Posts Tagged ‘Erik Kulick’

Preparation: The Key to Dealing with an Emergency

On February 10, 2015   /   General   /   Comments Off on Preparation: The Key to Dealing with an Emergency
Preparation: The Key to Dealing with an Emergency

As I regularly explain to our students in our wilderness survival and medicine courses, one doesn’t need to be an Army Ranger or a medical professional to benefit from these types of emergency training.  After all, whether it’s a mountain top, a state park, a roadside accident, or a burning building, each of us may still at any moment be called upon to protect ourselves or the lives of others from some threat.  Then, thereafter, we may need to live with the consequences of our action or inaction — Or, heck, perhaps we won’t live. At the moment of truth, it really doesn’t matter so much the size of your backpack, the fancy equipment in it, or your general professional training (I’ve heard of a group cardiologists who froze when a colleague collapsed of a cardiac arrest during a conference).  Rather it is your head and heart that most matters. So […]

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Thoughts for a New Year

On December 31, 2012   /   General   /   Comments Off on Thoughts for a New Year

“Heart, be brave.  If you cannot be brave, just go.“ Persian jurist and poet, Jalil ad-Din Muhammed Rumi, penned these words in the 13th century.  They are as true today as they were then. Whether it is sudden emergency situation in the mountains, or a more mundane aspect of our lives, all of us will, at one time or another, become indecisive with, even paralyzed by, fear.  This isn’t simply an expression, but in fact a natural truth.  This is part of your brain’s defense mechanism which has evolved over the eons to keep you safe (just as it has in all land mammals) by gambling that when you spot an approaching predator it won’t notice you standing there frozen so instead passes on or even chases after someone else running away in a panic.  However, sometimes doing nothing can be worse — Just like it doesn’t help the possum or deer in your headlights. […]

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Hunter Survives 3 Weeks without Food

On December 17, 2012   /   News   /   Comments Off on Hunter Survives 3 Weeks without Food

As I regularly explain to clients during our wilderness survival courses, a lack of food in a survival situation is not necessarily a big deal.  In fact, in such situations, food is a detriment as it is a stressor on the body.  This is one reason why you’ll often hear survival instructors talk about the Rule of 3s — That is, one can go 3 minutes without air, 3 hours without shelter in harsh conditions, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food. The following news account, then, helps to underscore my point: Police in Manitoba ended their investigation today surrounding the events that caused a man to become lost and stranded in the wilderness for three weeks while hunting.  Other than an apple, which he ate on Day One, he had no other food and lost 40 pounds. So, this story helps to illustrate why, of the Seven Survival […]

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Tourniquet: Fact v. Fiction

On October 22, 2012   /   Equipment, General   /   Comments Off on Tourniquet: Fact v. Fiction

Recently, I was reading a popular wilderness first-aid handbook that is used to trained thousands of Americans each year and one of the sections really bothered me.  In its outline of how to control severe bleeding, it indicated that a tourniquet is used “only” as a last resort since it may “cause gangrene” and “may require surgical amputation of the limb.”  The handbook also advises that in the event that a tourniquet must be used, that it should be loosened in “five minute” intervals to check if bleeding has stopped and to “allow some blood flow” to the affected limb.  Sounds reasonable enough, right?  Except that it isn’t accurate. According to much medical evidence, the reality is that a tourniquet, used by a trained wilderness first-aid provider, may, in fact, be the initial method of bleeding control in severe extremity bleeding. Much of what the medical community now knows about the […]

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