Archive for the 'Survival' Category

Summer is fast approaching and with it four-legged critters become more of a threat to humans but they aren’t the only thing in the woods that can harm you.

In our last article, we discussed general aspects of those tiny but problematic arachnids: ticks. Perhaps the most well-known disease transmitted by ticks is Lyme Disease.

Spring and Fall are seasons that ticks are commonly known to bite humans. The most well-known disease passed by ticks to humans is known as “Lyme disease.” Lyme disease was unknown until about 1975, where it was first diagnosed in the town of Old Lyme, Connecticut. Since then, Lyme has become the most common tick-borne illness in the Northern Hemisphere, so common that May is officially Lyme Disease Awareness Month.

Lyme Disease is caused by the corkscrew-shaped bacterium known as Borrelia burgdorferi. Another species, Borrelia mayonii, has also been shown to also cause the disease. Both are carried by Ixodes scapularis, also known as the blacklegged or deer tick, in the East, upper Midwest, and all the way down south to Texas. The western blacklegged tick (Ixodes pacificus) can be found all along the Pacific coast. Ticks are responsible for more than Lyme disease; they’re also responsible for transmitting babesiosis, anaplasmosis, and other infections.

In settings where winters are milder and acorns abundant, the population of animals that ticks like to feed upon increases. These include mice, a favorite of baby ticks, and deer, popular targets for adults. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are estimating many tens of thousands of Lyme cases in humans per year (three times the number reported 20 years ago).

One time while hiking, I picked up nine ticks. As I approached a shoulder-high grassy field, I thought better of entering it for several reasons, but the whole hike, something about the place was deeply bothering me. There are places in Tennessee where you should only go if you live there. Even the people who grow up here know that if it seems like a place you shouldn’t be, well, you shouldn’t. I only hiked a bit and stayed on a known trail, but somehow, I was covered in the American Dog Tick (Wood Tick). Nasty creatures, and a very disappointing hike as I wanted to establish knowledge of the area. I entered the area previously from the other end of the trail, went so far, and wanted to see the rest of the route on a single-day venture by entering from the other end. The lesson was, that area would not fit within the purposes I needed; maybe it was a success after all.

The article covers prevention, symptoms, treatments, and other tick-borne diseases.

Friendly reminder post. Some folks have a specific date or event that signal seasonal gear swap and home changes. Depending upon your area, it’s time to inspect and swap items in your car kit/go-bag/get-home bag. Dump the bag(s), and inspect all items. For those items you had a mind to upgrade, do just that, relegating lesser items to backup roles. Swap out cold for warm gear as needed for your specific area/elevation. This may include items other than clothing. Sometimes it can be tricky as some zones still have a snowpack, but it reaches almost 60F during the day.

Do what you want with your firearms gear but doing a semiannual inspection and review is always a good idea. Might as well do it in conjunction with the other stuff.

Know your heart, your family or team, your area, and your gear. If you got fat or lazy this winter, fix that right now!

Here are a couple of videos with quick-hit tips for survival. I like this guy. No muss, no politics, no cussing, straight delivery, seemingly without the desire for a cult of personality around his channel. If he ever did a presentation or event in my area, I’d probably go.

I’m recently back from a business trip and professional conference in Idaho Falls.  At the end of the conference I decided to do a bit of hiking.  I headed up to the Tetons.  Here is one picture of a less snow covered area.

At least the path is worn well enough that it can be seen.  Everyone else turned around a short time after this photo was taken.  I kept going, and seemed to be the only one up there.  On up the trail I passed a really nice Asian dude who talked to me and recommended that I not move forward unless I had AllTrails on my phone.  We happened to have connectivity where we were at the time, and he assisted me in loading it up, downloading maps and getting the right trail (there were some trails with similar names).  Soon I lost connectivity.  It’s a good thing (and providential) that I ran into him.  This was the next scene a few miles further.  The trail had utterly disappeared.  Were it not for AllTrails, I would still be wandering in the Tetons.

The snow was five or six feet deep in places, and while I could make decent progress at times staying on top of the pack, I was “post holing” a lot.  A few times I fell into tree wells and had to claw my way out.  That’s an awful lot of work.  The Asian dude had not only trekking poles, but snow shoes as well.

Also, I’ll comment that with more unenlightened among us sometimes I often have wondered why a man doesn’t just “swim” out of snow (e.g., during an avalanche).  Yea, that’s impossible.  Put your leg into snow hip deep and it’s like cement.

The trail was the Taggart and Bradley Lake trail in the Tetons.  I wasn’t properly prepared for the hike.  I did make it, but not without a slog.  I didn’t pack my trekking poles because I didn’t want the additional space and weight in my luggage.  That was a profoundly stupid decision but I didn’t know at the time that the trails would be in this condition.  Going up there without snow shoes made it very difficult.

The second day I decided to do something a bit tamer and stay closer to Idaho Falls (within about an hour of the city).

The Idaho and Wyoming area is beautiful country for sure.  But the Northwest had a very deep snow pack this year.  Be prepared when you go into the bush.  I wasn’t.  I could have gotten into trouble in the Tetons.

Outdoor Life.

This is an extremely easy to use rock climbing harness that easily carries and supports hunters in a seated position after an arrested fall. The Black Diamond Zone is designed with the idea that users (climbers) are expected to fall in this harness. It is also designed for self-rescue, since rock climbers are often not easily accessible to rescuers. One of the reasons that full-body safety harnesses are recommended often for hunters is that it would be impossible for a hunter to fall out of a full-body harness if all the straps are fastened properly. Properly worn, the rock climbing harness provides almost as much security. Remember that rock climbers, unlike deer hunters, plan to fall and may be in unusual postures when they do so and count on these harnesses for survival.

Although the front attachment of the tether for rock harnesses could get in the way, the big advantage of this attachment point is that self-rescue becomes far easier after an arrested fall. Since this is a “sit” harness, hanging in these harnesses is much more comfortable than the full-body harness. Because you sit in this harness while suspended, unlike hanging in a full-body harness, the risk of suspension trauma is low.

He goes on to discuss traditional fall-arrest harnesses with a lanyard on the back of the system.  Don’t do that.

You’re incapable of self-rescue, and the system will cut the flow of blood to your legs, potentially causing loss of limbs.  Don’t be tethered to your back side.

Do it the right way.  Use rock climbing gear.  Dump the old, traditional ways of doing things.  All you need to purchase is the harness from Black Diamond, a legitimate carabiner, and a tree tether.  Replace the tree tether if it gets worn.

When real potential security threats are present, unless you’ve practice handgun skills extensively and shot in individual or group training scenarios, all of that prior training, though useful to a degree, was done in the abstract. When facing a known potential threat, for the average CCW holder with basic training, additional training must begin immediately. Here are some basic steps to begin.

Pray individually and as a family. Start reading the works of David and about David together. Discuss his reliance on the Lord and his war/defense tactics and strategies. The Lord of Hosts is not a pacifist, so read the Holy Bible in a new light.

And everyone 16 and up read The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker.

Due to that abstraction, I recommend starting back at the beginning with a basic handgun course for husband and wife and any grown children or other adults in the home. Do the training together. This builds a sense of group purpose and team cohesion, helping to know who is capable and to what extent in order to support each other.

Next, at least take intermediate-level handgun training together. The family can take a training progression to the level they feel necessary, all the way to tactical kill-house, vehicle handgun use, scenario training, etc., if desired.

Fourth, while you’re training, you must develop a home security plan. Do regular walkthroughs of your home at night with the lights off to get used to the layout with limited or no light because you must practice your plan with lights on and with lights off. Without practice, you are back in the world of abstraction again. Plus, what’s in one adult’s mind may not be what the other is thinking and planning, which can get you or your children killed. If you have young children, you must involve them; sorry, no exceptions; this must be done. If children are too young to remember and follow instructions to participate, then the plan must include covering them. To lessen the shock to children, you can start with a fire plan, which every household, eh-hem, should already have. Refine these plans as you learn and practice.

There are home-security consultation firms. I have no experience with any, but we’re supposing that quality ranges widely and some prices may be outrageous.

Additional reading for serious-minded adults can include On Killing by Grossman and Left of Bang by Van Horne. These books are not for everybody and are by no means Christian literature.

Source.

Cage spoke to Nicholas Hoult, his co-star in the upcoming film titled “Renfield,” as he told the tale of his bug-eating experience.

“Oh yeah, I ate it twice, because the director did it just to prank me,” Cage said, according to Yahoo. He then gave Hoult some advice about eating bugs on the set of their new film, since his character eats insects to gain superhuman powers. “If you could get rid of your fear, your phobia of eating insects you could solve world starvation,” he said, according to Yahoo.

Cage continued to detail the potential perks that come with eating bugs.

“High protein, no fat, excellent nutrients, abundance — they’re everywhere,” he said. “I mean, why not? But nope. Not gonna happen,” Cage said.

Hunger is caused by theft, laziness, and lack of obedience to God’s laws.  Eating bugs won’t solve any problems.  It will create more.

But at least you know that all of Hollywood is controlled by the WEF and Klaus Schwab.  There is nothing in it for Nicholas Cage to promote bug-eating except for acceptance and money.  To him, that’s reason enough.

Here we discussed Dan Becker’s experience trying to do a rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon in bad conditions (use of snow shoes) while climbing the North Rim.  I was fairly hard on his team mates – they let him down by not stopping him and doing the things they needed to do (hydrate him, get food energy into him, get him rest, and most of all, stopping the physical exertion).

I feel that I was justified to be so hard on his team mates.  Here is another video of the same trip told by Dan himself.  Pay close attention to the 10:57 and 11:46 marks.  He says, “I was having severe chest pains,” and when asked if he was okay, he said an unequivocal “no.”  The rest of the team should have been with him the whole way.  The first sign of a little bit of chest pain should have stopped the entire group.

That’s it for me.  You don’t split up on the trail.  You just don’t.  Medical conditions of team members remain unknown to the rest of the team, you have less protection against predators, and so many other reasons.  Don’t … split … up.  If you’re going slower than you wanted to, tough.  That’s all part of the being on a team.  Deal with it.

Rather than picking up Dan’s backpack, the team should have stopped right then and there to assist Dan and get him healthy again.  I’m willing to bet there would have been no need for rescue if they had done that.

This is a captivating tale, and a true one, told by the apparent leader of the group.  There are a number of good lessons in it, most or all of which we’ve discussed before in painful detail.  But let’s cover them again for the sake of education.

When the party crossed into the climb of the North Rim, I knew that one or both of them were going to suffer from Rhabdomylosis.  I knew that without being told, without having to watch the rest of the video (I did watch the rest of it to confirm by thoughts), and without reading the video description.  I knew it with certainty.

Do you recall journalist Sebastian Junger’s hard work at Restrepo?  The soldiers would come back smelling of ammonia.  It was in their sweat, and it was indicative of hydration and kidney problems.  More to the point, hydration is only one part of the story.

In Rhabdomylosis, the body no longer has energy stores to power the physical exertion and must burn muscle to propel itself.  The kidneys then have to remove that protein from the system.  This will cause kidney failure if not addressed quickly.

One method to address it is hydration.  The most important method is to stop the exertion.  The leader of the group wasn’t very wise.  He continued the climb forward for several reasons, one legitimate, and one not.  The only legitimate reason to have continued the climb was that rescue would have been nearly impossible if they didn’t reach the rim.  The irony is that the only reason this is a legitimate concern is because they didn’t stop when they should have, and this brings up the illegitimate reason to have continued: panic.  He even says so in the video.  They panicked.

We’ve discussed this before.  Panic is a killer in the bush.  It’s deadly.  The best option would have been to suspect what was about to happen, and find a place to make camp, get Mr. Becker warm, hydrate him, and get him food energy and rest.  As it was, they pushed until he vomited, only dehydrating him more.

Sure enough, according to the medical professionals, Mr. Becker was suffering from Rhabdomylosis.  He said in the video that this was a “rare” occurrence.  That’s not true.  It’s not rare among people who undergo extreme physical exertion.  It also may happen to people whose body has undergone extreme exertion for reasons other than climbing from rim to rim in the Grand Canyon.  I’m imagining a “fictitious” conversion between a certain NP and a patient: “How long have you been on this meth bender?”  “Oh, three days.”  “Well congratulations, you’re now in Rhabdo and I need to push fluids to try to save your kidneys.”

I also don’t believe that this necessarily happens to the weaker among a group.  It may happen just because it happens, for whatever reason: genetics, what a person ate several days ago, whether a person hydrated enough before the exertion, or for no particular reason that can be pinpointed.

The point is that a leader needs to be wise enough to recognize that this is a possibility and stop before it happens.  Waiting until it happens is too late.

Make the decision early enough to prevent injury and death.  Find a decent place to camp for the night.  Find firewood, and if there is no firewood, get people inside tents or a tarp and start isobutane stoves.  If there is no tent or tarp, know how to fabricate a shelter in the bush, or some sort of debris hut.  Find a source of hydration, and if you didn’t carry enough water with you, make sure you brought filtration.  Get food energy into your body.  Rest.  But most of all, just stop the physical exertion.  That’s imperative if you want to survive.  One warning sign is that your piss will be colored brown, but if it’s gone that far, you’re probably too late.  Stop before that happens.

If you don’t, it may be deadly.

Everybody can find a way or two to make and keep fire from this video. We’ve had some nice days here lately in parts of the country. Don’t slack off; winter isn’t over. Keep your kit handy and up to date.

I just found out about these guys last night. The video has only one of them in it. Their humility is encouraging. They have the willingness to admit ignorance and seek necessary knowledge. They don’t have a catalog of videos yet, but they’ve indicated more to come.

A list of gear used in the video is here on the Dirty Civilian page.