the hard conditions, and the performance confidence goes through the roof.
 
Interesting topic- I was fly fishing with a good friend in the mountains of NC in December last year. It was about 50 degrees outside and my buddy slipped and got completely soaked in the river, water temp was about 42*.
I immediately got a fire going, got some hot tea in him and we dried out his clothes before heading home. He was shivering pretty bad while I was making fire but I don't know if it was really a survival situation. My friend used to pick on me because I always take a good blade and a fire kit in an altoids can w me whenever we went fishing, after that event, he has changed his tune!
 
ignatius said:
Interesting topic- I was fly fishing with a good friend in the mountains of NC in December last year. It was about 50 degrees outside and my buddy slipped and got completely soaked in the river, water temp was about 42*.
I immediately got a fire going, got some hot tea in him and we dried out his clothes before heading home. He was shivering pretty bad while I was making fire but I don't know if it was really a survival situation. My friend used to pick on me because I always take a good blade and a fire kit in an altoids can w me whenever we went fishing, after that event, he has changed his tune!
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Haha! He isn't laughing about it anymore! I had a friend up in the PNW that liked to call me Rambo every once in a while for carrying the BK5 on my hip every day. It didn't take long before he found himself in a position where he had to ask me to use it. I laughed a bit, watching him use the BK5 since he never carried a knife and it was unfamiliar to him. I also threw out a Rambo comment at him while he was having a hard time. He never called me Rambo again.

Survivormind
 
I had one in the Tea tons snow camping. I did not check my equipment. The only reason it turned dangerous is my brain stopped functioning properly after I got way too cold at night.

I'll see if I can find the story. I've posted it before.
 
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