"SURVIVING A WILDERNESS EMERGENCY"
by Peter Kummerfeldt

INTRODUCTION 

Surviving a wilderness emergency begins with a recognition that somewhere, sometime in the future you might have to spend an unplanned (not unexpected) night or two out in the backcountry. Unfortunately, the majority of people believe that it will always be someone else who is in this predicament. Someone else who is thrown from a horse; someone else who becomes the lone survivor of an aircraft accident; someone else whose car slides off of the road and the occupants end up having to survive in the car until they are rescued; someone else who gets lost after following a wounded animal into unfamiliar country. That "someone else" is in fact each one of us! Survival experiences can occur anywhere and often occur when we least expect to find ourselves in trouble – when we are least prepared to cope!

There are many scenarios that could result in a person having to survive a night or two in the open. Becoming lost is often the catalyst that begins a chain of events that result in you having to practice your survival skills. Inclement weather may force you to hole-up for the night. Illness or injury may cause you to have to stay-put until rescue comes. You can find yourself stranded when bad weather prevents you from being picked up at the appointed time. Traveling on foot after dark is dangerous and, when the urge to be back in camp with your buddies is very strong, it is usually safer to bivouac for the night. Faced with any one of these situations you must now "survive" for an indefinite period of time – it may only be a few hours until the sun comes up or the weather clears or several days could elapse before the rescuers locate and rescue you.

What does it take to survive? What does the word "survival" mean? Why do some people survive and yet others die in similar situations? What kind of preparation is needed for an "unplanned night out?" This manual will answer these questions and many more.

The purpose of this manual is to:

• Heighten the readers' awareness of potentially life-threatening hazards and thereby reduce the number of injuries and fatalities occurring in the backcountry.

• Motivate the readers to better clothe and equip themselves so that, when confronted with a night out, the situation does not become life threatening – just inconvenient.

• Teach the readers practical survival skills NOT primitive skills! While primitive skills such as fire-by-friction have their place, few people will devote the necessary time to become proficient in these skills.

My point of departure for the material contained in this manual will be the belief that no one is more concerned about your safety than you should be and that, while we would like to believe that there will always be someone to help us, many times there isn't. Don't depend on others – carry your own emergency equipment, learn how to shelter yourself, to build your own fire, to affect your own rescue! We would also like to believe that we will be unhurt as we begin our survival experience – often this is not the case and we find that normally simple tasks are infinitely more difficult to accomplish. (Try zipping up you jacket with one hand!)

This manual is not intended to address the needs of someone who is living in a remote part of the world for an indefinite period of time. Rather, it is intended to help the inexperienced individual who finds himself or herself having to spend an unplanned night out.

There are many "how-to-survive" books and manuals in and out of print available to anyone interested in increasing their knowledge of surviving a wilderness emergency. Few of these sources are directed at the hiker, skier, hunter, bird watcher, etc. who gets lost and has to spend an uncomfortable night out waiting for the sun to come up. They are more commonly directed at long-term survival in some remote corner of the world. Additionally, the information presented in these books is of little practical value to the average man or woman who is unlikely to have practiced the skills illustrated in these books to the point that the skills can be relied upon in an emergency. You can't live off the land! You must bring with you what you need to survive. The that end, this manual attempts to provide practical guidance on the steps that need to be taken to survive a night or two out, under adverse conditions, until those conditions abate or the people involved are rescued.

One final thought. Reading this manual is a good start to your preparations but there is no substitute for practicing the skills.