11 Critical Survival Skills That Could Save Your Life
First
Aid
CPR
Stop Bleed
Treat
Water
Build
Shelter
Find
Food
Build
Fire
Navigate
area
Signal
Help
Knot
Tying
Emergency Preparedness & Survival Resources
Knots
Health
First Aid
The only thing that could make a survival situation more difficult is going about it with an injury. On the contrary, an injury could be what puts you in a survival situation. So, having a solid understanding of first aid can prevent further complications or improve your situation until advanced help is available.
Here are a few first aid techniques for survival skills to consider learning today.
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Basic wound closure
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Blister care
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Trauma treatment
Trauma Treatment & Bleeding
Traumatic wounds are defined as sudden acute (ripped or torn skin), cuts or lacerations, and puncture wounds (penetrating, stabbing, or gunshot). Blood loss is a grave concern for someone whose endured a traumatic wound. Significant blood loss is a life-threatening situation, and if that loss occurs quickly, loss of life can follow.
Knowing trauma treatment and bleeding survival skills could prevent loss of life and increase healing.
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Application of a tourniquet: In an emergency, a tourniquet limits the quantity of blood that can flow through blood arteries by applying pressure to them, which helps slow or stop excessive bleeding.
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Severe bleeding: Professional emergency responders may not always be able to reach the scene immediately, so it's important to know the basics of how to stop blood loss and save a life
First Aid
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, is a life-saving method used to maintain consciousness in patients experiencing sudden cardiac arrest and other situations until advanced medical treatment is available.
Learning CPR is a vital survival skill that gives you the information, self-assurance, and abilities to help someone in need and remain composed in a medical emergency.
Benefits of Taking a CPR, AED or First Aid Course
Be prepared: Protect your loved ones
Be confident: Act with hands-on training
Peace of mind: Know how to handle emergencies
Help your community: Use lifesaving skills when needed
Trauma Treatment & Bleeding
It only takes a moment. A child or weak swimmer could drown in the time it takes to reply to a text, check a fishing line, or apply sunscreen. The necessity of water safety in all activities involving water is highlighted by this sobering reality.
Increasing water competency — including swimming abilities, water smarts, and aiding others — can prevent emergencies but also increase your survival skills in any water situation.
Water Purification
Water is necessary for wilderness survival or any survival situation with limited water supply. Wild water sources can have harmful viruses and pathogens that could cause waterborne illnesses. Purifying water can be challenging if you have little to no gear. If you don’t have tablets, iodine drops, or a UV light purifier, boiling water may be a good solution. Knowing how to handle this situation — like what water is safe to cook, how long, and how to make a pot if you don’t have one — is an invaluable survival skill.
Some Purification Options:
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Boil
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Disinfect with Bleach
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Using chemical tablets or drops to disinfect
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UV light
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Solar disinfection
Click the button below to find out more about disinfecting methods and download the infographic.
Additional resources are linked below.
Signaling
Signaling is your lifeline when it comes to an emergency or wilderness sports survival skills. How you signal may differ depending on the situation and available resources.
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Mirror: A small mirror or reflective surface against the sun can make you immediately noticeable to any help in the sky.
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Emergency Blankets: These survival blankets feature a reflective surface that acts as a signaling device in addition to retaining heat and providing shelter.
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Morse code: Knowing a few key phrases in Morse code can benefit survival moments.
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Signage: Building a large SOS sign out of rocks or sticks can be effective if you are in a clearing and likely to be seen from the sky.
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Smoke and fire: Fire is a preferable signal method at night or in low-light conditions. But fires should only be used in a controlled area and not directly in the camp.
Navigation
Navigating without technology is one of the most essential survival skills. Using a compass (which helps navigators determine where north, south, east, and west are) and a map isn’t just a good survival skill for wilderness sports like hiking or backpacking. Being able to navigate is an essential survival skill for finding your way in emergencies.
Shelter Building
Shelter should be a top priority when you find yourself in an extended survival situation. You may not have the ability or resources to set up a complete camp, but building a shelter of any type limits your exposure to natural elements — which can be dangerous, even in weather that isn't harsh. A lack of shelter can make it difficult to maintain body temperature, leading to hypothermia.
Additionally, shelters create a barrier from predators and offer a sense of security. There are a few things to consider regarding shelter-building survival skills.
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Find a suitable location: Look for a nearby water source and access to trees for firewood as well as potential food sources you can hunt or trap.
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Use natural materials for your shelter: Look for grass and other soft materials that you can use to sleep inside your shelter. Rocks help build the structure of a shelter and surround a fire.
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Construct your shelter: Create a small framework that can be piled high with available debris like moss, ferns, grasses, leaves, and pine needles. Pack the inside of the shelter with debris, and the entrance is sealed to prevent convective heat loss.
Equipment Needed
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Tarp
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Paracord
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Knife
To Make a Ghost Hitch:
Fig. 1. First, fill the corner of your tarp with gravel or a small rock.
Fig. 2. Then tie it together with a hitch.
Steps for a Simple Shelter
- Pick an area with 2 good trees or objects to tie a line to
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Check the area for dead trees that could fall on you
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Clear the area of sticks and small rocks that could make sleeping uncomfortable
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Tie your Taught line with your paracord
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First, tie your static hitch
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Then tie your movable truckers hitch
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Drape tarp over the taught line
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Tie a double hitch to rocks and then to the corners of your tarp to hold down the ends (if you do not have eyelets on your tarp you can use a ghost hitch — see below)
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Move the rocks until the walls of your shelter are tight
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If needed, add more rocks to the corners to make sure they don’t move even in high winds
Important Knots to Know
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Single Half Hitch and Double Half Hitch - Half hitches are quick, easy knots that work great to tie one thing to another.
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Truckers Hitch - A truckers hitch is a great knot for setting up a very tight line. Great for making a shelter or tying down kayaks.
Foraging and hunting for edible food and water are vital survival skills. You can live up to three days without water and one week without food. While nature does afford many natural resources for food and water, understanding what is safe to eat — berries and edible plants — is an essential survival skill. Otherwise, you may find yourself in a more severe situation fast.
Foraging & Hunting
Building a Fire
If building a shelter is a top priority for survival skills, building and keeping a fire is easily the second. A fire provides warmth, light, and a source of cooking food. It can also be used as a signal for rescue, if necessary, and to ward off predators.
Starting and maintaining a fire can be challenging, especially in wet or cold conditions, unless you know how to do this proficiently, so learning and practicing this survival skill is vital.
There are many different methods to lighting a fire. Some of the standard tools found in emergency preparedness kits include:
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Ferrocerium Rod (ferro rod)
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Flint stone & scraper
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Fire starter
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Flint
While each tool works similarly, users should review the instructions for their specific tool.
A step-by-step guide to lighting a fire using ferro rod fire starter
1. Prepare the materials needed: Make sure that you have an area cleared of potentially flammable items, such as dead leaves or combustible materials, and ensure that you have plenty of kindling material available. Have everything you need nearby so that you can quickly light the fire.
2. Prepare the area: Find some dry, fluffy material that will ignite easily, such as dryer lint, cotton balls, or birch bark. Position the kindling in a “teepee” shape around the found tinder with some space at the base for air circulation. You can also build a small ring of rocks to contain the fire.
3. Light the kindling: Take the ferro rod and hold it in your non-dominant hand. Hold the striker or scraper in your dominant hand. Position the ferro rod so that the striker is at a 45-degree angle to the rod. Use the striker to strike the ferro rod with a quick, firm motion. The rod will produce a shower of sparks that will ignite the tinder. The flames will then ignite the kindling placed around it which in turn should set off enough heat to keep your fire going without requiring regular refueling from additional burnables.
4. Keep fanning your flame: Gently blow on the kindling to help it catch fire. To keep it alight, feed oxygen into your bonfire using kindling as fuel and by using a small bellow if necessary. Additionally, fanning more air into it helps produce bigger flames which can easily burn items faster than non-fanned fires do; hence why larger items like logs or branches come in handy when trying to start fires quickly though inevitably they will still need oxygenation via bellows or fanning for extended periods of use after being lit up initially.
