Many, if not most, survival situations develop gradually, as the consequence of successive poor decisions. Here is a recent example:

forums.eguipped.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=n...flat&part=2

Briely, a couple sea kayaked to a nearby island and did not return on time. The search found the man in the water and the woman drowned. They did not carry signaling devices and refused the offer of a radio to take on their trip.

The survival situation arose because the couple decided not prepare for any kind of problem, turning down the offer of a radio and declining to carry anything with which to signal (signal mirror would have worked great), setting themselves up for tragedy.

The report does not go into this but it appears self evident that they did not know how to deal with capsized sea kayaks. Capsizing in a sea kayak happens all the time and dealing with capsizes should be, and usually is, a part of elementary training.

Another choice at some point in this chain of decisions could have resulted in an entirely different, and happier, outcome.