An interesting article about people who survived despite the odds, and some of their thought processes. Very much along the lines of what we discuss in this forum.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/Year+Ideas+Looking+survival/4020993/story.html

The question remains, how many, if any, who had the same thoughts and mustered the same will did not make it?

Still better to keep the positive, of course.

This is a fairly simplistic and superficial article. There are numerous instances where the will to survived overcame the odds; An Arizona sheriff once commented to me that egotistical people seemed to survive at a better than average rate. This came home to me with a vengeance when, on a survival situation of my own, I was determined that when the search party reached me, I would be able to offer them a cup of warm coffee and show them that I was OK. As it turned out, there was no search party, but I was still OK enough to drag my sorry butt back to the car.

There are many instances of statistical outliers to the "Rule of Three" - Here is a quote from a 1959 publication:

"A prospector in the deserts of northwestern Arizona traveled 150 miles in eight days without water in temperatures sometimes over 120F. He lost 25 per cent of his weight - nearly twice the dehydration normally considered fatal at that temperature. He lived by the grace of God and his will to survive(emphasis added). I believe this event occurred sometime in the late nineteenth century.

The Rule of Three is reasonably valid, especially for planning purposes. Certainly, as its length is exceeded, the odds of survival become dimmer -this is definitely true in my experience. I don't know of any situation where someone halts a search simply because the person has been missing for the allotted seventy-two hours. Usually the operation continues because they just might be alive and,even if not, you want to find the body and bring closure; typically searches continue for weeks after the event.

Good article - good survey.

The will is not everything, but it does count for a great deal. Without it, you will not survive. Some stories of survival which have not been mentioned are the stories of Prisoners Of War (POWs). Some have survived not only the elements but brutality most of us can't truly comprehend. You will find that the will is important, but as the author of the book "Deep Survival" states, having a purpose matters a great deal as well.

The "rule of threes" is not useless. Humans have not changed physically over the thousands of years, only our knowledge has. The "rule of threes" is very good for teaching basic survival and planning. You can't stop there though. As is taught in all of the military survival schools, it is important to never give up. Never stop trying. There is always a chance, unless you quit. Take every morsel of food, every drop of water; it will all help. Training helps, and having some good equipment helps, but if you stop trying, it is all useless.

Military survival training is certainly there to teach skills; but it is more about placing the student in a stressful situation as an inoculation. If you have been in it before, even in training, when it happens to you, the stress of it is not overpowering. You have confidence and the emotional strength to not let the stress of the circumstances kill you.

One of the great survival stories where the person overcame tremendous odds is the story of Hugh Glass. In 1822, Glass was attacked by a grizzly and left for dead by his fellow men in the expedition.

(From the Wikipedia article)

Despite his injuries, Glass regained consciousness. He did so only to find himself abandoned, without weapons or equipment, suffering from a broken leg, the cuts on his back exposing bare ribs, and all his wounds festering. Glass lay mutilated and alone, more than 200 mi (320 km) from the nearest settlement at Fort Kiowa on the Missouri.

In one of the more remarkable treks known to history, Glass set his own leg, wrapped himself in the bear hide his companions had placed over him as a shroud, and began crawling. To prevent gangrene, Glass laid his wounded back on a rotting log and let the maggots eat the dead flesh.
Deciding that following the Grand River would be too dangerous because of hostile Native Americans, Glass crawled overland south toward the Cheyenne River. It took him six weeks to reach it.

Glass survived mostly on wild berries and roots. On one occasion he was able to drive two wolves from a downed bison calf, and feast on the meat. Reaching the Cheyenne, he fashioned a crude raft and floated down the river, navigating using the prominent Thunder Butte landmark. Aided by friendly natives who sewed a bear hide to his back to cover the exposed wounds, Glass eventually reached the safety of Fort Kiowa.

I have the book "Hugh Glass" and it is a great read. If you ever see this book in a secondhand bookstore, it is well worth the purchase.

Survival Psychology is often an underrated factor in our overall chances of surviving.

Often it is poorly taught, and or not emphasized by many survival instructors or authors. This is because teaching it is an ongoing process involving both the individual and the instructor. It involves understanding basic psychology, the teaching process used, and style of practical training conducted.

Remember that in times of crisis (like in combat) we are lowered to the base level of our training, not raised to some higher level of understanding or ability. If we cannot practice it before hand our chances of doing it under pressure are very slim.

Our "Survival Mindset" is created through our basic psychological outlook on life, confidence, knowledge, training, environmental factors, injuries, group dynamics, and how at home we are in the environment we because stuck or stranded in.

Unfortunately not all these factors can be controlled. If we have the will to live and are driven to survive our "Survival Mindset" will give us a much better chance of surviving whatever we get thrown up against.

Are there any statistically valid studies on:

How many survivor's stories include the line,"I had given up hope ...."

How many survivor's stories include the line,"Just as I was giving up hope ...."

How many survivor's stories include the line,"I never gave up hope ...."



How do you correct the statistics for those who never gave up hope but did not survive?

How do you correct the statistics to remove your own bias about the attitudes, if any, necessary to survive?

I doubt that there is any way to control for the many variables that exist, but it is safe to say that attitude and mind set are really significant in surviving.

I have seen people who were unbelievably passive in survival situations, totally at the mercy of circumstances, and very fortunate that outside assistance arrived. Of course, you never hear of those who self rescue in almost identical situations (for that matter, what constitutes "identical situations"?). We are not dealing with lab rats here.....

Why?

I think you can actually stretch this to say attitude and mind set are really significant in life, including survival situations.

Self fulfilling prophesies are well documented (i.e. I know this isn't going to work and lo and behold I am right!!) in psych. I am sure we have also all experienced the other side of this coin also, someone who demonstrates exaggerated or misplaced self confidence in their abilities. Both of these mind sets/attitudes will probably have negative correlation with survival situations.

Similarly there are people who always see options and possibilities. It doesn't seem to matter what situation you put them in they are always finding a way to improvise a solution from what is around. The opposite of this is people who, even given the right tools for resolving a problem, are unable/unwilling to see any options or possibilities.

Beyond that it gets harder to speculate but I think that basically you can always quit fighting to survive and die. Attitude/mind set/determination is what keeps you going when things truly suck and hope is at best a very distant glimmer.

-Eric

Because of the many instances, some of which have been recently mentioned (Hugh Glass is the poster boy) where it was significant. I have seen many less well publicized instances from my own experience in SAR where mindset made a difference.

Eric's response is extremely good. He makes a very good point.

Anecdotal evidence is barely evidence at all. I just wondered if those who have studied survival have done the cold, brutal, factual, actuarial analysis to determine if mindset seems to affect the rate of survival, at all.

While just speculation on my part, I would guess that much survival training, trainors, and professionals have their roots in the military and incorporate the military's gung-ho attitude. If so, then I would expect a projection of that attitude to everything as a one-size-fits-all, everything-looks- like-a-nail-when-you're-a-hammer sort of thing.

Perhaps a calm, Buddhist-like acceptance while just making the best choice you can is better for survival. Perhaps mindset is not a significant factor when compared with luck, choice of companions, quality of clothing, culture, lifestyle, physical condition, age, etcetera.

I also suspect most "survivals" and many failures to survive do not get reported and have not been analyzed for whatever their lessons may be. I further suspect that survival outside the US-Europe area is little reported or considered in our current conclusions.

Just because we have been taught it, or everybody we know seems to believe it, does not mean the earth is flat or the center of the universe about which everything, including the Sun, rotates.

Please understand I am just wondering if science has weighed-in on the topic.

There are a couple of seminal books (IMO) that I own, although are not scientific and peer reviewed studies, do an excellent representation and study of what drives people to have the will to survive...and to die.

1) Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why.

2) Surviving the Extremes: What Happens to the Body and Mind at the Limits of Human Endurance

I can understand you desire for statistically valid, well conceived studies that come to an unassailable conclusion. Unfortunately, the data set for survival situations is almost completely anecdotal, with wildly uncontrolled variables, some of which you mention.

Nobody is claiming that mental factors are preeminent,or even the most significant - simply that they are important, in combination with other aspects of the situation, and that there are instances where, carefully analyzed, attitude, etc. seemed to make the difference.

You rightly point out the existence of the "empty set," those people with the right attitude, who were simply overwhelmed by circumstances. The best mental attitude in the world doesn't do you any good if you step off a 300 foot cliff or attempt to cross a raging river.

Of course, with the right attitude, you might have not put yourself in a vulnerable situation in the first place, or extracted yourself once danger was evident, and so forth, on and on.....

I imagine a competent psychologist might be able to devise a study, both ethically and scientifically valid, that might shed some light on this subject, but that is well outside my field. I'll stick to worrying about the quality of the steel in my survival knife, or the three best means of starting a fire.

I agree with Hikermor that it is unlikely that any scientific test would produce a repeatable result because of the multitude of uncontrollable and even unmeasurable variables. I would find it easier to precisely number the black flies and mosquitos within an acre of my campsite on a breezy day, than to devise an actuarial test to reliably predict the long-term survivabilty of a human being in the wilderness. Best to analyze anecdotal events and outcomes and compare to personal hypothetical situations (something we do with regularity in this forum).

I have read #1 and it is thought-provoking. I would add to your list "The Lure Of The Labrador Wild" http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0921054580/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used which I purchased and read at CANOEDOGS suggestion. That book was written in a manner that made me feel like I was in the survival situation with them. They were equipped to survive by the standards of the day, but there were many things that I would have done differently if I were there.

I have and read this book (very good BTW) on my E-Reader. For anyone else interested, it is a available as a free download from Gutenberg.org in a variety of formats.

I have not seen a real study of those who have survived, but there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence (yes it can be evidence) of people who gave up and died when there was still a chance to survive. You have to look at the negative side of it, giving up is a sure way to die, not giving up at least gives you the chance to keep on surviving.

The discussions here have focused on the situations where the never-say-die, raging-against-the-night attitude have won out, but there many cases where the "calm, Buddhist-like acceptance" works out best, or at least well enough to achieve a good outcome. Typically it is a situation where the individual is indeed in serious straits and needs to summon aid and/or sit tight with calm, Buddhist-like acceptance, faced with, say, a river in flood stage in the winter time, or downed power lines. (just to pick a couple of hypotheticals at random)

It is really all about making decisions that are appropriate for the situation and not applying a "standard" strategy. We should all take Ecclesiastes to heart - there is a time for everything under the sun - a time for extreme exertion and a time for rest. This is true for survival situations and it is also true in the complementary activity of SAR. Rushing into action is not always the best course. Sometimes it is best to sit down and think or take less physical action. The trick is to know which strategy is appropriate to the circumstances - often it is best to switch drastically form one to the other as the situation evolves.

For that matter, that is probably true of matters military - I am fortunately not experienced enough in that arena to comment meaningfully. I would say, based on my two years military service (at a very low level) that it is not at all like SAR or survival training. It is an entirely different ethos - very few of my mentors or contemporaries in SAR had any military time.

I would infer from your comments above that you have little or no direct military experience.

Due to the challenges involved in creating a controlled, repeatable experiment I am sure there is nothing directly addressing the question. I am equally sure there is plenty of relevant material available addressing very specific aspects. This is not my field of study or interest so I cannot be precise in pointing these out. Sociologists and Psychologists have done a lot of research on things like self fulfilling prophesies, observer effects, placebo effects, the will to believe and my very general, layman's summarization of all of this is that attitude (any attitude) has a direct impact on how humans deal with any situation.

The military has a very vested interest in turning this scholarly work into practical applications. The US Marines are an excellent case in point, especially looking back to WWII. Conventional wisdom then (and now also I think) was that any unit sustaining losses exceeding 30% will be combat ineffective (basically write them all off, even the survivors, for the current battle). Several Marine units sustained losses greatly exceeding that (over 100% if you count in line replacements) and continued with their missions. This is one example of attitude making a key difference.

The military approach to survival has to be different from civilian since it must assume that escape and evasion are important in addition to simple survival. That doesn't invalidate it but it does put a specific bias into the choices that are favored.

There are also various psych studies that have been done looking specifically for good decision making under stress and many of these are probably also applicable to the topic. My very very vague recollections from the long past are that the best decision makers are those who can remain calm while focusing on the long term goal. Again this would play very strongly into survival and is something the US military specifically has been looking at for a long time.

Don't confuse a can do attitude with reckless behavior. I have known a lot of Marines, and while they vary (like the rest of us) from wild to studied they have all had a can do attitude and have been great team members. I suspect this is because everyone of them has internalized that "gung ho" really does mean all together.

- Eric

Interesting post. Didn't several Civil War units sustain casualty rates exceeding 30% and continue to function, even heroically?

I guess it comes down to, "mind matters..."

Many Civil War units of both sides sustained horrendous casualty rates - over 50% - and continued functioning - for that battle. For example, the "Iron Brigade" at the first day's fighting at Gettysburg. However in the Civil War, casualties in regiment and brigade sized units were not generally replaced. Instead, new recruits went into newly formed brigades.

So units would shrink in size as they took casualties over the months and years. I don't think the "Iron Brigade" was an effective fighting unit after Gettysburg, because it was so shrunken in size.

Having been through five military survival schools, and a great deal of survival type training, and just being in the military for 24 years active duty (and six as a government civilian); I will tell you that your description does not accurately describe a military attitude. While there are many personality types in the military, a one size fits all, everything looks like a nail when you're a hammer, it is not only not taught in military survival schools, but actively taught against. In fact, the calm Buddhist like acceptance is taught as part of the initial period of assessing your situation. This is difficult for many people, military or civilian, as many people have a driving need for action, to do something,anything. The military training tries to help people get past this and to think their way through a situation. Many of the people you describe as trainers have generally had little training, or are actually presenting in the entertainment industry, or both. Your brain is your best survival tool/piece of equipment, and this is taught in military schools. And your brain should tell you to be physically prepared for wherever you are going and whatever you are doing.

I suspect the results may be slanted by two layers of self selection. The majority those that get into trouble tend to be those who have self-selected to be in danger. Second, the stories always report what the survivors attitudes were.

It would be interesting to find out if those who didn't put themselves in danger experience it differently. Even more interesting to find out what hose who died think of the situation. Not sure how you do that but a seance and/or Ouija board might be worth a shot.

Of course the survivors are going to cite their superior willpower. It both makes them seem special and offers an easy explanation for why others died when they didn't. It is the nature of man to flatter ourselves and seek easy and reassuring explanations for essentially random, or biologically/genetically dependent, events.

Biological/genetic in the sense that people with stores of energy, extra body fat, tend to have an edge fighting off hypothermia and surviving starvation. Likewise people with larger quantities of brown fat, fat that helps generate heat, tend to do better in cold temperatures. Likewise people who naturally tend to get frostbit seem to survive colder temperatures longer. They lose fingers and toes because the body cuts off blood flow and heat loss, but are better able to preserve their core temperature. Higher metabolism may provide protection for short term extreme cold as when a person falls into cold water. None of these has anything to do with willpower. They have to do with genetics, body composition and metabolic efficiency.