What is a Survival Situation?

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The Government

What do you consider to be the qualifying circumstances for a survival situation -that separates survival from camping?

And...
By your own definition of survival, have you ever purposefully put yourself into a survival situation?

For the purpose of this thread -lets stick to wilderness survival (rather than urban)

Thanks in advance for your responses.:)
 
I guess I am a very careful, and lucky guy when camping/hiking/hunting. I have never come even close to being in a 'survival' situation.
To me, thats a time when you are injured, lost or in some sort of situation where there is no one to help, and conditions might be dangerous.
If I were though, I'd be ready for most anything. :cool:
 
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Everyday is survival (in my mindset/philosophy). Share a campfire with me and I will tell you more.

In most cases though, a survival situation is when an emergency situation is resolved quickly.
 
A survival situation is one where you need to survive. No, I'm not trying to be funny here. Normal situations — camping trips, road trips, etc. — are those times when everything goes along as expected, or at least as hoped for. To me, a survival situation is one where normalcy is out the window: whatever you had planned is no longer viable, and you have to save yourself through your own efforts: you have to live long enough to get yourself out of your current situation, or live long enough for help to arrive.

You could be out for a long hike alone, fall down the side of a mountain and break your leg. If you haven't told anyone where you were going, and nobody else is around, then, my friend, you're in a survival situation.

In answer to the second part of your question, yes: I have put myself into survival situations (simulated, more or less). When I was younger, I used to do that kind of thing fairly often. Now, in my mid sixties, I just hope I'm never actually in that situation for real, and I no longer do the same things for amusement as I used to. I know how to handle that kind of situation, but hope I never have to.
 
I agree with Kevin, life is a survival situation. Sometimes it seems more urgent, sometimes we are not aware.

dawsonbob said:
I know how to handle that kind of situation, but hope I never have to.
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I agree here also. I feel more ready to handle an emergency survival situation, but really don't want to get into one.
 
Rotte said:
I agree with Kevin, life is a survival situation. Sometimes it seems more urgent, sometimes we are not aware.

I agree here also. I feel more ready to handle an emergency survival situation, but really don't want to get into one.
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Hallelujah, brother, hallelujah.
 
Needed is the knowlegde and the how to of actually surviving in wilderness senarios Practise is the key . Although one doesnt need to get out and make a serious impact that a couple nights out will make on the environment
Heres one that happened to me some 30+years ago.I was learning to trap and spending my 1st solo trip by myownself.Earlier in the day being inexperienced I fell through the ice checking beaver traps.Later in the day the skidoo broke down leaving me to spend over 56 hours out.I spent 2 cold but not uncomfortable nights out on my own hook snowshoeing back to the cabin building a fire and browse beds for sleeping and trying to keep alive in the minus 20 weather.Same days I was "lost"2 inexperienced skiers skied out of bounds and froze to death on a hill not far from where I was.A llittle knowledge and some practice of that knowledge will keep you alive.I was inadequately unprepered but was lucky enough to have an axe ,a little knowledge and a little knowhow that time.Since that time I have spent a few more nights blundering along because of some boneheaded self induced antics of my own doing.
Dan'l
 
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Rotte said:
I agree with Kevin, life is a survival situation. Sometimes it seems more urgent, sometimes we are not aware.



I agree here also. I feel more ready to handle an emergency survival situation, but really don't want to get into one.
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To extend the philosophy, life is a survival situation in which we all fail :p
 
A survival situation is evidence of inadequate planning, and it'll kill ya sometimes. Makes a fella skeptical, being in a few survival situations. Sure as heck wouldn't choose 'em for enjoyment..but compared to dyin' immediately they ain't so bad.
 
To speak to the heart of the question as I think it was posed and without rhetoric: A survival situation is one where you are NOT prepared to be stranded, wounded, or otherwise without a modern "safety rope" at hand, and are at least semi-isolated, and your life is in jeopardy.
 
I think of a survival situation as any incident that has the potential to put ones life in danger!

As an example, I was out hunting one winter only about 1/4 mile away from my vehicle on the family farm. The nearest house was about 1.5 miles away. I broke through snow and ice into a shallow creek bed. Luckily, I only got wet about halfway up to my knees. It was a COLD walk back to my truck.

Now, had I broken an ankle, that would have become a SURVIVAL SITUATION. I was at the bottom of a rough creek bed at the bottom of a deep coulee!! A broken ankle would have meant no easy way back up for me. I would have been in danger of going hypothermic and freezing to death. That would have meant I would have had to think about getting warm, dry and surviving until help arrived or I found a way to get myself out to the truck. At the time, I was young and dumb and didn't regularly let people know where I was going or when I'd be back...I was only a few miles from the farm! LOL!
 
Thanks for posting everyone! And for the stories!


Just to clarify, I am interested in how you define survival as compared to camping; survival being a more extreme scenario than camping -not just daily life survival- but wilderness survival. Also, I was thinking along the lines of planned scenarios -not accidents or unpreparedness, although those are certainly survival scenarios.

When does a planned wilderness scenario become a survival scenario rather than a camping scenario -if ever?

I was thinking about the different levels of camping that there are and trying to define where we draw the line between camping and survival. Here is a handful of different scenarios.

RV camp,
Car camp,
day hike,

hike in overnight and camp at a designated site,
hike in and camp for week(s) at said sight,

do the same, but create your own bivwak site,
take some pioneering tools and build a log cabin for an extended stay,
get extreme and bivwak with only a tarp, wool blanket, and so on.

do the one-knife-Rambo thing -supposing that you have competent WSS.
go into the woods half naked for weeks with no tools -(option reserved for the mad men) -using only natural materials.


Could the amount of time you spend turn a camping trip into a survival trip? (even if it is on purpose?). Maybe you purposely extend your trip because there are lots of fish to catch, yet you have run out of your packed food.

Do the amount of tools you have turn a camping experience into a survival experience (supposing it is planned and no drastic accidents happen to you)? Maybe you want to be "one knife, thats it" Rambo, and you give it a shot. Or you just take the minimum -tarp, knives, blanket, et cetera. Enough so that you could live for a long time.

Thanks again for the posts everyone.
 
Very interesting thread. I have enjoyed reading what you all had to say. I do think what Dawsonbob said really sums it up. Just like he said you go for a hike and get hurt. that now becomes a survival situation, Well to my way of thinking lol.

For my self I have never been lost and had to spend the night out or fallen and broken a leg and had to crawl out. I have fallen through some ice and had to walk home with very cold waist and legs lol. Thank Goodness it was not a very far walk. but if I had had to walk long ways or had to spend the night ( make shelter and fire) out then it sure could have been become a survival situation. Again that is my thinking on it lol.

Take care all,

Bryan
 
When does a survival situation begin?
Sometimes it is easy to decide when a threat situation starts, for example,
if the right front tire of your car explodes and you go off the road; the car over
turns and traps you. Easy to decide.

If there are several factors in a scenario (weather, small accident, misjudgement, etc),
it is less clear when the situation begins. It can be very subjective, even in hindsight,
and it can really depend on your frame of reference, weight given to threats, etc.

When did WWI or WWII start? The more history you know, the less clear it is.

I guess there are 2 purposes for deciding that you are in serious trouble
1) You quit any kidding yourself, and you marshal all your abilities
2) Signal for emergency help
But the survival situation could have started long before this.
 
Even shorter hikes are survival, my book, that's why I watch where I step, take plenty water and use DEET.

I guess a few guys here have similar ideas, surviving is choosing how you die, I choose old age, it's the steps to getting there that you need to work out.
 
In my opinion survival is a bit like using a fire extinguisher ... you can learn how to use one but hope you never have to use it. If you have to use one regularly then someones doing something wrong. BTW I carry a fire blanket in my camping tub :D
 
To me a wilderness survival situation is, even if your not injured or sick, perhaps not even lost if you are days away from other people, when you have to provide food, water, heat or shelter for yourself relying on what you can find in your surroundings using only whatever tools you have with you; be it a lighter, gun, knife or sharp stick. To me, the daily life of working a job and putting food on the table has as much to do with the politics of dealing with other people as it does manual labor and for many jobs, not even manual labor. If you're alone with mother nature however, she doesn't care how well you play with others. Your life depends upon what's in your head and how you can use that to make a living, temporary or otherwise, from the environment around you. I know some people are probably thinking that society is an environment, but I simply see being a good cog in the machinery of society as far different than finding food in the wilderness, or surviving a snowstorm in the mountains without a tent.
 
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