Outdoor Life Prepare for Anything Survival Manual (24 page)

If you’re getting ready for emergencies, you should get trained in CPR—but even without it, you can still help.

STEP 1
Call 911 or some other medical help ASAP.

STEP 2
Place the heel of your hand on the victim’s sternum, in the center of his chest, with your other hand on top.

STEP 3
Lock your elbows and use your body weight to compress the chest, pushing down about 2 inches (5 cm)—lighter for children. Aim for 100 compressions a minute.

STEP 4
If you’re trained in CPR: After 30 compressions, gently tip the victim’s head back to open the airway, and pinch his nose shut before applying two deep breaths. Repeat steps 2–4 until help arrives or the victim recovers.

Trauma will cause the body to divert blood to vital internal organs, leading to shock—which can be fatal if not treated properly. Signs include paleness, rapid pulse, and cold, clammy skin. Other signs like vomiting or gasping for air occur as shock worsens.

Lay the victim down, elevate her legs, and keep her head low. Treat any visible injuries, and loosen restrictive clothing. Keep her warm with blankets or coats, and keep her talking to focus her mind. Reassure her that everything will be okay.

If a fracture is misaligned, blood circulation is reduced, healing time is extended, and worse, the limb may be lost if the break is bad enough.

First, assess the break. Many won’t need to be set, but if the bone is displaced you might have to. If the bone is protruding, don’t move it. Cover it with a moist saline dressing, immobilize it, and get medical help.

Check for blood flow by gently compressing the skin below the fracture. If the skin does not quickly restore to normal color, you should set the bone to restore circulation. Pull slowly but firmly along the long axis of the bone to reset the break.

Apply a splint and wrap with bandages. The splint can be an air cast or a rigid cardboard, plastic, aluminum, or wood panel with padding for stability and comfort. Secure the cast above and below neighboring limb joints, or immobilize with a sling.

The skin is the body’s largest organ and its primary defense system. A burn’s severity (and its course of treatment) depends on how deep it penetrates the layers of tissues.

1ST DEGREE
These types of burns are superficial and are caused by anything from sun exposure to hot fluids. They heal on their own but you can apply cool compresses or aloe vera gel, and speed along the healing process with anti-inflammatories.

2ND DEGREE
Partial-thickness burns, a.k.a. second-degree burns, penetrate the dermis and can raise blisters. Flood the area with cool water and trim loose skin (but leave blisters alone to avoid infection). Aloe vera and bandages are recommended, but if the injury is to the face, hands, feet, or groin, seek skilled medical attention.

3RD DEGREE
These are also called full-thickness burns, having penetrated all layers of the skin. Tissues are often dry, stiff, leathery, and painless (due to nerve damage). Cover with a dry dressing and immediately get help.

4TH DEGREE
These burns penetrate through skin and into muscle, fat, and bone. These are the most severe and require extensive, skilled medical care.

Someone who’s truly choking cannot breathe or tell you what’s happening. He’ll often grab at his throat, but it’s up to you to recognize the situation and act quickly.

Stand behind the victim and put your arms around his waist, with one fist below the ribs and above the navel, and your other hand covering your fist. Pull your fist upward and into the abdomen, pressing firmly with both hands. Repeat the motion until the airway is cleared.

If you can’t reach around the person or he passes out, lay him on his back and then perform the maneuver while straddling his legs or hips.

If you’re dealing with a very small child or infant who is choking, cradle her in one arm and compress her chest with your fingertips five times, alternating this with turning her over and applying five firm slaps to her midback until the airway is cleared.

Your main issue here is going to be finding dry tinder. If rain looks to be falling soon, gather dry tinder as you hike through the woods, stashing it in your pack or jacket. Once things are already wet, check underneath rocks, ledges, and logs and in tree hollows for moss or dry grass that may be covered. In a worst-case scenario, choose big dead branches and use your knife to scrape away the wet exterior.

Know that building your fire is going to take much longer than it would in dry conditions. Once you have a decent fire going, stack wet wood around and over it in a sort of log cabin. This will protect the fire from rain and dry the wood for later.

Whether your ignition source is a match, a lighter, a road flare, or a friction fire, you’ll need the same type of materials to get the fire started and keep it burning. The first material is tinder. These slight materials have a lot of surface area and little mass, so they release their flammable gases more quickly than stouter materials. Tinder should always be fine, fluffy, dead, and dry, and it should come from the plant kingdom. Hair, fur, and feathers do not make good tinder. Instead, try dead pine needles, crunchy leaves, crumbly dead grasses, and the fibrous inner bark from dead tree branches. Next you’ll need an assortment of very slender dead twigs, wood shavings, and/or split wood splinters for kindling. These work best formed into a cone shape around a core of tinder. Add a few finger-thick sticks on the exterior of the cone and it’s ready to light near the bottom. Insert a lit match, or light several spots with a lighter—and watch your hard work pay off with flames.

Char cloth uses a process called pyrolysis (burning without oxygen) to turn ordinary cloth into a fire starter that’s great to use with flint and steel, since it only takes a single spark to ignite. Here’s how.

STEP 1
Make a small hole in the top of a tin that closes tightly.

STEP 2
Fill the tin with scraps of cotton cloth (it needs to be all-natural; no synthetic fibers).

STEP 3
Place your container in the coals of a fire. Smoke should start streaming steadily out of the box’s vent hole.

STEP 4
After 5 minutes, pull the tin off of the coals. The resulting cloth should be solid black and have a silky texture but not fall apart. Now you have tinder that you can carry with you until you need it for firestarting in almost any situation.

STEP 5
When you need tinder, pull the char cloth out and strike a single spark onto it. It should burn slowly and steadily.

STEP 6
Use the cloth to ignite your larger bundle of tinder.