Hi, guys.
I am a new member here. I have over twenty years experience in survival and preparedness (military, law enforcement, emergency management), and I recently started a blog to talk about these topics. I was unaware of the large preparedness community online and I am just now reaching out to various groups. I am posting on this topic over on my blog. I appreciate any comments or feedback you can offer.
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Thursday, March 12:
This is a continuation from my post from yesterday, on following your gut instinct. At this point, perhaps you have considered flight as a wise and prudent option. Be aware of your surroundings, listen to your little voice (as Thomas Magnum said on Magnum P.I.), and don't worry about being embarrassed -- just get out of Dodge.

There's more you should know, however. First, understand that emotions are the survival mechanism that your body taps into in dangerous times. Panic is pure adrenaline coursing in your veins, telling your body to DO SOMETHING NOW. That's natural, sometimes even needed. You may have to lift a car off someone someday, that kind of thing. But when you become pure animal like that, you lose the ability to think and that can be terribly inconvenient. You'll forget your name, your phone number, everything. Blind panic can kill, despite being useful for survival. Your mind will block out sounds -- you'll go deaf in a life and death struggle. Your body will focus on the large muscles, and you'll lose fine motor skills. Forget dialing the phone, forget using your car keys. You'll get tunnel vision and everything will be focused like a laser on the threat you are facing. This is such an automatic response that if you have never experienced it, you might become overwhelmed by it. To survive and thrive in adversity you must embrace this panic and use it.

The first step is breathing. Breathe in two times quickly, exhale twice quickly: in-in, out-out. Controlling an autonomous system like this acts like a brake on your brain and slows down your panic response. The adrenaline is still flowing and the large muscle groups are engorged and ready to be called into action. But your brain, by consciously harnessing your breathing, is kept on a leash. This gives you a huge advantage in a bad situation . . .

By flight are you referring to the option of bugging out as opposed to bugging in/sheltering in place?

Reguardless this is where practicing is a necessity. If you do decide to flee you want it to be automatic. I try to get up on a nice sat morning and wake the family and go away for the day, drive to a state park an hour away or something so I can practice dropping and going at a moments notice and see hoe we do.

Depends on the nature of the emergency. Some you want to run or bug-out; others you may be better off staying home and just riding it out. You need to be able to assess the emergency and make a rational decision as to the best course of action.

Speaking for my situation, the emergencies I see are either wildfires (giving lots of time to plan) or earthquakes which catch you as you are, ready or not -- much like the difference between a hurricane approaching for days and tornado's popping up with little warning. You need to be prepared for both.

Welcome aboard, SAFisher. The more we share the better prepared we are. Thanks for coming.

Hello, welcome.
Hang around.

One of the big problems when people realize they are lost or in trouble is panic.
There is even a joke quote about it.

When in trouble,
Or in doubt,
Run in circles,
Scream and shout!

The point is it is really easy to go rushing of madly in all directions and not accomplish anything useful at all.
That is the whole point of the STOP instructions.

Howdy SAFisher!

-Blast

Welcome SAFisher.

Good info in any crisis situation.

Welcome SAFisher!



You make excellent points. Recognizing what's happening in that kind of crisis situation (auditory exclusion, tunnel vision, loss of depth perception, time distortion) is life-saving. Understanding that those quiet "pops" in the distance were actually my pistol going off and that, having tunnel vision, I had to physically turn my head to check my surroundings saved my life.

An interesting blog entry -- thanks for sharing!

Just thought I'd put in my two pennies to say that, while taking a moment to gather one's wits about oneself in an emergency is vitally important, some breathing techniques can actually work against a person, especially if one has a history of hyperventilation or panic attacks.

If this is the case, it might prove helpful to slow down one's air intake (i.e, by breathing into a paper bag); the thought being that this slows down the amount of the carbon dioxide being lost due to panicked breathing.





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Welcome!

That is a very interesting observation. I had not throught of that before!

Thanks for the warm welcome. I think I am going to like it here!

Great intro, thank you for your insights.

Hey SAFisher, WELCOME!

Mike

Welcome SAFisher

Pull up a rock and join the campfire there is always room for one more.
When you mentioned Thomas Magnum, I shared the snippet with my wife and she drooled over Thomas. (she used to live in Hawaii during the show)

Mike D

Welcome, SAFisher:

You raise a good point. I like to call it "don't just do something, stand there!"

In dealing with emergencies on a professional basis, we call it a "scene size-up." It is always a good idea to take a moment or two to ask yourself three fundamental questions: What is actually happening, or has happened, here, overall? What resources, information, etc. do I have on hand, and what else will I need? What is my plan or objective?

There on endless variations on this basic theme, but they all involve the idea of thinking before acting. Along with that is the idea of getting one's emotions under control. Crisis management is a learnable skill. Practice, pre-planning, and experience help, but the cognitive component is rather durable and often surprisingly transferable across disciplines.

Jeff

As I've said many times at work, "A few minutes of thinking can save you hours worth of working.". One of the best things you can do in any problematic situation is think for a few minutes and formulate a solid game plan for what you need to do.

Oh, and from another relatively new guy, welcome.

I refer to those as the "MacGyver Moments", you know the scene just before the commercial break where they have the shot on him pondering what to do next. He'll be running full tilt bozo through the woods from the bad guys, then he stops, looks around, and when the show comes back from the commercials he starts gathering rubble and building a man trap or flash bang or something using just a flint rock, some lint from his pocket, and a few iron scrapings from an old pipe.