Survival Myths?

Hi! Do any of you know of any survival myths that's been circulating around? Here are some that I know of:

1. Save up water.
2. Tampons can be used to heal bullet wounds.
3. Suck out snake venom if you're ever bitten by one.
4. You can get water from a cactus.

 

They are not myths!
Save up water, yes collect it, you will die without it! but be smart with it, don't die of thirst with a full canteen!

Tampons make a reasonable packing medium for wounds they will not heal anything!

Sucking snake venom don't work but it can make the victim feel better!

Yes you can get water from some castus but the amounts and quality varies from acceptable to poisonous!

 

Cut a x on fang marks. ASAP AND SUCK OUT SOME MAKE IT BLEED FREELY FOR A BIT THEN RESTRICT BLOOD FLOW GET ON ANTI VENOM ASASP

Nope complete waste of time!
Bandage firm and transport to hospital
if no hospital
Bandage firm and leave, care for victims needs!

A much overlooked or just plain not known thing is
Snake venom is biodegradable, over several days it breaksdown!
If no hospital bind and leave! unbind after three days
Victim will still get sick but unlikely to die! with full recovery in time depending on venom!

 

An emergency aid tutor once told us that it takes up to 8 hours for a typical viper's venom to kill anyone. Of course that also depends on how big that person is, and it hurts like fresh hell the entire time.

Other kinds of snakes might have differently acting poisons, such as the Black Mamba that can make you collapse in 45 minutes or less. In this case antivenom is crucial. The victim dies in 7-15 hours but when you're lights-out in the wild, you won't likely make it to safety in time. Sure, you won't see this snake in any place other than sub-Saharan Africa, but it serves as a good example.

Basicaly what they do at the hospital is:

1) Treat the symptom accordingly: if you have a fever, you counter the fever, if you have pain then you take painmeds, etc. (Although most likely the pain won't go away no matter what opiods you ingest, because tissue-dessecation pain travels to the brain through many different pathways, and painkillers can't inhibit them all.)

and 2) Identify the snake that caused the bite to determine if they need to put the victim in antivenom IV immediately, as is the case with Black Mamba bites.

Note that they only use antivenom if the victim is deemed incapable of detoxing the venom through their own liver, as antivenoms can create severe allergic reactions to some people.

 

- You can use condoms for carrying water. Claims have it that they can carry 2 liters of water but question is how far would you get with that water if there's no other support given?

- Travel Light
Traveling light though convenient it might be means that you'll leave a lot of things behind. Odds are you might not pack things that will keep you warm at night and you'll freeze . . .

 

I work in a hospital and I've seen people with chronic nose bleeds have a tampon-like pad stuck up their nose to pack it and absorb the blood so I guess it could do the same for other kinds of wounds.

 

I remember one about how you could eat snow to re-hydrate yourself but it isn't a very good idea. Eating the snow can dehydrate you even further because your body has to go through the process of heating it up, then you have to shiver since it makes you colder and you have to expend more heat to warm yourself up again. If the snow has been on the ground for a while it could have bacteria in it and you can probably guess how that would make you lose more fluid. I do know that if you have a fire that you could just melt the snow and drink it but it's a much better idea to boil the water just to be safe.