Your most serious survival experience?

[peepercreeper]

I got lost in a forest for five hours once.

not really exciting but umm it still counts right?

[ajb1978]

This isn't a survival story..sadly it's the opposite.  This guy I work with lives 30 minutes away in another town, and he came upon an accident on the highway on the way home 3 years back.  A woman's car had crunched up from the impact, jamming the doors shut and pinning her legs between the dashboard and seat. And she was unconscious too, which it turns out was probably for the best.  A small fire had broken out, and he and some others who had stopped tried to pull her out through the window, but she was pinned too tightly.  The fire spread too quickly, and they had no choice but to back away leave her.  The car was fully engulfed by the time police and fire arrived.  It would have been a survivable accident if that fire had been stopped early.

So that story convinced me to start carrying a fire extinguisher in my car at all times.  And that was the beginning of what turned into a full emergency/survival kit that lives in the boot of my car.  Now besides the fire extinguisher I've got a seat belt cutter, road flares, first aid kit, fire starter, shovel, hatchet, knife, fire striker, windproof matches, tinder box, couple MRE's, water sterilization tablets, charcoal filter.  Bunch of other stuff too.  It's basically a cross between a bug-out-bag and a roadside emergency kit packed into a Rubbermaid bin.  I haven't needed any of it for an actual emergency yet, and I hope I never do.  But if that time comes, hopefully that one tragedy can help prevent another.

[Tri13]

I've never really had a survival story except for one time I jumped off a building and sprain my ankle. And I was alone and like almost a mile from my house so most of the way I had to do a sort of army crawl because it hurt too much to stand on. 

[Tri13]

On 5/6/2019 at 1:19 PM, ajb1978 said:

This isn't a survival story..sadly it's the opposite.  This guy I work with lives 30 minutes away in another town, and he came upon an accident on the highway on the way home 3 years back.  A woman's car had crunched up from the impact, jamming the doors shut and pinning her legs between the dashboard and seat. And she was unconscious too, which it turns out was probably for the best.  A small fire had broken out, and he and some others who had stopped tried to pull her out through the window, but she was pinned too tightly.  The fire spread too quickly, and they had no choice but to back away leave her.  The car was fully engulfed by the time police and fire arrived.  It would have been a survivable accident if that fire had been stopped early.

So that story convinced me to start carrying a fire extinguisher in my car at all times.  And that was the beginning of what turned into a full emergency/survival kit that lives in the boot of my car.  Now besides the fire extinguisher I've got a seat belt cutter, road flares, first aid kit, fire starter, shovel, hatchet, knife, fire striker, windproof matches, tinder box, couple MRE's, water sterilization tablets, charcoal filter.  Bunch of other stuff too.  It's basically a cross between a bug-out-bag and a roadside emergency kit packed into a Rubbermaid bin.  I haven't needed any of it for an actual emergency yet, and I hope I never do.  But if that time comes, hopefully that one tragedy can help prevent another.

Wow looks like someones ready for the (quite) apocolapse 😉

[ThePancakeLady]

12 years old, and I was invincible, even though I have brittle Insulin Dependent Type 1 diabetes. I packed glucose tablets and food, always, and my medical supplies, and knew better than to go on a dayhike and solo climbing jaunt. But... I did it anyway. I was only going to a place everyone knew about, so, nothing bad could happen, right? And if it did, someone would know where to look for me. Okay, after they looked in the other hundred places in the woods around us, including the old mine we all knew about and like to go explore.

Yeah, dumb kid. I was. I think I was mad at my brother or something, and had grabbed my backpack without checking to make sure I had my insulin and glucose tabs and some food. Food I had, but no insulin, no glucose tablets. 

So I got to my favorite climbing area, only about a 40 foot cliff-face. Fairly "easy" route, we all knew it and were familiar with it. But... usually we had someone go up top and rig a climbing rope and a pick-off rope, and climbed the route with the rope loosely attached in case we slipped or missed a hold. I decided, knowing I shouldn;t, that I was going to free solo it. I had climbed it a hundred times before. No problems, a few greasy holds i knew about and made sure i had another good hold along with. Until the last 10 feet or so, where there was a spot where h you had to let go and push off to grab the last handhold, and then you could get your feet plane ted and all was good for the last bit up over the edge. 

The last handhold broke off in my hand as I grabbed it. 

Down I went, about 30 feet.

Luckily there were some huge wild rhododendron bushes below, and I landed on-in one. Lots of small puncture wounds, lacerations, and a really twisted up leg. Nothing broken, just muscle pulls and tears, and some minor bleeding. Got out of the bush, and could not find my pack. Physical exertion and adrenaline... my blood glucose level was dropping, fast. And with hypoglycemia, I get confused quickly. When your brain is starving for sugar energy, it does not work so well. I think I crawled around on the ground screaming, looking for my pack. No one was around, so no one heard me yelling for help. No one knew where I was. I found my pack, ate all the food I had inside, and limped back home. No one was home when I got there. They were all out looking for me. (This was 41 years ago... we had no cell phones...). Which gave me time to get out of my muddy, torn, bloody clothing and jump in the shower. Mom was the first back to check the house. And she found me in the shower, looking like I had been chewed up and spit out by something with big teeth. And my pile of bloodied clothes on the bathroom floor did not make her calm down, happy to see me. She freaked. i think I was grounded for a month, which is about how long it took me to heal up from my injuries anyway. But... still. I did a "dumb kid" thing that day. And lucked out, and did not get more seriously injured, or have more serious issues with my diabetes.

Needless to say, everyone was happy I was okay, and I learned a number of valuable lessons that day. But I didn't stop climbing, or caving, or hiking. I just made sure I did them more "smartly". Never alone, and never without letting people know where I was going, what i had planned, and when i should be back. I've had worse injuries from caving accidents, and had some bad times backpacking in the desert in high Summer. But that was the scariest experience doing "extreme" things outdoors that I can remember.

[Wolran]

I don´t have a real survival story of my own, but I´m one of those who volunteer to head out and search and rescue the ones who get in these kind of situations. I volunteer for a search and rescue dog organization and I´m a trained squadleader for that purpose. As I life in europe everyone is usually fairly close to civilization but there are still hikingareas and mountains in the alps where you are a few hours walking distance away from every help.

In my about 60 operations I had numerous encounters with different types of victims. Hikers who fell or just got lost, kids who went on exploration, elderly people with dementia not knowing where they are and sadly many many suicides.

Our operations often take place during nighttime and often under bad weatherconditions. My job as squadleader is to find the way into our expelled area for the search and then to set up the dog handlers with their dogs to greatest effect. And in all of this to make sure no one of the team gets lost himself. I was in a few dangerous situations myself, including a search in a really heavy rain (like a shit ton of rain), avalanches, searches in heavy snowing, a dog which jumped into a canal with concrete walls and was swept away (I managed to drag him out by a bridge where I bent over) and a teammember who broke his leg and had to be carried out of the woods.
Of course then there are the victims who only could be found dead, often only a few hundred meters away from safety.

I think what I´m trying to say is, that "mother" nature can be a tough opponent and one should never go out unprepared. This may be the wrong place to do it, because I guess, that people in here have more experience with survival or at least do think about it more than the average hiker. But still it can do no harm

[solds]

This is pretty amazing experience. https://www.outdoorvisit.com/tour/88-scenic-tandem-paragliding-over-interlaken/

[Grignard_TN]

     This is one that would probably fit in better in the Subnautica forums, but I like the community here better, so here it is. I don't know how much "real" danger I was in, and I honestly didn't feel too much in danger at the time, but looking back it frightens the hell out of me.

     I was diving off the coast of Bimini with my father and our scuba instructor many years ago. This particular day was somewhat dissapointing as the water clarity was very low compared to what you typically see in the Caribbean. On other days, you could look over the side of the boat and see the coral going by in 20m of water ( seriously ). I suppose the captain wanted to make up for the slightly disappointing reef dives, so we dropped anchor in about 30 meters of water over a sunken barge that was a popular dive location. 30 meters may not sound like its very deep, but for recreational diving without technical skills it is about as deep as you'd ever want to go. I was a youth diver at the time, and I don't believe you are supposed to go any deeper than 10 meters. My first surprise was the current. You could stick your hand into the water and it would lap around it, like a flowing stream. I never realized the open ocean could have a current that surges that way. I don't think an olympic swimmer could have made any progress against it.

    It was all pretty stupid, but over the edge we went. The current was such that we had to pull ourselves down along a weighted rope. I think probably if I had let go, I could just surface and the boat would pick me up a kilometer away or so, but fortunately I did not let go and get to test that theory. What I remember most vividly is that at a certain point, you would look above you and see the rope disappear into blueness. If you looked down, the rope also disappeared into blue. Other than the next diver above and down, there was no detail or visual depth. It looked as if the small stretch of rope was all that existed and both ends just seemed to disappear. I remember thinking at the time I should be truly terrified, and I was frightened, but it was just a feeling in the back of my mind. In hindsight I wonder if that calmness was because I was narcing out a little bit. I just remember repeating to myself "don't let go of the rope, or you'll disappear into the blue".  When we reached the bottom the current wasn't a problem, either because it wasn't present at that depth or we were in the lee of the sunken barge. Due to the depth and the fact we were breathing air and not something like nitrox, we only spent ten or fifteen minutes down, then the process began of pulling yourself up the rope. Unlike climbing in air it was fairly easy because of buoyancy.

    It was an awesome experience that I am very grateful to have had, but the truth is we had no business doing a dive like that.

[Ghosty 1944]

So im 16 and I live in Washington and I took a trip to vist my grandparent's ranch in Alaska. My grandpa took me hunting we had radios and he was across the valley from me, I was in my tree post and Its like 7am and super cold, I then hear some of the bush behind me move I look back and its a black bear  it walked over and tried climbing my tree not in a agressive way but more of just trying to find out what I was. I radioed my pa and he said just stay still so I unhapply stood still the bear stoped after a few trys of getting up but then he just walked away... I also got attack by the guy's next door dog and have the scares on my arm to prove it but that story is for another time. It was a eventful trip but I did get my first elk.