Average American thinks they could survive two weeks in the wild despite lack of experience


https://www.foxnews.com/great-outdoors/a...k-of-experience

Armchair wilderness survival experts amuse me...and their numbers seemed to have quadrupled over the last 18 months. I get a lot of them in my foraging classes.
-Blast

"When pressed on specific skills, however, it seems that they may be lacking in some important skills."

Overconfident much? In ideal conditions, where everything goes right, they probably CAN survive two weeks. Except ending up in a survival situation means a cascade failure has occurred, and everything has gone wrong.

I wish there was a little more detail on the survey results. I find these bumper sticker news stories annoying.

The average American carries enough excess poundage so that might not be an unreasonable estimate. however, the key issue is "In what environment or circumstances. most of us can do pretty well in an area we know and understand, but it is a whole different ball game in an area with unfamiliar resources. I would do pretty well in the semi arid American Southwest, but i would be clueless in a tropical rain forest, although I would try not to feed the piranhas.

If I ever have to make it for two weeks, I hope it is a seashore environment with abundant tide pools, like the California Channel Islands. Lots of terrestrial goodies, as well....

With shelter and water this is pretty do-able in parts of the US. For most of us, it would not be fun.

In 1975 the BBC put a guy on one of the small uninhabited Scottish islands for a fortnight. Though he did receive some basic training from the RAF prior, and in a familiar environment. Found it amusing to watch at least.

Part 1
https://www.facebook.com/BBCArchive/videos/921938101484662/

Part 2
https://www.facebook.com/BBCArchive/videos/483163085838569/

Part 3
https://www.facebook.com/BBCArchive/videos/696747857467749/

I would certainly survive in the wods for two weeks if I can bring the food (freezedried) with me from home. If I had to live off the land I would not survive.

*Looks at COVID gut*

Ok. Drop me off someplace with a day time high of 75, night time low of 68, no bugs, lots of clean fresh water, and hopefully a beach. I'm in for two weeks...

Current story in the news - Oregon fisherman survived for 17 days in the 'wilderness" - erected some sort of emergency shelter. Other details lacking.

I suspect he passed the time fishing....

Seems he kept moving, and made at least two shelters.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...wilderness.html

Many if not most ETS folks should have a decent chance! At least if we practice what we preach. I'd like my chances if I was allowed to carry my standard survival gear. But it wouldn't be fun in my AO as the nights are still pretty chilly up high. I've trained with all the items I carry and have used them all "for real". Water is abundant here so the biggest challenge would be to stay warm and dry.

The average person thinks they can do that, which they hypothesis in their mind. Most people tend to see things as best-case scenario in their minds eye. And that often is what throws people into deeper issues when things don’t go as they played in their heads.

The average American could easily survive 14 days under ideal conditions so long as they have access to clean water. But when are conditions ever ideal?

That being said, even a minuscule amount to preparation exponentially increases the chances of survival, even without much training. A good sharp knife, a reliable firestarter, and a flashlight with a spare battery will go a long way even in untrained hands. And every additional piece of gear you add to that only makes life that much easier to sustain.

Without food, they will be miserable, but unlikely to die unless they have no shelter. Here in Northern New England, where I’ve been living since 2014, I wouldn’t give anyone good odds surviving without careful preparation in Winter. My first Winter here saw temps as low as -25°F with windchills to -50°F.

I lived on a mountainside in a cabin with no plumbing, no electricity, no communications other than my ham radio, an outdoor composting bucket toilet, only a woodstove for heat, and only a two-burner propane stove for cooking. The cabin was well-insulated, thankfully. I did have a single 45W solar panel with a Group 24 car battery. The solar panel was in a clearing about 100 yds away, and I had to carry the battery out there and back. It was enough to run a couple of 3W LED lamps at night, and charge my cell phone and laptop (no cell service tho), and run my Yaesu FT-100 for a few days to a week.

Most of my friends thought I was “so brave”, but it really wasn’t terribly difficult. The hardest part was making sure I had enough firewood and hauling fresh water from the artesian spring at the base of the mountain. Even refrigeration wasn’t a problem, because I set gallon jugs of water outside to freeze, then swapped them in and out of my cooler inside. Oh, and the snow shovelling…

I live on the edge of the downtown area of the biggest town in the local region, now.

I hope you'll regale us with some more tales of your off-grid years, Amper! Sounds like a great experience.

Yeah, true, when I think back to avoidable tragedies we've looked at, someone with simple shelter and ample water has a good chance. Much better if they know someone will be looking for them, stay put, and try to make themselves visible to searchers.

Several years ago, one of my old university friends and his family unfortunately made the national news because they found themselves in a survival situation completely unprepared while on vacation. Fortunately, everyone survived, but his wife lost a couple of toes to frostbite. She was the more athletic of the two, so she stuck out through the snow to seek help while he stayed with their young son at the rental car that had gone off the road into a snow drift.

She never actually made to find help, lost her footwear, and sought shelter in a closed ranger shack. He ended up leaving their son with the car and climbing until he finally got a cellphone signal to call for rescue. The SAR finally found his wife, but as I said, she suffered frostbite and lost a toe or two.

I didn’t even find out about all this until it was all over, of course, and it hit the news when they returned from vacation. I just about had a heart attack when I realised it was my friend.

Wow! That would be a shock to see on the news.

I agree and would add fire to the mix. If one had water, fire and shelter and no serious injuries and stayed put, two weeks should be reasonable. Change any of those variables and the odds change drastically!