How To Get To The Surface If Your Scuba Tank Runs Out Of Air
How To Survive A Tsunami
How To Survive Adrift At Sea
How To Eat At Sea If You’re Allergic To Fish
Rip Currents
Cold Weather
How To Survive Being Stranded In Snow
How To Fish On Ice
How To Treat A Tongue Stuck On A Pole
How To Build A Shelter In The Snow
How To Treat Frostbite
How To Build A Trail In Waist-Deep Snow
Arctic
How To Survive On Ice Until The Rescue Party Arrives
Techniques For Staying Warm In Subzero Temperatures
How To Build An Igloo
Chapter 7 Getting Around Unsafe At Any Speed
Boats
How To Make An Emergency Flotation Device Out Of Your Pants
How To Sail Through A Typhoon
How To Flip An Overturned Kayak
How To Survive Going Down With A Sinking Ship
Survival Time In Water
Trains
How To Maneuver On Top Of A Moving Train And Get Inside
How To Escape From A Stalled Subway Car
How To Stop A Runaway Passenger Train
How To Jump From A Moving Train
Cars
How To Stop A Car With No Brakes
How To Escape From A Car Hanging Over The Edge Of A Cliff
How To Brace For Impact
How To Bail Out Of A Car At High Speeds
How To Survive A Rollover
Car Maneuvering
How To Ram A Car/Barricade
How To Drive Down A Flight Of Stairs
How To Perform A Fast 180-Degree Turn
How To Evade A Pursuing Car
Trapped In The Car
How To Escape From A Sinking Car
Recommended Items Always To Have In The Trunk
How To Escape From The Trunk Of The Car
How To Survive A Family Car Trip
Bicycles
How To Steer Your Bike Down A Rock Face
How To Slow Or Stop With No Brakes
How To Treat Road Rash
Car-Doored
Airplanes
How To Land A Plane
How To Land A Plane On Water
Jet Lag
How To Survive An Airplane Crash
How To Deal With A Canceled Flight
Chapter 8 Oh S#&%T! Extreme Emergencies
Falling From Great Heights
How To Survive A Fall Down A Flight Of Stairs
How To Survive If Your Parachute Doesn’t Open
How To Survive In A Plummeting Elevator
Chemicals
How To Deal With A Suspicious White Powder
How To Survive Acid Rain
Household Chemical Poisons
Explosives
How To Navigate A Minefield
How To Identify And Avoid Minefields
How To Detect A Letter Bomb
Types Of Mines
How To Search For A Bomb
Great Escapes
How To Free Your Leg From A Bear Trap
How To Escape From A Bad Date
How To Escape From Quicksand
Firearms
How To Survive If You Are In The Line Of Gunfire
How To Take A Bullet
How To Treat A Bullet Or Knife Wound
Means Of Bulletproofing
Political Unrest
How To Drive A Tank
How To Survive A Hostage Situation
How To Pass A Bribe
How To Survive A Coup
Nuclear Event
How To Survive Nuclear Fallout
Radiation Exposure Risks
How To Improvise A Nuclear Fallout Shelter
10 Things To Know About Radiation
Zombies
How To Survive A Zombie Attack
Weapons For Killing Zombies
How To Outrun A Pack Of Zombies
Historical Emergencies
How To Survive Being Thrown To The Lions
How To Survive A Joust
How To Prove You’re Not A Witch
How To Fight With Bayonets
How To Survive Death
How To Survive Being Buried Alive
How To Make A Deal With Death
Is Your Pet Really Dead?
How To Beat Death At Chess
How To Survive An Accident In Which You Were Meant To Die
Means Of Communicating With The Dead
How To Tell If You’re Dead
How To Get The Dead To Leave You Alone
Aliens
How To Survive An Alien Abduction
Close Encounters By Kind
How To Thwart An Alien Abduction
How To Make A Tinfoil Hat
Acknowledgments
About The Authors
Copyright
First ask yourself:
What is the worst that can happen?
—Dale Carnegie
Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.
—John Wooden
Be brave. Take risks.
—Paul Coelho
INTRODUCTION
* * *
* * *
And now we have some good news, and some bad news.
Here’s the bad news: The world is more dangerous than ever.
From hurricanes to civil unrest, from global warming to shark attacks, from severed limbs to yoga injuries, it seems as if danger lurks around every corner, beneath every surface, behind every Web page. And the fact that we’ve provided millions of people clear, step-by-step instructions for dealing with life’s sudden turns for the worse doesn’t seem to have decelerated things. If anything, the speed at which life moves these days, thanks to modern technology, has made things even more dangerous.
We still don’t know what’s coming our way, and it’s heading toward us even faster than ever.
Still, here’s the good news: the keys to surviving any of life’s sudden turns for the worse are the same as always—Be Prepared. Don’t Panic. Have a Plan.
And that’s exactly what The Ultimate Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook aims to give you—tools to use and remember. (In addition to the clearest instructions available for surviving everything from jellyfish and zombies to honeymoons and brake failures.)
Be Prepared. This means thinking through what you’ll need to do, take, and learn prior to any adventure or journey you set off on. Heading off into the mountains alone? Be sure to let your friends and family know where you’re going and when you’ll return, and to take the right equipment and supplies. Heading out for a blind date? Be sure you have an escape plan if it turns out to be a disaster. Heading out on a boat trip? Make sure you know how to make an emergency floatation device out of your pants. You’re already tilting the odds in your favor.
Don’t Panic. This means just what it says—don’t freak out when something happens, expected or unexpected. Panicking means you’ll be breathing heavily, which means you’ll be expending unnecessary energy and not getting enough oxygen to your brain and muscles, which means you’ll almost certainly make a mistake, or lose strength or judgment right when you need it the most (as the rhino starts to charge, or as your Powerpoint falters during the biggest presentation of your career). Take three deep breaths (filling your abdomen first, then your chest, then exhaling fully), then act.
Have a Plan. Or, if you don’t have
one in advance, formulate one. And quickly. Use your common sense, your instinct, and the information within this book to plan a course of action. And then be ready with Plan B in case Plan A doesn’t work.
Conveniently, this book contains not only enough Plan As for your journey through life, but also Plans B, C, D, and far down into the alphabet—all from experts in the subjects at hand, as recorded by accomplished journalists and writers. The Ultimate Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook presents new scenarios, illustrations, charts, and the most up-to-date survival tips, and also draws on the most useful information from the full range of the series’ handbooks, almanacs, pocket guides, and other books.
When the time comes—when you’re faced with that act-now-and-get-it-right crisis—we want you to know what to do, and that’s why we’ve written this book. We want you to know all the marine creatures that can kill you without using their teeth, and how you can create a signal fire on a deserted desert island. We want you to be able to find and destroy bedbugs in a hotel room, to be able to bind an alligator’s jaws, and to fend off an attacker—whether the attacker is using a fist, knife, chair, or golf club. And we want you to know how to sneak in late to a meeting and many, many other useful skills.
Because even after a dozen years, and after all the advice we’ve provided, you just never know what life will bring. And we want you to survive!
—The Authors
1
Tooth and Claw
ANIMAL
ENCOUNTERS
ALLIGATORS
* * *
* * *
HOW TO WRESTLE FREE FROM AN ALLIGATOR
1 If you are on land, get on the alligator’s back and put downward pressure on its neck.
This will force its head and jaws down.
2 Cover the alligator’s eyes.
This will usually make it more sedate.
3 Go for the eyes and nose.
If you are attacked, use any weapon you have, or your fist.
4 If its jaws are closed on something you want to remove (a limb), tap or punch it on the snout.
Alligators often open their mouth when tapped lightly. They may drop whatever it is they have taken hold of and back off.
5 If the alligator gets you in its jaws, you must prevent it from shaking you or from rolling over—these instinctual actions cause severe tissue damage.
Try to keep the mouth clamped shut so the alligator does not begin shaking.
6 Seek medical attention immediately, even for a small cut or bruise, to treat infection.
Alligators have a huge number of pathogens in their mouths.
To get an alligator to release something it has in its mouth, tap it on the snout.
An alligator more than nine feet long is likely to be male, and males tend to be more aggressive.
—Bill Finger, professional alligator breeder
The immediate danger zone is within 15 feet of the alligator.
HOW TO RETRIEVE AN OBJECT NEAR AN ALLIGATOR
1 Determine the size of the alligator.
Although even small alligators can cause injury, those less than four feet long are not as dangerous to humans. If the alligator is larger than six feet, be especially wary, as a bite can inflict major damage. Alligators larger than nine feet should be considered deadly.
2 Calculate the distance from the alligator to the object. The immediate danger zone is within 15 feet of an alligator.
3 Try to determine if the alligator sees the object. Alligators are attracted to objects that appear to be food.
4 Do not stand between the alligator and water.
If disturbed, an alligator on land will seek refuge in water. Make sure the alligator is between you and any nearby water.
5 Make a loud noise.
Alligators are sensitive to loud noises. Yelling or screaming may cause the animal to leave. If the alligator does not move, however, you will have gained its attention.
6 Use a long branch, pole, or golf ball retriever to recover the object.
The alligator may lunge and bite at objects that invade its space.
7 Quickly move away from the alligator’s territory.
After retrieving the object, or if you encounter difficulties, run. While alligators can move fast—they rely on surprise when attacking their usual prey—they generally will travel only short distances and probably cannot outrun an adult human.
WARNING!
Alligators are native only to the United States and China. They are commonly found in the southwestern United Sates, primarily the Gulf Coast states but as far north as North Carolina.
You are most likely to be attacked in or at the edge of water.
The top speed of large alligators is around 10 miles per hour.
Be especially wary during spring months, when alligators wander in search of mates, and during late summer, when eggs hatch. Mother alligators will respond aggressively to threats to their young, and any adult alligator may come to the aid of any youngster.
Do not assume any alligator is safe to approach. While some animals may be habituated to the presence of humans, alligators are wild animals and therefore unpredictable: they may attack without provocation.
HOW TO BIND AN ALLIGATOR’S JAWS
1 Approach the alligator from behind.
2 Straddle the creature’s back.
Wrap your knees firmly around the midsection of the alligator.
3 Crawl your way up to the head.
4 Cover the alligator’s eyes with a cloth.
Use a thick piece of fabric or your own clothing to drape over the eyes of the beast.
5 Push the alligator’s snout down to close its mouth.
Lean forward and press firmly down on the snout until the mouth is tightly closed.
Wrap the tape six times around the snout.
Who Has the Most Bite?
whale 0
red-bellied piranha 20, in two rows of 10 (the sharpest teeth in the world)
lion 30: four canine, four carnassial, the rest conical
human being 32
sloth bear 40
bear 42, including four canines and 12 incisors
saltwater crocodile 68 to 70
alligator 80 to 88
giant armadillo up to 100
gavial (fish-eating crocodile) 102
long-spouted spinner dolphin up to 252
great white shark up to 3,000 in five rows (the scariest mouth)
snail 10,000 to 30,000 (toothlike structures called radulae)
6 Clamp the jaws.
Press down with your thumbs on the top and hold your fingers tightly underneath. The muscles that alligators use to open their jaws are actually quite weak, so it is possible to hold the mouth shut with bare hands.
7 Take out your binding material.
Maintaining your grip on the gator’s snout with one hand, grab your duct tape and tug free a two-foot strip with your teeth.
8 Wind the tape six times around the alligator’s snout.
WARNING!
Lacking duct tape, you should bind the jaws of an alligator with rope, belt, thick cloth (heavy shirt or pants), or any other material that can be tied and knotted.
Never approach an alligator head-on when its mouth is open.
CHARGING ANIMALS
* * *
* * *
A charging rhino may avoid a noisy target.
HOW TO ESCAPE FROM A CHARGING RHINO
Climb a tree.
Run for scrub.
A rhino probably will not follow you into thick scrub brush. Get as far in as possible. Adrenaline will prevent you from noticing the painful thorns until you try to get out.
Average Speed of Charging Animals
ANIMAL TOP SPEED
Asian elephant 15 mph
hippo 20 mph
African elephant 25 mph
grizzly bear 35 mph
wolf 35 mph
rhino 35 mph
coyote 40 mph
horse 50
mph
moose 50 mph
pronghorn antelope 61 mph
duck and goose 70 mph
cheetah 72 mph
peregrine falcon 200 mph and up in full swoop
Stand your ground and shout.
If no tree or scrub is available to allow your escape, stand and face the animal (rhinos have poor eyesight but are attracted to movement). As the rhino approaches, scream and shout as loud as you can. A charging rhino may veer away from a noisy target.
Run in the opposite direction.
A rhino will continue running in the same direction when it is charging and is not likely to turn around and come back for another attack. Once you have evaded the charge and the rhino has veered off, run in the opposite direction.
WARNING!
A surprised or startled rhino’s first instinct is to charge a threat, whether real or imagined.
A mother rhino will aggressively defend a calf by charging any and all threats.
Rhinos can climb steep slopes and will also charge into water or mud.
A rhino will charge and attack a vehicle and may chase one for more than a mile. A large male (5,000 pounds or more) can easily knock over a car.
African black rhinos are generally considered the most dangerous and likely to charge, though white and Indian rhinos will also charge. Javan and Sumatran rhinos are smaller, shier, forest dwelling, and considered less dangerous to humans.
A white rhino’s anterior (front) horn can be as long as 62 inches.