SEAL Survival Guide (36 page)
Read SEAL Survival Guide Online
Authors: Cade Courtley
Swimming Out
Fortunately, cold shock response lasts only a minute or two before the body can get its circulatory system realigned to cope. If you know this is happening to your body involuntarily, you must remain calm and attempt to keep your head above the waterline, or merely keep your mouth closed, holding your breath. It is fear of drowning and a panicked mind that are the base causes of most drowning deaths, since floundering and breathing uncontrollably hinders our natural buoyancy. If you fall through ice, know that the cold shock response condition will subside. When it does, it’s time to get out of the water.
1. Do everything you can to keep your head above the water. Your only goal for the first minute is to not drown.
2. Swim back to the place where you initially fell through the ice. This will be your escape route. Don’t panic—you should have anywhere from three to eight minutes in which you will have enough strength to get out.
3. In general, it’s most likely that the ice surrounding the area where you fell in is also weakened. You will not be able to simply grab at the edge of this hole and hoist yourself out. You will have to lengthen your body as you would in a normal, horizontal swimming position. As you approach the edge of the ice opening, continue the swimming motion until your head and arms are out of the water. Once you have your elbows up on the ice, keep kicking as if swimming. Then proceed by inching forward, using your arms and fingers to pull yourself along the ice.
4. Your propulsion will be provided by your kicking feet, still underwater. If you stop kicking too soon and you put too much of your upper-body weight on the ice before you are fully out of the water, more ice could break, and you will become submerged again.
Rolling Out
Sometimes it’s possible to get out of the water by rolling yourself out of the hole, especially if the opening in the ice is large. You need to get
on your back and float to be in the correct position near the opening to make this maneuver successful. When your body is aligned and floating as close to the surface as possible, reach an arm out of the water and sling it onto the ice. Then lift the leg that is on the same side as your arm out of the water and onto the ice. Once you are half out, thrust the rest of your body upward while at once starting to roll away. Staying horizontal on the ice will create less pressure and give you a chance to roll to a place where the ice is firm.
Whichever method you use,
do not
stand up immediately. Assume the ice is still too thin to support your weight and roll toward the nearest shore. Once you feel that you are on more solid ice, get to your knees and crawl until eventually you are on your feet and off the ice.
Stop and Save It
If after five to eight minutes of attempting to climb out you are still unable to free yourself, then you need to shift gears. You need to think about improving your chances of survival by conserving your energy and helping your body to maintain heat. Water can take the heat from your body twenty-five times faster than air of the same temperature.
If you can get only halfway or partially out of the water, do so. Usually, you will be able to keep your upper body or chest out of the water by holding on to the edge of the ice. Stretch your arms on the ice and keep them there. Your goal is to stay alive and conscious as long as possible, in the hopes of being discovered. If your arms freeze to the surface of ice, in this scenario, it might be a good thing. It will help to keep your head out of the water without your exerting energy.
How to Help If You Are a Bystander
If you witness someone fall through ice, identify possible hazards and decide whether it is safe to enter the ice or attempt rescue from shore. If you react inappropriately, such as racing onto the ice yourself, you will probably be joining the victim underwater.
1. Take the time to send someone for help or make a call on your cell phone before trying to help the victim.
2. Attempt to talk to the victim by giving clear, concise instructions. Call out in a firm yet reassuring manner, relating the steps and methods described above.
3. Find something you can throw to them. Ideally, a rope that you tie a loop onto one end of and toss toward the person in the water is the best option. If you know how to tie a bowline in the rope, this is when to use it. The person may not be able to maintain a grip on a rope that doesn’t have some kind of loop or knot on the end.
4. Sometimes, public parks or places where people skate have ladders for rescue purposes located at various points along the shore.
5. If nothing is available to throw and there is no rescue ladder at the scene, attempt to find a tree branch or pole. Or if in a residential area, send someone to fetch a ladder.
6. If you use a ladder, place it flat on the ice and push toward the opening. Again, depending on your scene size-up, you may need to tie a rope to the end of the ladder to retrieve it. Then push the ladder with a branch or pole to the person,
so you don’t get too close and put yourself in danger. Give instructions clearly, telling the victim that the ladder is above them and to grab the end.
During BUD/S, on any particular day, we spent hours in what we called “surf torture” sessions in the Pacific. I always used to laugh when the instructors would repeatedly say, “You may be cold now, but in the unlikely event you make it to the teams,
you will be colder
.” To which my response was: “Bullshit.” I changed that opinion during Winter Warfare Training in Alaska. There, I found myself once again neck-deep in the Pacific, for “polar bear appreciation.” In this training, the new guys, or “meats,” were stripped and submerged in the ice water. It was the longest ten minutes of my life. Let’s just say it took longer for some of my anatomy to start working again than other parts. I feel your pain, George Costanza.
FIGHTING
In any number of survival scenarios, there could be a time when the only option to save your life, or the lives of others, is to fight. Even if it never comes down to getting into a physical confrontation, knowing how to fight—correctly—brings
confidence.
An important aspect of incorporating the SEAL mindset into your daily life is having the tools to defend yourself if the situation arises. This is important in order to live free and unafraid. You may not have the self-defense skills that SEALs or martial arts experts possess, but if you practice the following basic and effective fighting techniques, this knowledge will keep you alive, and in many instances, incapacitate your assailant. When the situation calls for an immediate physical response, it undoubtedly would be to your great advantage to have trained and practiced the following techniques. I have talked about muscle memory, and when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, only by doing certain moves again
and again will you develop the skills needed to fight efficiently without forethought. This gives you an incredible edge—not to mention the element of surprise—when the time comes to use them. I must also add that I encourage you take some form of self-defense training as well. It not only will help should you find yourself in a life-threatening situation, but it will give you many benefits, such as self-confidence, physical fitness, and discipline. Learning self-defense will make you both physically and mentally tougher.
In SEAL teams we spend a lot of time training in hand-to-hand combat because it’s a blast—in training, anyway. In the real world of modern-day combat, if you find yourself engaged in hand-to-hand, then you can pretty much assume that everything is totally screwed. Why? Where is your air support, your team, your rifle, pistol, and knife?
