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Thread: Survival myths, what not to do!

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    Resident Wildman Wildthang's Avatar
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    Default Survival myths, what not to do!

    I cannot remember a thread here that simply lists all of the survival myths that abound on the internet. Thought we might compile all of the myths for the new members.

    Myth 1. Your #1 priority is food. Not correct, water and shelter is the main priority in a survival situation.

    Myth 2. Suck the poison out of a snake bite. This doesn't work!

    Myth 3. Eat snow for hydration. Not correct, lowers core temperature and makes you colder!

    Myth 4. Drinking Booze will warm you up. Not correct, it only affects your body's ability to stay warm!
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    Senior Member Antonyraison's Avatar
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    I will add a Myth, that Bear Grylls likes to push as fact.

    Myth 5. You can drink your own urine to hydrate. Not correct people survive inspite of it It likely will dehydrate you, you need to actually evaporate the water out of the urine using a solar still, then you can drink that water.
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    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    6. Moss grows on the north side of a tree.

    7. Water will be pure after it flows across 7 rocks. That used to be a real common one around here.

    8. A shotgun is only useful out to 25 yards. Big internet myth of the mall nunja!
    If you didn't bring jerky what did I just eat?

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    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    9) You can survive anywhere with a BigAZZ knife....as long if it's the Best.
    10 Don't pizz intp the wind....Oh wait, that one is true.
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    Senior Member Antonyraison's Avatar
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    11) Snakes are blind. Nope not at all.
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    Senior Member Antonyraison's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hunter63 View Post
    9) You can survive anywhere with a BigAZZ knife....as long if it's the Best.
    10 Don't pizz intp the wind....Oh wait, that one is true.
    hhahahah your comment made me think of this video:
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    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    Yup...That's one of them......
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    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    For all practical purposes you-tube did exist, it was called the "infomercial".
    If you didn't bring jerky what did I just eat?

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    Resident Wildman Wildthang's Avatar
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    LOL is that guy serious in the Youtube video?
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    12. I don't need to know that, I have a smart phone.
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    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by crashdive123 View Post
    12. I don't need to know that, I have a smart phone.
    12 a) No Ship.....
    Guy on another forum (what?) was relating that after the attack in London.....Police were only letting people out of the area with a picture ID....
    Recommended putting ID on your phone......
    "See officer.... that is my ID here on my phone....Oh my battery went dead?.....
    "This some kind of a joke?.....On the ground, hands behind your head"
    Bhohahaha
    Last edited by hunter63; 06-08-2017 at 07:13 PM.
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    When the big one hits and everybody dies I'm heading to the woods. (Hey...everybody dies, get it? That pretty much includes you.)

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    Senior Member WalkingTree's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Antonyraison View Post
    I will add a Myth, that Bear Grylls likes to push as fact.

    Myth 5. You can drink your own urine to hydrate. Not correct people survive inspite of it It likely will dehydrate you, you need to actually evaporate the water out of the urine using a solar still, then you can drink that water.
    You beat me to this one, but I was wanting to elaborate on it anyway so that someone coming here anew who doesn't know better one way or the other can have a deeper understanding versus just taking our's or another's word for it...

    Imagine a compilation of conversations into one that I've had with other people -

    "If I had to, I'd be willing to drink my own piss to survive (translation - because I'm a tough guy)."

    "No, don't do that. That's a bad idea. Ideas like that are spread around, by folks like that Bear Grylls guy on T.V., but it's wrong."

    "I think that I'm going to trust my doctor more than you. Besides, your urine is sterile and safe to drink, it has some nutrients that your body needs, people have been using urine for a long time for various purposes which bring many benefits, your urine is mostly such-and-such percent water (a high percentage), and there have been people who survived lost in the wilderness by drinking their own piss."

    ...So, let's look at each of the things in that last sentence one by one:


    - There are good reasons why we seek second and third opinions from a second and third car mechanic, lawyer, yard work guy...and the same goes with doctors. I don't know as much or more than a doctor...but I also know that a doctor doesn't know everything, every doctor doesn't know what every other doctor knows, and there are many factors influencing what a doctor tells you other than just the simple facts assuming that those facts are the most educated and up to date facts. It's good to listen to a doctor...but it's better to understand a thing yourself to some extent instead of just taking people's word for things. (Also, I'd like to know exactly what the doctor really told this person and in what conversational context.)

    - Urine being sterile, and safe to drink in that respect, is 100% irrelevant to a survival-hydration situation. They are two completely different things. The one has no bearing on the other...you don't want to drink something that's going to make you sick, but that's the only possible relevance. When we are talking about a survival-hydration situation, the issue is lethal dehydration...and something being sterile doesn't mean that it will or won't help your dehydration. No matter how thirsty you are, you shouldn't drink ocean water, right? Even though you'll die without water, you'll die even quicker drinking ocean water - It's thought to be the same with your urine. Imagine that ocean water is sterile (not sure, since all kinds of little critters might be living in that scoop of ocean water). The fact that ocean water is sterile has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not it will save you or kill you quicker if you're in a survival-hydration situation. Moreover...is your piss really sterile after all? Is that another quasi-myth? Think of all of the microscopic critters living within your urethra. Think your piss will kill all of it on it's way out? I dunno. But consider the fact that when you're in a survival-hydration situation such that this would be an issue in the first place, your body chemistry probably won't be anywhere near ideal healthy conditions. When you've been floating in that life-raft in the ocean, struggling lost through the forest, or doing the same in the middle of a desert...with no food or water for days or weeks...what would the state of your urine and urethra really be like? Will it still be perfectly sterile?

    - I don't care if your urine has proteins and vitamins that your body needs. Your body got rid of that stuff and passed it away in your urine for a good reason. Anything can be a poison. Anything can be toxic. If you have too much of it. Heck if you drink too much water, your kidneys will shut down. Likewise, if you take in too many vitamins trying too hard to eat healthy, what with your body constantly balancing just what it needs, it works hard and spends energy getting rid of the excess. If you keep drinking your piss, somewhere inside your body is a foreman screaming "dagnabit, we just got rid of this stuff! Why's that guy upstairs keep putting it back in? He's killing us down here!" And again...there being otherwise beneficial proteins and vitamins in your piss has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not it's going to help you in a survival-hydration situation. In a survival-hydration situation, the problem is your body running out of water to an extent that you die. That's it. Not vitamins and proteins and being sterile.

    - You can rant to me all day long with anecdotes and home-remedies wherein various peoples have used piss for a ga-jillion years for this or that, and they might all be true, but that doesn't mean that it won't kill you quicker in a specifically survival-hydration situation. All of those other uses are for other things, not hydration in an emergency. Those other uses are in otherwise ideal conditions and otherwise healthy daily life - when a person isn't facing death because of dehydration. I don't care if 'they' used to use urine to bleach the church-steps before a wedding ceremony.

    - Your urine is 75 or 80 or 90 percent water. Whichever. So what? Ocean water is "mostly water", but if you drink it in a survival-hydration situation, you'll die quicker than if you didn't drink at all. Your body itself is such-and-such mostly water...so what? The atoms or molecule of a deadly poison is mostly empty space, between the nucleus and electrons and all that stuff...but it's still gonna git you if you ingest it. Period. I don't give one flip that your urine is mostly water.

    - Some people have survived drinking their own pee? Are you sure? The only thing that these stories really mean is that these people drank their own pee while in a survival situation until getting rescued...it doesn't mean that they survived because they drank pee. If they weren't drinking pee all that time, they'd possibly be in even better shape once they got rescued.

    So...stop drinking piss already. Don't let Bear Grylls kill yet another person.
    Last edited by WalkingTree; 06-10-2017 at 12:07 AM.
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    Senior Member Antonyraison's Avatar
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    Well said walkingtree
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wildthang View Post
    I cannot remember a thread here that simply lists all of the survival myths that abound on the internet. Thought we might compile all of the myths for the new members.

    Myth 1. Your #1 priority is food. Not correct, water and shelter is the main priority in a survival situation.

    Myth 2. Suck the poison out of a snake bite. This doesn't work!

    Myth 3. Eat snow for hydration. Not correct, lowers core temperature and makes you colder!

    Myth 4. Drinking Booze will warm you up. Not correct, it only affects your body's ability to stay warm!
    #2 is a big one. #4 is interesting. My grandfather told his experience in WW2 concerning that one. He was a frogman. He said that when they were taken out on boats to set charges on a reef, they were all given a shot of whisky. The idea was that since they were swimming in the cold ocean with only swim trunks (no wetsuits then), it would keep them warm. His religion forbade drinking alcohol, so he declined the shot. He said when they swam back to the boat, he would be the only one not shivering. Very anecdotal, but it does represent one data point.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wildthang View Post
    Myth 4. Drinking Booze will warm you up. Not correct, it only affects your body's ability to stay warm!
    Drinking booze makes you "feel" warm. Kind of like banning guns at Virginia Tech made everyone "feel" safe (as stated by Associate Vice President Larry Hinckler some time before the massacre).

    Check out the Mythbusters episode on this one.

  17. #17

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    how bout clutching one's cell phone and waiting for the govt to rescue you.
    coyotes listen to them, like children of the night what music they make.

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    Senior Member alaskabushman's Avatar
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    Another one...

    A compass always points north.

    False, in my area it's about 24 degrees off...at least to geographic north.
    There ain't too many problems you can't fix with $500 or a 30-06.

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    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    [QUOTE=WalkingTree;501245]You beat me to this one, but I was wanting to elaborate on it anyway so that someone coming here anew who doesn't know better one way or the other can have a deeper understanding versus just taking our's or another's word for it...


    "No, don't do that. That's a bad idea. Ideas like that are spread around, by folks like that Bear Grylls guy on T.V., but it's wrong."

    Soooo, I'm gonna guess you won't be drink pizz anytime soon?
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    That wasn't his worst folks. Did you see him administer himself a bilgewater enema in a lifeboat to hydrate. Not pretty.

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