For many of us, rappelling is a fairly frequent activity. Most of my recent rappels have involved recovery of archaeological and paleontological materials from vertical sea cliffs, not just sport climbing.

At my age, the feline-cougar attack is far more likely than the primate-couger attack...

...lol smart remark here about tip-up carry!

Shark attack is another cool, but very unlikely event.

But factual.

From the cruise ship thread, how about the comment about a liferaft getting sucked under as the ship sinks below them. The MythBusters tried to test this claim IIRC and couldn't generate any real downward suction in their experiments. Has there ever been a documented case of this happening? (Watching Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet get sucked under in the movie Titanic doesn't count. )

Then again, the MythBuster crew didn't have a cruise ship the size of a small town to experiment with.

I'm curious about that, too. My dad did 2 tours on aircraft carriers during the Viet Nam War. He told me they were trained to get a certain distance out if forced to abandon ship to avoid being sucked under when it sank. But I don't know if that was based on any sound science, either. Although of course the USN has plenty of wartime experience with ships being sunk.

And yet, and yet... There is a post in this forum right now about some kids in survival training getting mauled by a bear...
(I have not read the post yet, so I may have the details wrong, if so, sorry.)

Three, or was it four, times for me. The worst time was in December, or January about 16 years ago, and the water was cold.
That was the only time I ever got excited in an emergency.
Got a case of the giggles that did not want to go away.
But that was a VERY bad winter for me, as my mother had just died in a car crash a few days before... All kinds of things one after the other...
It actually surprised me, as I am normally almost TOO calm in emergencies. When our building caught fire, and lost power, I handed out flashlights to people walking down the fire stairwell(which was filled with smoke and pitch black because it was the backup generator exploding that took out the emergency generator, and THAT took out the special generator that was supposed to keep the fire stairwell lighted and smoke free!?!? ).
For that matter, I was not even excited while I was having my heart attack this last December. I sometimes think that there is something a little off with my adrenalin response.

I am more likely to have a trauma bandage with me than a band aid when ever I am out and about, because I figure that a little cut(while MUCH more likely) is not too dangerous if treatment is delayed, but a piercing wound is not something where you want to have to improvise on the spot where time is of the essence.

That's my philosophy too, James. Mom is translated by some cultures to mean "Provider of the bandaids" so I'm very likely to have both but, I edc a bandana, not bandaids, in part because bandaids aren't nearly as time sensitive are getting a pressure bandage into action.