Guidelines for Managing a Survival/Emergency Situation

It is generally valuable to think of your response to an outdoor emergency as consisting of three phases.  Your actions during each phase will be important in ensuring that you (and others with you) survive the emergency, and can even make the situation more tolerable.  Once you have taken care of Phase I actions, you should immediately start on Phase II actions, followed by Phase III actions.

 

Phase I: Immediate Actions to Take.

 

  1. Keep a positive attitude.

 

  1. Stat put if you are lost.

 

  1. Protect and maintain life.
    1. Immediate actions to stay alive and well.
    2. Immediate shelter (protecting your body against the elements and any other threat to well-being.)

 

  1. Administer first aid to yourself and others.

 

  1. Inventory the equipment and resources available (anything immediately available that can be used to improve the situation), and improvise as needed.

 

  1. Signal to others that you need help.

 

  1. Conserve internal body resources (body temperature, water, energy, etc.

 

Phase II: Manage Risk and Maintain Life Support.

 

  1. Determine and fulfill the body’s physiological needs.

 

  1. Maintain a positive attitude (essential to survival).

 

  1. Apply survival skills as needed (building a fire, improving your shelter, finding and treating water, improving signaling methods, looking for food, etc.).

 

  1. Reassess the environment for existing and potential threats (heat, cold, wind, rain, snow, wildlife), and take protective measures.

 

Phase III: Rescue.

 

  1. Continue to improve signaling methods and introduce new ones.

 

  1. Devise a rescue plan (how to maintain life until help arrives, then how to assist the search-and-rescue effort).