The unskilled survival kit

Kgd's "dont panic instructions"
whistle plus instructions
flagging tape
a heavy duty hooded space blanket.
a watch cap
a tarp.

card with fire making instructions including picture of fire lay
a road flare
large candle
cotton balls greased with petroleum jelly
fatwood
a bic lighter

a bottle of water, full
a flashlight to last the night
three power bars

Are we set?
 
Maybe this will help. I recently saw a fellow on TV that was discussing, "Lost in The Woods". He recommended this, A heavy duty 50 gallon garbage bag. His instructions were to cut a corner of the bag, sit down if possible on something you brought with you like your pack or anything to insulate your butt from the ground, bring knees up to chest pull bag over body place face out of the cut.

He claimed that this way when you exhaled the moisture in your breath would not be in the bag and the crouched or sitting position would preserve the core temperature preventing or at least forestalling hypothermia, one of the top killers in incidents of outdoor deaths.


Never tried it myself but it if yo u have the patience to sit it should help.

The post about staying on one place is one of the first things that I've noticed is suggested by most survival "pros".
 
Yeah swoop, now you really have me thinking about maybe foregoing fire making all together. Hmmmmmmmm.......?
 
Should it maybe look like this instead?:


Kgd's "dont panic instructions"
whistle plus instructions
flagging tape
a heavy duty hooded space blanket.
a watch cap
a tarp.

a bic lighter
an esbit stove or a sterno

a bottle of water, full
a flashlight to last the night
three power bars


And we just dispense with the fire?
 
a good pot with handles for heating water

I'd replace the power bars with things like fave chocolate bars, hot chocolate mix, morale may be more important than calories, plus comfort things like that tend to calm people down pretty well.

wood matches are easier with cold hands and 100 don't take up much space

Wool gloves, most girls I know have poor circulation in their hands, and once they get cold they loose some dexterity, plus warm hands help a lot to keep you feeling warmer, also +1 for the chem heat packs.

The main thing as I see it is to get back out of panic mode and into thinking mode, most of the girls I know would be able to come up with many uses for things in the kit, females tend to think and adapt better than guys who seem to tend to deny that there is a problem until they are far from saving.
 
gadgetgeek, you really confident about someone with no experience or skills being able to pull off the fire making?
 
the fire is a huge morale booster all on its own, and a few instructions based on the local environment (ie.build the fire between two spruce trees that don't over lap, and pull down the little dry branches underneath) even in poor conditions, the fire isn't that hard with a big head start, like a small ziplock of pj cotton, not just 2-3 little balls, or a fireplace candle. I think its too important to give up on, but may need some small training before hand, even just the basics go a long way.
 
My gal wouldnt have a clue how to start a fire so Id think about making some sort of highly flammable paste in a small tin (or two?).
Something like one of those little Vaseline tins with a mix of vaselin, cotton, fatwood, magnesium scrapings, inner tube etc.
Im picturing her spreading a blob of this "fire paste" onto a bunch of sticks/grass/leaves & lighting (hopefully with a spark, but more likely a lighter?) something that would burn long & hot enough for her to add some wood & get a decent fire going.
 
Kgd's "dont panic instructions"
whistle plus instructions
a heavy duty hooded space blanket.
a watch cap and mittens.
a tarp.

card with fire making instructions including picture of fire lay
a road flare
large candle
fatwood
a bic lighter

or

chem heating pads
sterno/esbit stove
bic



a bottle of water, full
a flashlight to last the night
five chocolate bars
hot chocolate mix and tin cup for sterno.

So anybody want to weigh in? keep the firemaking or give up on it?
Anybody else want to venture your list, modifications, additions or deletions of what we have so far?
 
I realize that I have been doing it for a long time but fires aren't really that hard, especially with a road flare or 2 or 3 trioxane bars. Don't sell females short, they can think on their feet as well or better than men. Chris
 
I got a niece she is 6 year old. At school they asked for the parents to bring a survivl kit in case of an earth quake. Or they would sell one for $30. I made one for her my self. Something easy for a 6 year old. Something that i hope no one would steal from her. I got the smallest backpack (she is small lol). I put in there water to last two days. Which is realy not that much water. She might be thirsty but she would do fine. Three power bars that she likes the flavor of. My sis added some nuts in bag and M&Ms . There are two 8 hour white light sticks. A poncho and a myler blanket, fox 40 whistle, a large hand warmer http://www.heatfactory.com/english/ . A large bandana that i explained to her she can wrap the hand warmer in and used it under her shirt to help stay warm. It realy is amazing how warm you can stay with anything like this under your shirt. There is a warm hat and an extra thin jacket. The most improtant thing to do is explain how to use it and what to do. Just cause your GF dont know anything about the woods dont mean she wont come up with some ideas that you would never think about your self.. Most of us here have a mind set and think a sorten way. Kids and people that never thought about it before, would think what we might say out of the box. If you cant think of a way to make fire stick some of the heat pads in there. Oh yea i also had like ten ft of 550 cord in there too. Trust a kid to figure out what to do with it. Her pack is the size of a very large funny pack and its about half maybe a little more full.

Sasha
 
I'm pretty confident in the problem solving skill of most people, once they are calmed down, even if someone has never used a match before, a few basic instructions should be pretty easy. I've taught 8 year olds how to build, tend and put out fires, how hard could it be for an adult with clear instructions, such as

A nest of match stick sized sticks as big as both fists
a pile of pencil sized sticks the size of your head
no sticks larger than your thumb until the pencils are burning
Light the nest, and put the pencils on top, blow gently,
when the pencils are lit, add thumb sized sticks
when the thumb-sticks are burning, go find more wood.

A knife isn't even required if you are in an area with coniferous trees.

And even if they don't try for the fire, the few added instructions and equipment will be a confidence boost. win/win
 
Ok per runningboar and sasha's advice not to sell our survivor short lets expand the list and include fire making gear. Into the fanny pack, in layers of order to be used and with each item accompanied by a card with instructions we have:

basic initial instruction card
instruction card for signaling
whistle plus tape.

instruction card for preventing hypothermia
a heavy duty hooded space blanket.
a watch cap and mittens.
a tarp.

card with fire making instructions including picture of fire lay
a road flare
large candle
fatwood
a bic lighter
2 or 3 trioxane bars
chem heating pads
sterno/esbit stove

a bottle of water, full
a flashlight to last the night
five chocolate bars
hot chocolate mix and tin cup to go with the sterno.

we may be approaching the limits of what the fanny pack can carry at this point, but this list looks very good I think.
 
I think you have the kit pretty well nailed for use by an unskilled person. I would have never thought of it, heck most of my kit is useless without me, so maybe I need to go back to the basics, in case someone else has to use it. Good thinking, and a good idea, and who knows, where I live, the fire part comes easy, and when I think winter, I tend to think -35C. perhaps the fire component depends on location?
 
And we can use gadgetgeeks instructions for the fire making instructions, and we might have it I think.
 
Ok then unless there are any objections here is the official contents list of the "unskilled survival kit" to be carried in a fanny pack.

basic initial instruction card
instruction card for signaling
whistle plus tape.

instruction card for preventing hypothermia
a heavy duty hooded space blanket.
a watch cap and mittens.
a tarp.

card with fire making instructions including picture of fire lay and the following description:
"A nest of match stick sized sticks as big as both fists a pile of pencil sized sticks the size of your head
no sticks larger than your thumb until the pencils are burning
Light the nest, and put the pencils on top, blow gently,
when the pencils are lit, add thumb sized sticks
when the thumb-sticks are burning, go find more wood."
a road flare
large candle
fatwood
a bic lighter and butane torch
2 or 3 trioxane bars
chem heating pads
sterno/esbit stove

a bottle of water, full
a flashlight to last the night
five chocolate bars
hot chocolate mix and tin cup to go with the sterno.
 
A knife. No list of anything on these forums is complete without a knife of some sort.
 
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