What if survival scenario -- injury of one hand.

1

1whitefoot

Joined
Sep 24, 2005
Messages
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That thread on weak-hand firearm use got me to thinking.

What if you lost the use of one hand while you were out in the bush?
How well could you survive until you got back to civilization?


Here is the scenario,

Your out in the wilderness,
ether hiking or hunting or falling out of a plane
or your boat overturns and floats off and sinks,
how ever you got there, there you are.

No expectation of rescue so your gonna have to walk out and it's gonna take a week.
So, your gonna be walking during the day and then making camp before darkness falls.
Seven days of this before you get somewhere with people and help.


Here's the what if,
What if you lose the use of your favorite hand, right or left, which ever way your inclined.
Say a rock falls on it and smashes your fingers/hand, broken bones and such.
It's no longer usable, can't even touch the fingers to anything.
So, you wrap it up in a shirt and splints to immobilize it.
Lets disregard infection and pain, you just can't use the hand at all.
That leaves you the use of the forearm, elbow, upper arm, and armpit on that side.

You have what ever you would normally carry in the woods, psk, backpack, whatever,
except no where near enough food to make it through so your gonna have to forage some.

What would you want to have with you?

How would you do things?


Some thoughts,

How much dexterity do you have in your weak hand?

What fire making method would work with one hand.

Could you tie a Firesteel to a stick and clamp the stick in your armpit then strike the Firesteel with your good hand?

What kind of firearm would you want to have with you , what kind would be of use with one hand?
Could you use it to fill the meatpot?

Traps, which ones could you make with one hand.

Shelter building...

Knives, what kinds would be good for one handed use and how would you use them one handed to chop, cut, make...etc...?

I'm not sure what I would do, I need to think about this some more.
But it seems that if I could learn to do stuff one handed, then two handed would be a breeze...:D

Any ideas?
 
In a recent survival gathering, we tried to get fire with a spark, one handed in the rain. I was trying to use a flint stick holding it in my teeth without much luck.

In the end, I used the matches that I have in a pill bottle in all my jackets.

A good way to use the flint stick was shown, by laying down a coated cotton ball on some tinder on a flat peice of bark. The far end of the flint stick was jammed against a rock while your shoe stood on the nearer end. It was easy then , to drag the scraper accross and get a spark.

Clint Hollingsworth
The Wandering Ones webcomic
http://www.wanderingones.com
 
Gene Ward shows a method of firestarting, one hand only.

He takes his Wave and saws a kerf/slot into a log. He put the scraper of his firestarter in it, then shaves some pitchwood off the handle of the ferrocium rod until he has a good pile. Then he slowly moves the rod across the scraper, directing the sparks into the pile. Of course, you'd need the rest of the fire prep right there, but I thought that was a pretty neat way to do it. Bought one of his firestarters, too !

.
 
One thing that was left out of the original post and something that can't be ignored is going into shock after the injury. That's a whole nuther ball game.

For fire, Spark-lite makes a perfectly good one hand firestarting kit with waterproof tinder included. It's never let me down in the 5-6 years that I've been using one. The key to getting the fire going is proper setup and one handed, in pain and being a bit shocky, whittling feather sticks probably won't be an option, so having the proper materials, as well as a good tinder is going to be very important. What I've done is make up small fire bundles from dried moss, fatwood, birch bark, pine needles and grass. I keep 4 altoids tins in my main kit that are a combination of those materials bundled together with 2 ranger bands holding each tin closed. I also carry a bic lighter, so one way or another, I'll have a fire going.

Lots of one handed folding knives out there. Mine is the Victorinox German Army utility knife, based on the OH trekker. Yep, I practice off handed with it. Fixed blades might actually be a better choice, because of the larger handle, but I'm thinkiing that with the less than optimum physical condition and blurred mentality after the accident, that at least at first, finer dexterity might not be possible. So bladework may not be possible. At least from a safety standpoint.

The one and only weapon I carry in the bush is my .45acp. I've shot it left handed quite a bit, but I'm not near as good with it, as I am with my strong hand. Still, I can hit a cottontail at 15 or so paces, more times than not. Not a sure meal, but I will fill the pot eventually. Wanting to get a .22/.22wmr single six Ruger for survival needs. Can carry more ammo, less recoil and just plain easier to shoot when injured.

Shelter might be a problem and the side effects of the injury, along with the elements could really take their toll on the survivors chances. I think that I would be more inclined to try and put up a shelter and stay hold up for a few days, just trying to get my head together, but that's all determined by how my body responds to everything I guess. The problem comes with the inability to tie knots. Not impossible, but certainly a different skill set than most people practice.

Traps? I'm not skilled enough with making traps to say that I could. That's why I carry ready make snares.

Now where'd I put that danged satelite phone. :D
 
firestorm.jpg


Only one hand needed. :D
 
I'd be screwed!

Of course that's because I only have 15% or so use of my left arm/hand. :)

I get along just fine in the woods 1 handed. Of course that is because I have had a few years experience and learned what works for me.
 
Some good ideas coming out...:thumbup:

I deliberatly left out the whole medical aspect of the injury.
Your right in what you say, I was just thinking about the doing of stuff one handed.
 
Halfneck said:
I'd be screwed!

Of course that's because I only have 15% or so use of my left arm/hand. :)

I get along just fine in the woods 1 handed. Of course that is because I have had a few years experience and learned what works for me.
Click to expand...


Your the man to tell how to do it then...:D
 
This is one of the more thought provoking threads to come along in a while. After reading through the posts, I tried to tie knots with just my left hand (I'm right handed) and I could do it, but it really makes you think about how a knot is tied because you don't have that physical memory thing working for you. I think this weekend, I'm going to try to do the things I normally would do with two hands, with only my left. I'm talking about woodsy things, of course. It's going to be interesting.

Doc
 
yeah interesting, lot of stuff to think about in this thread

on the firesteel thing, i think i'd tie it to a stick and clamp that stick between my two feet, then strike it with my left hand

but i donno if that might work
 
Two thoughts to add: I used to carry matches and a firesteel, then last winter I had a fall scrambling over some boulders and fractured my right arm in multiple places. I was relatively close to civilization so it wasn't a big deal to get to medical care, But it did get me to reconsider somethings. One of which is that I now always have a cigarette lighter along too -- easiest one handed firestarting there is.

Also, [and I admit I'm far more guility of this than most, since I do a lot of solo hiking/camping] this scenario is a great argument for having a partner or companions in the woods. Just because you've only got one arm doesn't mean they do. I grant though there are situations where this could be out of one's control.
 
DOC-CANADA said:
This is one of the more thought provoking threads to come along in a while. After reading through the posts, I tried to tie knots with just my left hand (I'm right handed) and I could do it, but it really makes you think about how a knot is tied because you don't have that physical memory thing working for you. I think this weekend, I'm going to try to do the things I normally would do with two hands, with only my left. I'm talking about woodsy things, of course. It's going to be interesting.

Doc
Click to expand...

the firearm thread was a spin off of my thread about doing just this. I've been trying to use my left for a while. Even switch all my knife clips to the other side.
 
JackBauer24 said:
the firearm thread was a spin off of my thread about doing just this. I've been trying to use my left for a while. Even switch all my knife clips to the other side.
Click to expand...

Jack, I missed your whole thread...:(

I really need to pay more attention to what's going on...:o
 
Spark-lite, fixed blades, lighters, I'd be OK so long as I didn't have to tie a... Oh, wait, zip ties and wire in my kit. :) A broken finger or two can largely immobilize a hand, and I've had it happen a few times, so I've practiced. Being misplaced is an inconvenience; being misplaced with a messed up hand is a survival siltation.
 
I think the ultimate one handed survival tale is the one about the fellow who was rock climbing alone several years ago when he got his arm caught and couldn't get free for several days. Finally he had to cut his arm off in order to save himself (with a dull knife no less!), tie a bandage on the stump, and then hike out several miles until he ran into some other hikers who helped get him to medical help. I'd say that's one more good reason to carry a SAK with a saw blade (and a lanyard) on it!
 
Slipped in my Survivorman DVD and watched the episode, Plane crash in Canada.
The one where he decides to simulate a broken arm.
He managed to rip on the plane and even set some wire snares.
(He could still use his fingers on his broken arm so I imagine that helped in making the snares)
Where he really had a problem was using his axe to chop that fish hole.
He kept saying that he had to be careful not to blow out the muscles in his good arm.

So I tried some one armed axe work today and it's pretty hard to control an axe with just one arm.
No way could I do any quality wood chopping and choking up on the handle really did not help much.
Difficult and dangerous to your feet...:eek:

So, for me the axe is out for a one handed tool.

I then tried some hatchets and had a lot better luck so a hatchet will do.

Then I went to the Scrapyard Dogfather and had no trouble there...:thumbup:
 
Last year, I had one hand get pulled into a big chop saw at work, making an immediate spectacular mess of one finger, and a smaller mess of two other fingers. If you imagine having to peel a banana using nothing but a hammer, only blood was gushing out of it, you have a very good mental picture of how things looked.

I shut off the saw (which incidentally had a broken safety on it, and if I were the litigious type that little company would be right out of business now!) and had a quick look at the hand. I took walked over to the foreman, picked up a toque, and made a semi-fist around it, and hopped in the foreman's truck to go to the hospital.

"Look," I said, "I'll probably go into shock in a minute. Don't freak out, just keep driving and I'm going to put my knees up as high as I can." I did start to go into shock shortly afterwards, but not so much that I couldn't walk from the truck to the triage. In fact I felt better when walking. When I got the the triage, I had to shake my head a few times to stay coherent.

"I'm warning you," I said to the triage nurse, "I have kind of a high vagal tone. It's not easy to stay here talking to you. I need to get my knees up, please."

He said, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but you're losing that finger. Maybe the next one, but we won't know until we get x-rays."

Anyway they had a doctor come see me a few hours later. Unfortunately for me, although I was the first priority to deal with when I arrived, about thirty seconds later, a major car crash victim arrived. "Sorry," said the nurse. "We'll get you in as soon as we can."

"It's just fingers," I said. "I can always leard to play slide guitar."

So around this time a doctor came to see me.

"Hey," I said, "Do you think I could maybe get some painkillers?"

"Absolutely," she said. "I've looked at your x-rays and you can keep your middle finger, but your index finger is probably not repairable."

Just then a guy walked over wearing the doctor clothes, plus a coat. "No," he said. "I can save that hand." To me he said, "I'm a specialist hand surgeon. I can put that back together."

My index finger alone took 61 stitches and two hours to reassemble. It's slightly ugly today, but although I did eventually learn to play slide guitar, I can still play regular guitar too.


Some impressive gory pics if you want them, too!


Anyway that's just the entertaining background story. Here are the actual points I want to make:

1. Although it's not pleasant, you can definitely sustain severe damage to one hand and keep on functioning. I made about twenty jokes between the chop and the fix, and could walk pretty well at all times, except when I had to go to the x-ray department and look closely at my hand and open my fist. The fist had been keeping the blood in a bit and when I opened it, blood went everywhere and there were bits of meat all over the place, and I felt a little ill. Not so ill as to stop hitting on the hot x-ray tech, though.

2. Losing use of that hand for two weeks was a pain, but after a couple of days I found I'd adapted pretty well. Tying my shoes was a pain in the ass.

3. Most of what I did two-handed, I started doing one-handed and one-footed. Often I could step on one edge of something to pin it down, and work on it with my other hand. That would be my approach to ferrocium rods - step on one piece, drag the other with your hand. I think most of the time you could find a rock or other elevated surface to put the thing on to make it easier.

4. I think the whole thing would be pretty frustrating but like most survival situations, the number one most important thing you would need is the absolute will to keep on going. I think everything would take five times as long and you would take more tries to do anything. But unless you were in immediate danger of freezing to death, and absolutely needed a fire within a minute, I think you would find most tasks could be accomplished satisfactorily.

5. Pain sucks. Thankfully you would be very distracted by your immediate needs, which is a pretty effective painkiller itself.

6. Thank god for hand specialists who come to hospitals to do specialist surgery, and wander through the ER wards on the way home, noticing what injuries people have, and stay on their own dime to fix them.
 
ironraven said:
Spark-lite, fixed blades, lighters, I'd be OK so long as I didn't have to tie a... Oh, wait, zip ties and wire in my kit. :) A broken finger or two can largely immobilize a hand, and I've had it happen a few times, so I've practiced. Being misplaced is an inconvenience; being misplaced with a messed up hand is a survival siltation.
Click to expand...

Hey, zip ties, what a concept. :D
 
And a personal visit if he is around!

I am working on a cd of guitar music now, he gets copy number one. He told me I would probably get a little more than 50% range of motion. I would guess it's turned out to be about 95-98% and normal strength. It looks a little funny but it works fine, which is all I care about.
 
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