The Scout's Guide to Wilderness Survival and First Aid: 400 Essential Skills—Signal for Help, Build a Shelter, Emergency Response, Treat Wounds, Stay Warm, Gather Resources (A Licensed Product of the Boy Scouts of America®)

By J. Wayne Fears and Grant S. Lipman

2 books in 1 at a value price!

Be Prepared! Time-tested advice on emergency preparedness. An official publication of the Boy Scouts of America!

Each year hundreds of outdoor enthusiasts find themselves in an unexpected outdoor emergency. They get lost, injured, or stranded. Cut off from the rest of the world, they have to depend upon their survival skills to survive.
 
For most people, thanks to modern communications such as cell phones, satellite messengers, and personal locator beacons (PLB), it is merely a sobering two- or three-hour adventure. However, for some who did not take the proper precautions before they left home or do not have survival skills, it can end in tragedy.

The Scout's Handbook for Wilderness Survival and First Aid offers practical advice to help with:

• Building a fire
• Purifying water
• Identifying common edible plants and mushrooms
• Signaling for help
• Building simple shelters
• Practical navigation skills
• Treating wounds
• Responding in a medical emergency
• And so much more!

Since 1910, the Boy Scouts of America has helped build the future leaders of this country by combining educational activities and lifelong values with fun. The BSA is committed to training youth in responsible citizenship, character development, and self-reliance through participation in a wide range of outdoor activities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Release date: Jul 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781510778054

J. Wayne Fears

J. Wayne Fears is a wildlife biologist by training who has organized big-game hunting camps, guided canoe trips, and run commercial getaway operations. Former editor of Rural Sportsman magazine, he has written more than more than twenty books on a variety of subjects ranging from cabin building (including How to Build Your Dream Cabin in the Woods) to survival (The Pocket Outdoor Survival Guide) to cookbooks (including The Complete Book of Dutch Oven Cooking), and more than four thousand articles for major outdoors magazines. A member of the International Dutch Oven Society and an accomplished writer and skilled outdoorsman, Fears lives in Cross Creek Hallow, Alabama.

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Text Copyright © 2018, 2023 by J. Wayne Fears

Illustrations Copyright © 2018, 2023 by Rod Walinchusy

All images © by J. Wayne Fears, unless otherwise indicated

Logo Copyright © 2018, 2023 The Boy Scouts of America®

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018. Printed under license from the Boy Scouts of America® to Skyhorse Publishing. For more information on the Boy Scouts of America® program, visit www.scouting.org.

Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [e-mail].

Skyhorse® and Skyhorse Publishing® are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

Visit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Kai Texel

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-7692-0

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-7805-4

Printed in China

Portions of this book were previously published as The Scouting Guide to Wilderness First Aid (ISBN: 978-1-5107-3971-0) and The Scouting Guide to Survival (ISBN: 978-1-5107-3774-7).

CONTENTS

PART I: WILDERNESS SURVIVAL

Introduction

Chapter 1: Rescue Is Usually Quick

Chapter 2: Before You Go

Chapter 3: Be Equipped for Unexpected Weather

Chapter 4: This Two-Pound Survival Kit Could Save Your Life

Chapter 5: Survival Priorities

Chapter 6: Managing Fear

Chapter 7: Seek or Construct a Shelter

Chapter 8: Build a Survival Fire

Chapter 9: Signal for Help

Chapter 10: Safe Water Is Essential

Chapter 11: Food: Not a Necessity

Chapter 12: Importance of Getting Sleep

Chapter 13: Dealing with Insects and Spiders

Chapter 14: Potential Dangers

Chapter 15: Survive a Vehicle Stranding

Chapter 16: Downed Aircraft Survival

Chapter 17: Surviving Various Environments

Chapter 18: When a Member of Your Group Is Missing

Appendix I

Appendix II

PART II: FIRST AID

Introduction

Chapter 1: Assessment System/CPR

Chapter 2: Abdominal Pain

Chapter 3: Allergic Reactions and Anaphylaxis

Chapter 4: Altitude Illness

Chapter 5: Blisters

Chapter 6: Burns

Chapter 7: Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)

Chapter 8: Chest Pain

Chapter 9: Chest Trauma

Chapter 10: Dental Pain

Chapter 11: Diabetic Emergencies

Chapter 12: Drowning

Chapter 13: Eyes, Ears, Nose, and Throat

Chapter 14: Female Genital Problems

Chapter 15: Frostbite

Chapter 16: Head Injury

Chapter 17: Heat Illness

Chapter 18: Hypothermia

Chapter 19: Infectious Disease

Chapter 20: Lightning

Chapter 21: Lung Problems

Chapter 22: Male Genital Problems

Chapter 23: Musculoskeletal Injuries

Chapter 24: Nervous System

Chapter 25: Skin Irritation

Chapter 26: Toxins, Bites, and Stings

Chapter 27: Trauma

Chapter 28: Wound Care

Appendix A. Medication Information

Appendix B. Evacuation Information

Appendix C. First-Aid Kit

DISCLAIMER

It is the responsibility of the reader to take a wilderness first aid or equivalent training course, as the information contained in this book is not intended as a substitution for a course or practical experience. To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Author nor the Publisher assumes any liability for any injury, disability, death, and/or damage to persons or property resulting from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.

PART I

WILDERNESS SURVIVAL

INTRODUCTION

Each year hundreds of American outdoor enthusiasts find themselves in an unexpected outdoor emergency. They get lost, injured, or stranded and suddenly find themselves cut off from the rest of the world. They suddenly have to depend upon their survival skills to survive. For most people, thanks to modern communications such as cell phones, satellite messengers, and personal locator beacons (PLB), it is merely a sobering two- or three-hour adventure. In fact, with today’s high-tech methods of search and rescue, the majority of missing people are found within twenty-four hours, some a sobering seventy-two hours, after they have been reported missing. However, for some who did not take the proper precautions before they left home or do not have survival skills, it can end in tragedy.

Anyone who travels into the backcountry areas near home or deep into the wilderness needs a good working knowledge of basic survival skills. Also, those who travel through, or fly over, unpopulated areas need survival skills. The same can be said for those who venture out onto large bodies of water. Chances are good they will never become stranded in these situations, but if it happens to you, then it is a 100 percent chance.

One of the first questions I hear when conducting survival seminars is this: Why should anyone learn survival skills? Then they challenge: This is the twenty-first century. Wilderness survival is no longer needed.

Few people go into a state park, national forest, or even the woods behind their home expecting to need survival skills. That it-will-never-happen-to-me attitude gets untold numbers of people into serious trouble each year. All too often they are found dead near snowbound automobiles, in desert sands, on mountain slopes, near downed aircraft, and in the woods near their homes. They succumb to hypothermia, are struck by lightning, or drown in flash floods. Many panic and start running, often over cliffs. Sometimes they simply lie down and die because of overwhelming fear and the lack of the will to live.

A canoe overturn in swift water can leave the occupants in a survival situation quickly.

A vast majority of people in our technological society think they will never find themselves suddenly cut off from the rest of the world. But the news media often carry stories about people who suffer and die because they don’t have even the basic survival skills to keep themselves alive in an emergency. The truth is, a survival crisis can confront anyone suddenly, without warning.

I have spent most of my life in the outdoors studying the challenges of survival. Because of the nature of my career, I’ve seen both sides of the coin. I have been caught in severe survival situations, and have been on many search-and-rescue missions. Much of what I have learned is in this book.

This book takes to heart the Boy Scout motto of Be Prepared! In it we approach the subject of survival from a preparedness standpoint, rather than a collection of pioneering skills and neat tricks that you can’t remember, or get to work, when you really need them. I advise the reader that spending time and energy building traps and snares are an unreliable way of getting food if you lack trapping savvy and an above-average knowledge of your quarry. You will not find pages of flowering wild plants that are edible because they may not grow where you find yourself in an emergency, and if they do it would probably be in the dead of winter when the plant would be impossible to identify or locate.

This hunter wisely decided to make a comfortable camp and await rescue rather than attempt to walk out.

This book takes a realistic approach to the subject of survival. Throughout, I stress preparing for the unexpected, beginning before you leave home. My aim is to prepare you, both physically and mentally, to survive those critical first seventy-two hours. The keys are to learn that an emergency can befall you and then know what to do. I hope you will encourage other members of your troop, Explorer Post, family, and friends to learn these skills as well.

The survival training I received from both the Army and the Air Force emphasized eight basic points of survival that have helped get me through many survival situations. As a memory jog, the following acrostic, using the word SURVIVAL, helps in recalling these points, several of which appear over and over again in this book.

Size up the situation

Undue haste makes waste

Remember where you are

Vanquish fear and panic

Improvise

Value living

Act like the natives

Learn basic survival skills

SURVIVAL TRAINING PAYS

Several years ago, when I was working as a wildlife manager in Georgia, I helped lead a search for a missing hunter in the rugged mountains along the Georgia-North Carolina boundary. We were told that this hunter had little hunting experience but had received extensive survival training. In a blinding rainstorm, it took us two days to find the lost hunter. Much to our surprise, when we found him he had almost established a comfortable homestead.

When he first realized he was lost, he stopped walking and picked an opening in the dense woods to establish a survival camp. He immediately put out ground-to-air signals. Realizing bad weather was on the way, he built a shelter under some overhanging rocks that kept him dry and out of the wind. He gathered plenty of firewood and stored it in his shelter. Next, he built a fire, complete with a green log reflector, to keep his shelter warm. It was his fire that led to his being found. The hunter’s survival camp was so comfortable that those of us in the search team used it for an overnight rest before packing out the next morning.

Due to his survival training, he lived comfortably through a two-day storm. He stayed positive and worked toward being found. He used the resources at hand to make a survival camp. Will you be like this hunter if your time to spend an unplanned night or two in the woods comes?

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

1. When you first get this book, sit down and READ it. Think about what you are reading and how it can apply to you and your outings.

2. Reread the chapter on making your survival kit and make a list of the items you need to purchase to put together your own survival kit.

3. On a weekend when you want to do something that is fun and educational, take your survival kit into the woods and spend the night using the items in the kit. Upon completion of the overnight test, be sure to replace any items that may be difficult to repack into a compact package. This exercise may suggest items you will want in your survival kit that my list did not include. Remember it is YOUR survival kit, so modify it to meet your needs.

4. This book does not go into navigational skills. I feel this requires training that, like first aid, you should have before you start going into the backcountry. If you haven’t had training in the proper use of your GPS and map and compass, get it ASAP. Learn to use both to travel cross country. It can keep you from ever needing this book.

5. This book does not go into first-aid skills. It is my belief that everyone who ventures into the backcountry should have successfully taken a Red Cross first aid course. Also, those who have special medical conditions should be skilled in handling them in remote emergencies.

6. Be sure to you always practice the information found in the chapter titled Before You Go. This will keep your time in a survival situation short.

7. If you find yourself in a lost or stranded situation, stop, sit down, think, remain calm, don’t panic, and plan to stay put. By getting control of yourself in these first few minutes, you have increased your survival chances by 50 percent.

8. When you first realize you are in trouble is the time to STOP!

9. As a Maine game warden once said, Even in today’s modern world, there are many trappers and guides who spend the night in the woods with little more than what is found in a basic survival kit. They spend their lives doing it. Relax. You may even enjoy your unplanned stay in the woods.

Finally, the purpose of this book is to help you prepare for that unplanned night or nights in the woods. With the proper preparation for an outdoor activity, there should be little reason for a survival emergency. But if it should be your time to have to survive several days, this book will have you prepared to do it with style. Survival knowledge and training pays off when the chips are down. Remember, the best survival kit you have is your mind. Feed it survival knowledge, and it will be ready when that knowledge is needed.

Be Prepared!

1

RESCUE IS USUALLY QUICK

With today’s means of communications and transportation, few emergencies go unnoticed for long. Once the word goes out that a person is missing, even in remote areas search crews usually arrive on the scene within a few hours.

SEARCH AND RESCUE SATELLITE AIDED TRACKING

Around the world . . . around the clock . . . the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stands watch. As an integral part of worldwide search and rescue, NOAA operates the Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking (SARSAT) system to detect and locate mariners, aviators, and recreational enthusiasts with Personal Locator Beacons (PLB) in distress almost anywhere in the world, at any time, and in almost any condition.

The SARSAT system uses NOAA satellites in low-earth and geostationary orbits as well as GPS satellites in medium-earth orbit to detect and locate aviators, mariners, and land-based users in distress. The satellites relay distress signals from emergency beacons to a network of ground stations and ultimately to the US Mission Control Center (USMCC) in Suitland, Maryland. The USMCC processes the distress signal and alerts the appropriate search-and-rescue authorities to who is in distress and, more important, where they are located. Truly, SARSAT takes the search out of search and rescue!

Individual situations such as plane crashes, automobile breakdowns, snakebites, stranded boats, or missing persons are usually brief if the simple precautions given in this book have been taken. If you have taken the time and precaution to file a trip plan with responsible adults before your outing, then you will not go unnoticed for very long if you do not return on time or if you have a medical emergency. This will begin a series of reactions that will result in your being rescued quickly. If this one rule of common sense–to file a trip plan–were followed more often, fewer people would die and most would be rescued in hours rather than days each year.

Modern technology uses satellites to locate an emergency beacon’s exact location.

One of the most common and dangerous fears most lost or stranded people have is that no one will know to come looking for them. If you have followed the steps in the next chapter of this book, then you can put this fear to rest, as trained people will be looking for you soon. If you stay put once you realize you are lost or stranded, then you will be found in a short period of time. Trying to walk out, panicking, and running will work against you; it will take much longer for rescuers to find you. For every hour a lost person walks, the search area grows four times larger. You should stay put and wait to be found!

HERE IS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW IT WORKS

A search starts quickly when someone is reported missing to local authorities. In most cases this is the county sheriff, district forest ranger, or conservation officer. If it is a boat not returning from an offshore trip on large bodies of water, the Coast Guard will launch a search-and-rescue mission.

Today the National Park Service, many rural fire departments, sheriff departments, and other agencies have experienced search and rescue teams that have received formal training in search and rescue organization and techniques. They know how to respond quickly to a missing person emergency, no matter the terrain or weather. Also available for search and rescue are valuable resources such as trained search dogs, fast-water rescue teams, high-angle rescue teams, and helicopters with thermal imaging capability.

Early in the search, specially trained dogs may be used to trail a missing person.

When the missing outdoor person report is turned in, the first step usually taken is that a search boss is designated. This is someone with experience and training in searches in the backcountry. He sets up the search organization and priorities. He will quickly protect the site where the person was last seen, set up a search headquarters, and interview those people who were last with the missing person, or who know the person well.

Protecting the last seen area keeps well-meaning people from destroying tracks and important signs that expert trackers will need for tracking the lost person.

The interview with the missing person’s friends/family is most important, as this is where the search boss learns much about the missing person. If a trip plan has been left with someone, it will cut down on the time it takes to get an organized search started. They will have a good idea where to search.

The interviewer will be looking for detailed information on the missing person. This would include the person’s name, address, description, clothing worn, boot type (sole information is important to trackers), age, equipment he has with him, medical condition (including medications), experience in the outdoors, physical condition, personality traits, and so on. All of this information is important to experienced searchers because it tells them a lot about where to look for the missing person.

Aircraft are often used to quickly locate lost or stranded people.

Usually the first searchers on the search are trackers with dogs and a hasty team. The hasty team is made up of highly specialized people who go into the most likely areas the missing person is believed to be. This is the reason to stay put when you first realize you are lost.

At the same time, lookouts and road-check teams are posted. Lookouts are located at observation points in the search area, and road-search teams ride roads near the search area looking, and listening, for the missing person.

Aircraft, often with specialized equipment, will be brought into the search as quickly as possible. From this point on, the search boss may set up grid searches supervised by professionals, using volunteers.

Many lost people fear that searchers will only look for a few hours and give up, thinking the missing person is dead. This is not true. Most search bosses have a method of estimating how long the missing person can survive under the local conditions and then plan to search three times that long, if needed. Search efforts go far beyond reasonable expectations.

Lost and stranded people should never give up hope, for the search will go on until you are rescued. How fast the search begins depends upon how well you prepared before you went into the woods!

SAR North of the Border

Due to its vast size and range of environments, Canada relies on a diverse group of government, military, volunteer, academic, and industry partners to provide overall search and rescue (SAR) services to the public. SAR is a shared responsibility among federal, provincial/territorial, and municipal organizations, as well as air, ground, and maritime volunteer SAR organizations. There is a distinct organizational difference between the responsibility for ground SAR (GSAR) and that of aeronautical and maritime SAR.

The National Search and Rescue Program (NSP) is a Canada-wide horizontal program that integrates organizations and resources involved in the provision of search and rescue services to Canadians, including SAR response and prevention. The responsibility for the NSP resides within Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada, through the National Search and Rescue Secretariat (NSS). The NSS’s role is to serve