Teach Yourself Survival Skills

Items for use as tinder (must be completely dry) Birch Bark Shredded inner bark from cedar, chestnut, red elm trees Fine wood shavings Dead grass, ferns, moss, fungi Straw Sawdust Very fine pitch wood scrapings Dead evergreen needles Punk (the completely rotted portion of dead logs or trees) Evergreen tree knots Pine Resin Bird down (fine feathers) Down seed heads (milkweed, dry

Control Bleeding In a survival situation, you must control serious bleeding immediately because replacement fluids normally are not available and the victim can die within a matter of minutes.External bleeding falls into the following classifications (according to its source): Arterial. Blood vessels called arteries carry blood away from the heart and through the body. A cut artery issues bright

SURVIVAL FIRST AID MEDICAL EMERGENCIES Medical problems and emergencies you may be faced with include breathing problems, severe bleeding, and shock. Breathing ProblemsAny one of the following can cause airway obstruction, resulting in stopped breathing: Foreign matter in mouth of throat that obstructs the opening to the trachea. Face or neck injuries. Inflammation and swelling of mouth and

Foremost among the many problems that can compromise a survivor's ability to return to safety are medical problems resulting from parachute descent and landing, extreme climates, ground combat, evasion, and illnesses contracted in captivity. Many evaders and survivors have reported difficulty in treating injuries and illness due to the lack of training and medical supplies. For

SURVIVAL KIT The environment is the key to the types of items you will need in your survival kit. How much equipment you put in your kit depends on how you will carry the kit. A kit carried on your body will have to be smaller than one carried in a vehicle. Always layer your survival kit—body, load-bearing vest or equipment, and platform. Keep the most important items on your body. For example,

SURVIVAL STRESSORS Any event can lead to stress and, as everyone has experienced, events don’t always come one at a time. Often, stressful events occur simultaneously. These events are not stress, but they produce it and are called “stressors.” Stressors are the obvious cause while stress is the response. Once the body recognizes the presence of a stressor, it then begins to act to protect

A LOOK AT STRESS Before we can understand our psychological reactions in a survival setting, it is helpful to first know a little bit about stress and its effects. Stress is not a disease that you cure and eliminate. Instead, it is a condition we all experience. Stress can be described as our reaction to pressure. It is the name given to the experience we have as we physically, mentally,

It takes much more than the knowledge and skills to build shelters, get food, make fires, and travel without the aid of standard navigational devices to live successfully through a survival situation. Some people with little or no survival training have managed to survive life threatening circumstances. Some people with survival training have not used their skills and died. A key ingredient in

This is based entirely on the keyword SURVIVAL. The letters in this word can help guide your actions in any survival situation. Learn what each letter represents and practice applying these guidelines when conducting survival training. Remember the word SURVIVAL. SURVIVAL ACTIONS The following paragraphs expand on the meaning of each letter of the word survival. Study and remember what each

In 1535, the french explorer Jacques Cartier and his men were in desperate condition after a particularly severe winter in Newfoundland. Already 25 lay dead and not one of the remaining survivors was not suffering from the ravages of Scurvy. Fortunately for history a group of local Indians took pity on them, and told Cartier that their medicine man had the perfect cure. Shoving their prejudices