23 Survival Facts That Could Save Your Life.

These might be handy to know.

Published 5 years ago in Ftw

These might be handy to know.

1
If you happen to someday find yourself on a sinking boat, and it goes underwater and you’re somehow able to get free, beware. Once the air neutralizes, if you’re far down enough, water pressure will kill you, and collapse your lungs. To avoid this, scream all the way to the top. No joke. While you swim up, scream. It’ll keep the pressure from killing you.

2
Do NOT put hydrogen peroxide on a DEEP fleshwound. It will turn your blood into a human slushy. Small cuts are fine, but a deep fleshwound is not.

3
When you see someone whose neck was slashed/cut and is bleeding out profusely, reach for his carotid artery and then pinch it so he’d stop bleeding out.

4
Actual fires spread shockingly fast. We all like to play “What’s the one thing you’d grab if your house was on fire?” but the real right answer is that if it’s not alive, you should leave it and get the hell out. People tend to imagine a fire burning on the floor in a corner somewhere, but the reality is often that it’s running across the ceiling and circling around the walls. Just get out.

5
If you encounter a mountain lion, DO NOT turn your back on it. Walk backwards. Cats are ambush predators. They don't want to fight you head-on and will wait for you to turn around to attack. There are videos showing this behavior with tigers at the zoo! People will sit in front of the enclosure, and as soon as they turn their back to the cat, the tiger goes into stalk mode. They turn around to face the tiger, and the tiger goes out of stalk mode.

7
If you’ve gone two and a half or more days without water, and you have to choose between drinking water without any way to sanitize it or not drinking water, drink the water. If you don’t, you’ll definitely die soon. Most of the diseases you can get from bad water take a couple days to set in, which gives you more time to find help.

8
If you ever find yourself caught in a riptide, swim PARALLEL to the shoreline until you get out of the riptide. Swimming directly back to the shore while caught in one won’t get you anywhere and it’ll only exhaust you, making it extremely dangerous to do so.

9
You CAN do the heimlich maneuver on yourself. Seriously, think about how often you eat or snack when you’re by yourself – even if someone is in another room, if you’re choking you cannot talk or scream.

10
If a friend of yours has fallen through ice into a frozen body of water and you would like to save them, lie down on the ice and crawl out to them, DO NOT walk out to them standing up. This maximizes your surface area and lessens the likelyhood that you will fall through the ice as well, getting you both fucked.

11
Close your bedroom door at night. The amount of damage done to a room with a closed door by a fire is significantly less than one with an open door… you may have a chance to escape.

12
FAST. Face, arms, speech, time. It’s a way to spot a stroke. Face: If you’ve got an uneven smile or a part of your face is drooping. Arms: if you raise your arms and one of them slumps or cant be raised as high. Speech: slurred or unintelligible speech Time: is of the essence. Call 911 immediately.

13
If you’ve been stabbed and the weapon is left in your body, do not remove it.

14
Learn to swim. You don’t have to be Michael Phelps racing a shark. Just learn the basics.

15
If the accelerator in your car gets stuck and you cannot stop, shift your car into neutral.

16
If you have a cut that gets infected and see a streak of red going up from it, go to the doctor immediately. It is a sign of serious infection that can lead to sepsis.

17
In a crisis situation, people run for the door they came in from. When the shooter walks into the restaurant, run for the kitchen. There’s always an exit through the kitchen, and very few people will think to run there. Plus if you’re not armed, a kitchen is full of killer cutlery to defend yourself with.

18
In a kidnapping situation where the person is trying to get you to force you to go somewhere (somewhere secluded or into a vehicle) even if they have a weapon, always always fight to not go with them and run. If they’re trying to get somewhere private they are planning to do something very bad to you that requires privacy. It’s better to be stabbed or shot at in a public place where people can hear you rather than in a secluded place. Usually making a lot of noise and screaming will scare most offenders off.

19
If you ever come into contact with a gorilla (especially a male), stay low and quiet, and no sudden moves. Don’t look them in the eyes either. They take loud noises and movement as a challenge and they’ll crush you like a soda can.

20
Turn into a skid. This is the way it was taught to me. Turning into a skid means the difference of going into a ditch, and going into a ditch upside down.

22
Mixing bleach with ammonia — both of which are common household cleaning products — can release deadly chlorine gas. Basically, don’t mix household cleaners unless you are 100% sure of what you are doing.

23
In an emergency situation if you need help for yourself or someone else, don’t just yell “HELP” or “CALL 911”. Use specifics, instead say something like “You in the blue shirt, help”. Unless called out personally people have a tendency to walk on by, assuming someone else will help. Using a personal detail gets them involved.