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Deep Survival
Several people in the comments to my last post expressed interest in the "how to not die in a crisis" part of Deep Survival, so I figured I'd make a separate post about that.
Most of the book consists of case studies of people in life-threatening crises (hikers stranded in the wilderness, sailors capsized along with their boat, plane crash victims), with discussion of what they did and why, in terms of both neurology and human social behavior, they did it. Some of them survived; some didn't. What's different about the ones who did? The last couple chapters of the book are a distilled version of everything that's gone before, with some conclusions -- so I'm doing nothing but skimming the surface of a fairly complex book in a really superficial fashion. I don't really have time to go into it in any depth - buy the book! *g* - but here are a few of the high points.
He breaks it down into two parts: not getting into a life-threatening crisis in the first place, and surviving if you do. He also emphasizes that luck plays a huge role -- you can do everything "right" and still die, or do everything "wrong" and live. (And one thing he points out at the very end is that life itself is dangerous -- you can avoid "risk" and then die in a car crash on the way to the store. The way he's chosen to live his life is by taking known risks but doing it sensibly.) Having said that, the more of these things you're able to do, the more likely you are to live:
Avoiding disaster:
• Educate yourself beforehand (so: if you're going hiking, read up on the area you're hiking and check a weather report; if you're going swimming at an unfamiliar beach, ask the lifeguard about hazards; stuff like that).
• Have a plan, but don't be so rigid that you can't adapt your plan (or make a new plan) if conditions change.
• Don't rush; take your time to do things correctly.
• Be humble; don't assume that just because you've done it before, you can do it effortlessly this time. (One of the points the book makes is that a lot of people get in trouble in hiking/mountaineering situations because they are experts, and therefore get careless and overconfident. "Rambo is the first to go.")
• When in doubt, don't do it. (The author has a particularly affecting story here about how he was booked on American Airlines Flight 191, but bailed at the last minute because he'd been working on a story about safety failures of DC-10 aircraft and didn't feel comfortable flying on one. The plane crashed, killing everyone on board, including many of his colleagues.)
All of the above sounds like nothing more than common sense. But in the vast majority of Gonzales's "outdoor enthusiast stranded in the wilderness" horror stories, the hiker/mountain climber/sailor/swimmer failed to do one or more of these things. You can get away with cutting corners or failing to take adequate precautions in a lot of cases. Most people do at one point or another, and get away with it. But then there's that one time that you don't get away with it, and that's the one that matters.
If disaster happens:
• "Perceive and believe"; in other words, take in your surroundings as they really are, don't get stuck on your preconceptions. Be open-minded and realistic. Notice details.
• Stay calm, and keep a sense of humor.
• Think, analyze and plan. Set up routines to break huge, seemingly impossible tasks into small tasks (you're not walking a hundred miles on a broken leg, you're taking one step and then another, or you're setting up camp tonight and breaking that down, etc, etc ...).
• Don't hesitate to take action, including risky action if you have to, but try to take the correct action for the situation ("be bold and cautious" is how he puts it).
• Celebrate your successes.
• Be grateful for what you have, and help those around you if you can. This isn't just a platitude; his research indicates that people who are most likely to survive are those who aren't just focused on themselves, but try to rescue other people in trouble with them, and think about loved ones back home to give them strength to go on.
• Play: sing, recite poetry, basically give your brain a break from the tough survival stuff by letting it do something fun. (He points out that the more you have to draw upon - the richer your inner life before you get in crisis - the more you'll have to play with once all the trappings of civilization are snatched away.)
• See and appreciate the beauty around you. Again, not just a platitude: people who survive are people who are able to enjoy what they're doing when they can.
• Believe that you will live and succeed.
• Surrender: accept your chances of dying, accept the pain of your injuries, and then put it away and go on.
• Do whatever is necessary.
• Never give up.
Most of the book consists of case studies of people in life-threatening crises (hikers stranded in the wilderness, sailors capsized along with their boat, plane crash victims), with discussion of what they did and why, in terms of both neurology and human social behavior, they did it. Some of them survived; some didn't. What's different about the ones who did? The last couple chapters of the book are a distilled version of everything that's gone before, with some conclusions -- so I'm doing nothing but skimming the surface of a fairly complex book in a really superficial fashion. I don't really have time to go into it in any depth - buy the book! *g* - but here are a few of the high points.
He breaks it down into two parts: not getting into a life-threatening crisis in the first place, and surviving if you do. He also emphasizes that luck plays a huge role -- you can do everything "right" and still die, or do everything "wrong" and live. (And one thing he points out at the very end is that life itself is dangerous -- you can avoid "risk" and then die in a car crash on the way to the store. The way he's chosen to live his life is by taking known risks but doing it sensibly.) Having said that, the more of these things you're able to do, the more likely you are to live:
Avoiding disaster:
• Educate yourself beforehand (so: if you're going hiking, read up on the area you're hiking and check a weather report; if you're going swimming at an unfamiliar beach, ask the lifeguard about hazards; stuff like that).
• Have a plan, but don't be so rigid that you can't adapt your plan (or make a new plan) if conditions change.
• Don't rush; take your time to do things correctly.
• Be humble; don't assume that just because you've done it before, you can do it effortlessly this time. (One of the points the book makes is that a lot of people get in trouble in hiking/mountaineering situations because they are experts, and therefore get careless and overconfident. "Rambo is the first to go.")
• When in doubt, don't do it. (The author has a particularly affecting story here about how he was booked on American Airlines Flight 191, but bailed at the last minute because he'd been working on a story about safety failures of DC-10 aircraft and didn't feel comfortable flying on one. The plane crashed, killing everyone on board, including many of his colleagues.)
All of the above sounds like nothing more than common sense. But in the vast majority of Gonzales's "outdoor enthusiast stranded in the wilderness" horror stories, the hiker/mountain climber/sailor/swimmer failed to do one or more of these things. You can get away with cutting corners or failing to take adequate precautions in a lot of cases. Most people do at one point or another, and get away with it. But then there's that one time that you don't get away with it, and that's the one that matters.
If disaster happens:
• "Perceive and believe"; in other words, take in your surroundings as they really are, don't get stuck on your preconceptions. Be open-minded and realistic. Notice details.
• Stay calm, and keep a sense of humor.
• Think, analyze and plan. Set up routines to break huge, seemingly impossible tasks into small tasks (you're not walking a hundred miles on a broken leg, you're taking one step and then another, or you're setting up camp tonight and breaking that down, etc, etc ...).
• Don't hesitate to take action, including risky action if you have to, but try to take the correct action for the situation ("be bold and cautious" is how he puts it).
• Celebrate your successes.
• Be grateful for what you have, and help those around you if you can. This isn't just a platitude; his research indicates that people who are most likely to survive are those who aren't just focused on themselves, but try to rescue other people in trouble with them, and think about loved ones back home to give them strength to go on.
• Play: sing, recite poetry, basically give your brain a break from the tough survival stuff by letting it do something fun. (He points out that the more you have to draw upon - the richer your inner life before you get in crisis - the more you'll have to play with once all the trappings of civilization are snatched away.)
• See and appreciate the beauty around you. Again, not just a platitude: people who survive are people who are able to enjoy what they're doing when they can.
• Believe that you will live and succeed.
• Surrender: accept your chances of dying, accept the pain of your injuries, and then put it away and go on.
• Do whatever is necessary.
• Never give up.
no subject
no subject
I don't know how this matches up with the book you read (or if this is even true), but I remember reading somewhere that the heat and lack of humidity is so extreme in Death Valley that people can die of dehydration before they even realize they're dehydrated; the authorities sometimes find hikers dead of dehydration or headstroke with full bottles of water in their backpacks. I'm an experienced hiker, but that scares the heck out of me.
no subject
The death valley story is scary...I thought I was paranoid about drinking water all the time but if people dry out that quickly...My husband has a water pack with a tube he can easily drink out of while hiking and I make sure to take a break about every 15 minutes and drink water. (okay and to catch my breath it's all uphill.) But I'm not sure if drinking water every 15 minutes is enough in Death Valley? And who goes hiking in Death Valley????
no subject
When I moved to the Midwest back in 2000, it took me a year or two to retrain myself from looking up and forward through the woods (because most things that will hurt you in Alaska are large: moose, bears, etc) to habitually glancing down instead, because the hazards of Midwest hiking are things like snakes and poison ivy.
I guess it's mostly a matter of knowing what to be worried about and how to avoid it. I'm intimately familiar with Alaskan hiking hazards (moose, bears, hypothermia, cliffs ...), and I guess that if I hiked a lot in the Southwest, I'd learn to be careful of things like dehydration and sunstroke and rattlesnakes. But there would be a major retraining process while I learned how to be alert for signs of trouble I never used to have to worry about.
And who goes hiking in Death Valley????
Yeah, I think that's definitely the conclusion that I reached. *g*
no subject
I'm still in the habit of looking at the ground from so many years of watching for poison ivy, snakes, and ants. I just make sure I don't go hiking alone and try to stay on trails with tons of people and dogs.