Hotel survival

There are stories about hotel incidents but my internet connection is turbulent and could not copy/paste some of the story.

Anyways you can google them

First story about a hotel manager who got stuck in elevator for 4 days
The hotel was empty !!! and someone noticed mail piling up in front the hotel and called the firebrigade

While trying to google a better source for the story, I found another Google result of a man who locked himself up NAKED in a hotel lobby.

What would you do if stuck in either situations.

Trapped in an elevator. Pry open the doors. Odds are you can climb up or down to the next floor. Failing that, use the emergency hatch at the top and climb up to the last floor. Of course, if you can't do either... you are pretty much hosed.

Locked naked out of my room. So not gonna happen. Momma didn't raise no fool, I don't leave the room unless decently clothed.

When I read the title, I thought the thread was about what to do when you have five or more people in one hotel room and all you have are a bag of peanuts and cans of soda.

Jeanette Isabelle

Be the best armed!

I'm a nudist by nature but I don't wander from my hotel room without at least my packed columbia shorts on. And I'm not stupid enough to lock myself out.

LOL @ Jeanette. I thought similar. Hey I always pack for survival. The food is mine and if they want it they're gonna have to pay for it. A lot.

I was hoping for out-of-the-box thinking such as how to make a meal with what can be found in a hotel like crackers and ketchup packets.

Jeanette Isabelle

Crackers and ketchup packets don't leave much room for creative meal creation, IMHO!

Not really, wildman
If you are in the right (or wrong) situation , you may do it

A few years ago, I was in a ship with guys from different countries. They caught and ate all kind of things including shark.

My diet was more restricted than theirs, due to my beliefs ..etc. I finally ended up eating boiled white rice mixed with a generous amount of tomato ketchup !!

Close enough to crackers and ketchup

Not menu ideas per se, but some tricks for cooking in your hotel room:

http://m.wikihow.com/Cook-Food-in-a-Hotel-Room

The comments above are too funny. Seriously though, survival is a mindset and it really doesn't matter much where you are. You should be thinking two steps ahead rather than reacting to something unforeseen. In the case of a hotel, I'm usually ready to walk out the door and down to the lobby -- would never get caught outside the room nekkid. EDC items come to mind; when I'm living in a hotel, that keycard thingy becomes part of my EDC.

Totally OT: Surviving a bombing in a large crowd is easy -- don't be there.

Most nicer hotels have microwave ovens in the rooms now.Key words in the last sentence was,NICER and Hotel.If I know that a hotel visit is in order a microwave safe dish is packed.In my outdoor gear a metal pot or cup is always packed but microwaves do not like those.Small drip coffee makers are in alot of hotels and motel rooms now.Just running water through it can be used for instant oatmeal,soup,bullion cubes etc.Think of the heating pad and the pot as a heating plate.Have made rice this way before.The coffee maker wont get water to boil but it can be dang hot enough.Just think out of the box and use all resources to the fullest.The way I look at things is how many ways can said item be used.Hey can my Snowpeak pot on my Nalgene fit on that coffee maker without the filter cup.....

BOATMAN
John

Rice and ketchup is a delicious quick meal for me. What I was trying to say earlier is that there aren't a lot of meal combinations that one can get from just crackers and ketchup.

LOL! Love the one about using the iron to fry bacon. Actually it's probably one of the tamer stunts that have been pulled in hotel rooms. Wonder if the poster was on the company dime or was using his/her own personal credit card? There's all that nasty fine print on the sign-in form ...

The bag of peanuts, cans of soda, crackers and ketchup packets were only examples. These do not represent a complete list.

Jeanette Isabelle

I prefer to get Chinese take-out and keep leftovers in the fridge. The small fridge, microwave ovens and coffee makers in the hotels these days make a huge difference.

I have never, before reading these comments, considered the cooking uses of the coffee maker and the iron.

This creates a whole new line of planning for me and the DW if we were ever forced to stay in a hotel for an extended stay. I always carry my E&E kit with me. It has emergency rations, HoBo knife, and a US Army messkit.

The iron can be secured upside down and it becomes a variable heat setting hot plate. A quick stop at a store for bacon, bread, lettuce, and tomato means BLT sandwiches.

The hot water from the coffee pot makes many instant foods come to life. Besides what has been listed, I'd add instant potatoes and Minute Rice. Packaged chicken or tuna can be combined with minute rice and some veggies for a microwaved cassarole.

Most hotels provide some kind of continental breakfast so I'd concentrate on dinner dishes.

I always collect condiments and plastic ware when I'm on the road. I will have to add a small plastic microwavable cassarole dish with lid for an emergency hotel kit. Perhaps a few long term storable food items as well.

This has turned out to be a much more useful thread than I expected it to be!

You might get lucky and the hotel has one of those koi ponds in the lobby...

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceviche

Most hotels here in Finland has a watercooker as standard in hotelrooms. So as long as you have some pouches of freeze dried food with you there will be something to eat.

Stack up the crackers with ketchup in between. Add a layer of coffee creamer powder and 'Mamma Mia' you could have vegetarian survival lasagna...

I find the best survival item for hotels is a credit card. It has negligable weight and takes up little space. In fact it will easily fit in an altoid tin. As a back up I like to EDC a half dozen or so $20 bills.

In numerous hotel survival situations over the years I have found that a credit card backed up by cash works well for foraging for food, keeping warm, and obtaining shelter.

TSA should either allow all knives or no knives. Permitting small knives would make lines longer because the policy would force TSA personnel to analyze rather than simply reject/allow.

There was no holdup in the times preceding 9/11. Small knives were allowed then, and the current modification essentially returns us to that prior condition.

I am looking forward to flying with my leatherman PS4, hardly a WMD.

Hmm... credit card arrow head and fletching made from dollar bills? Cool! LOL!

Well ... Here i am in my own real life hotel survival epic.

My family got caught in a major storm in the Midwest. Airports shut down. We just managed to get a room at a local hotel in St Louis after driving around there for am hour. All hotels jammed full of travelers.

Outside air temp is. Minus one degree Fahrenheit. Wind chill is severe. I say that from experience ... I was out there walking in this stuff last night. Roads were shut down. Snow ploughs not coping. The only two things moving out there late last night were an ambulance (going somewhere) and me on foot going to a local 24-hour pharmacy. By the way, grab an extra T-shirt and use it as a face mask if you are out like this. Otherwise your face will be frozen off. The wind was at least 30-40 mph last night. Brrrr!

Anyway, in the middle of this ... My wife developed severe dental pain. It was a small problem that rapidly got much worse. Ice and Motrin helped a tiny bit ... But NOT much. Getting to an emergency dental clinic ... Forget it. Not happening.

Stuff happens. The "system" we have set up to handle emergencies in our society does not always work. Bad combo's of problems can arise. If you keep some sort of EDC kit, consider having a couple of meds for severe pain. It could be a lifesaver. I did not say this was legal. I'm just saying that things are not always predictable and the system does not have all the answers. :-)

Pete

One useful (and legal) trick is to take tylenol (acetaminophen) and motrin (ibuprophen) together. Take no more than a normal recommended over the counter dose of each. They relieve pain by different mechanisms, and together provide better pain relief than either alone.

Be very carefull to only take the maximum recommended dose of acetominophen! Note that many other over the counter medications also contain acetominophen (for example many cold and sinus meds). Make sure your cumulative dose of acetominophen (tylenol) from all the meds you take is not too high. Overdosing on acetominophen (tylenol) will destroy your liver. I've been told it is not a pleaseant way to die.

I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. You should discuss this strategy with your own personal physician, who is familiar with your own medical conditions, before you need to do it. Based on your specific medical conditions, and other meds you might use, your doctor may have better recommendations.

aSKAR ... Relax. I dont sue people for giving good advice. :-)

I found out this morning from the doc at the ER that Ibuprofen comes in a prescription-only form that is four times stronger than the OTC stuff. Thats interesting.

None of this stuff is doing anything to eliminate my wifes pain. Not even the coedeine. I expected that .severe dental pain is one of the worst kinds ... Direct connection to the brain.

No emergency dentists available today.
Sad, bordering on pathetic.

Pete

I'm not worried about you suing me. I just don't want your wife to be injured by not giving complete advice. People sometimes think that OTC meds are risk free. They are not.

Its OK. We understand the risks with Tylenol.

Cheers, Pete

+1
About 20 years ago I had an operation that left me in significant post-op pain. The opiate based meds gave me a really bad reaction. My Doctor switched me to the Ibuprophen and Acetaminophren combo, at the max OTC rates (see the bottles), with the same cautions about the Acetominphren. It worked well for me as the pain was reduced to a reasonable and tolerable level, without the (for me) bad side effects of the opiate based pain relievers.

Before and after my root canal, my doctor prescribed Tylenol 3, which is just a big dose of acetaminophen (600 mg) and a small dose of codeine. It helped… a little. I think I had to wait for two weeks to get the root canal. So I have been through something similar. Tell you wife she has my sympathy.

I think another medication that people commonly use for dental pain is Vicodin, but I didn't try that one around my root canal. It probably just takes the edge off anyway. Pain is still pain.

Pete... have you tried oil of clove for a topical on the toothache?

Pain is what reminds you that you're still alive.

Thinking it's just Tylenol, people have died taking an overdose. I prefer low level pain.

I use bandannas as a face mask in lower temps. A muffler can work if it is long enough to cover the neck and face.

Did not try clove oil. But i am VERY curious about whether that would have worked. I actually looked in the spice section of the supermarket, but no cloves or clove oil. Just ground cloves.

What did help some ... Was extra strength OraJell. It comes in regular and extra strength. It is definitely worth having some OraJell in the meds of the EDC kit

I understand peoples' reluctance to use meds on low level pain. But this incident wasn't a minor toothache. This is the most pain wife has ever experienced ... Higher than in childbirth. I will trust her judgment on this one. When a tooth goes really wrong ... Its a big problem. The nerves are wired right into the brain (or pretty close ... Hahaha!!).

If you can get a hold of a few pills that cut the effects of severe pain, keep them and put them in your EDC kit. It could be a life saver the day you need them. I am not talking about Tylenol ... You need something better. Just don't quote me on that. :-)

Cheers, Pete

.

If your wife is experiencing such level of pain, clove oil would have done bupkes. I've tried it. For low level pain, maybe. But for high level pain? I probably wouldn't bother. Childbirth… sheeesh!

I feel for your wife. I had a dental emergency of my own in the Spring, that took a couple of days to be able to resolve, and I can honestly say that the pain rivaled childbirth. Only good prescription drugs touched it, and only two extractions finally relieved the pain. Ice, tylenol and ibuprophane, and lots of rest until you can get something stronger.

Finally got the bad tooth in my wife's mouth pulled by an emergency dentist. It took two days to solve that problem in a major winter storm. That was a very long 48 hours for my wife. Thanks for all the good wishes.

Pete

My EDC/Travel FAK has a dental aid component approved by my dentist cousin. It includes a commercial Dent Temp solution to reattach a cap or replace a filling, tiny bottle of oil of cloves, dental wax, small sterile case for a knocked out tooth, tiny cotton balls ( filler) , extra strength Oragel, prescription ampicillin (for abscesses) and prescription pain meds. Not perfect, but really small and it covers all a civilian is capable to handle. I also always have floss or floss typebrushes.

The extra strength OraJell is helpful. You can also get ice from the hotel, which helps reduce swelling of inflamed tissues. A small ziplocbag is handy for applying the ice to the inside of your mouth.

None of these remedies will handle a major emergency with a bad tooth. But they might be OK for small problems. For a major emergency you will need prescription meds using Ibuprofen and coedine. Even these are only partially helpful.

The best solution is to cancel travel if you feel a toothache coming on. Dont try to tough it out. Serious tooth pain isone ofthe most difficult types of pain to control effectively.

Good luck,
Pete

Ever since reading about the Arrow Electronics disaster in 1980 ( www3.gendisasters.com/new-york/4265/white-plains,-ny-stouffer%2526%2523039%3Bs-hotel-fire,-dec-1980 ) whenever I go into a hotel or other large building for a meeting or an overnight stay I always make sure to do several things (and I have also drilled this into my kids when they were with us).

(1) For a hotel room - first clear the room with a drawn gun.

(2) For a hotel room or a conference/meeting room - walk thru and find the exits. For a room, this means memorizing the direction to the fire exit, and how many doors between my room and the exit. This is because you may be crawling thru a smoke-filled hallway. I've been challenged on several occasions by hotel staff at conferences. The exits in meeting rooms tend to be back in the 'staff only' areas. I just tell them I like to know my way around.

(3) For a hotel room, I leave mt wallet, car keys, flashlight, room card, coat, pants and shoes by the door in case I have to make a quick exit.

ER docs see drug seekers every day, and many complain of dental pain. Therefore, their index of suspicion is very high, and their response to dental pain conservative. Some very smart er guys have learned to do dental blocks with local anesthetic injections, effective for dental pain and disappointing for narcotic seekers. That said, dental pain is awful, and er's are poor places to seek treatment. Your dentist can probably suggest some local emergency dental centers. ER's attached to teaching hospitals with dentistry schools sometimes have emergency dental consultants. Or treat your family dentist really well, and maybe he will give you a cell number.

My EDC flashlight has a "moonlight" mode that doesn't disturb my sleep but makes it easy to find in a blacked out hotel room. I leave it in this mode next to these items.

In a hotel I just keep everything in my pants. Drop it when i go to bed. If there is anything happening i can just jump in my pants (with my wallet, keys, etc) and go.

My phone however is usually charging at night and being my alarm clock.

I was staying in a hotel when the fire alarm went off. It was 2:00 in the afternoon, so I was already dressed. Shoes and briefcase (business trip), out the door, down the hall, down the stairs (3rd floor room), and out the door.

What was really concerning was while I was hauling butt down the hall, most of the hotel residents were just standing in the doorways and gawking.

In my experience, these are the things you will have, and I've been through, while staying at a hotel are:

1) Weird travel schedule - I rarely to arrive at a hotel in time for a decent dinner and often badly jet lagged. Meal replacement bars are better then going for fast food at 10:00 at night or raiding the vending machines. Chewable Dramamine (dimenhydrinate, not meclozine) is the best short term sedative I've found for adjusting my sleep schedule. Meclozine takes about 2 days to work out of your system.

2) Other guests - Egomaniacs, nyphomaniacs, inebriates, missionaries, and abstentee parents who think the entire bleeping hotel is a day care center. Earplugs are NOT optional, and don't park under a balcony if you can help it.

3) Food poisoning - Bring Immodium and Pepto as you will be too sick to go out.

4) Fire alarms - You're in the middle of a city and can buy replacements for what gets left behind. Your wallet, perscription medications, cell phone, valuables, and paperwork for the trip (hotel, rental car, airplane, etc.) needs to be in your BOB/daybag while you're sleeping.

5) Power outages - Flashlights. 'Nuff said.

6) Wardrobe malfunction - Most hotels have irons in the room, but none have a tailor in the hotel. Carry a sewing kit with iron-on repair patches.

It's called 'Milling.' People mill around in a state of ambivalence, normalcy bias inhibiting their survival instinct.

Chaos... my G23 has tritium powered moon glow by Trijicon