Desert Emergency Survival Basics.pdf

DESERT EMERGENCY

SURVIVAL BASICS

Heartache and Heartburn

By Jack Purcell

ISBN 0-9743852-2-0

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form

or by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior

written permission of the author or publisher.

Jack Purcell

P.O. Box 196

Grants, NM 87020

Phone (505) 240-1309

Email: petrodactl@zianet.com

NineLives Press

P.O. Box 10041

Olathe, KS 66051

Visit webpage:

jackpurcellbooks.us

to view other books by Jack Purcell

DESERT EMERGENCY

SURVIVAL BASICS

Heartache and Heartburn

This book is dedicated to Gale Kloesel,

a man who knows the meaning of the word, friend ,

And

To Larry Austin,

Division Director, Emergency Management and Preparedness Division,

New Mexico Department of Public Safety.

A man who knows the meaning of the word, survival .

Jack Purcell 2003

DESERT EMERGENCY SURVIVAL BASICS:......................................................................................4

CLOTHING...............................................................................................................................................6

WATER.....................................................................................................................................................7

T HE B ODY P OLITIC .....................................................................................................................................9

N AVIGATION T OOLS ...................................................................................................................................9

T HE FIRST SYMPTOMS OF TROUBLE ..........................................................................................................17

C OMMUNICATIONS ...................................................................................................................................24

S URVIVAL AND E MERGENCY S UPPLIES :...................................................................................................25

R ANCHERS , RAINBOW PEOPLE , DESERT RATS , AND OUTFITTERS ...............................................................30

C RASH K ITS ..............................................................................................................................................33

C ONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................34

DESERT EMERGENCY SURVIVAL BASICS:

HEARTACHE AND HEARTBURN

The potential range of human experience includes finding ourselves in

unanticipated dangerous situations. Most of those situations have been

examined minutely and described in print in the form of survival manuals. Desert

survival is not an exception. Excellent books are available to explain primitive

survival in the desert southwest duplicating lifestyles of Native Americans a

thousand years ago. That is not the intent of this book.

A few decades ago I had an acquaintance with a man named Walter Yates.

Walter had the distinction of surviving a helicopter crash in the far north woods by

jumping into a snowdrift before the impact. He managed to survive winter

months with almost nothing except the clothes on his back when he jumped.

Walters experience was a worthy test of human potential for emergency survival

in extreme conditions. The margin for error was microscopic. The reason he

survived rested on his ability to quickly detach his mind from how things had

been in the past, how he wished they were, and accept completely the situation

he was in. He wouldnt have made it out of those woods if he couldnt rapidly

assess his new needs and examine every possibility of fulfilling them. Its all in

the mind, he once told me.

The margin for error in the desert is also narrow. That margin is dehydration.

Extremes of temperature are also a factor, but they are more easily managed

than the needs of the human body for water. Anyone who survives an

unanticipated week in desert country did so by either having water, by carrying it

in, or finding it.

Over the years Ive followed a number of search and rescue accounts and

discussed the issue with searchers.The general thinking among those workers

is that a person missing in the desert southwest should be found or walk out

within three to five days. After three days the chances for live return spiral

downward. Returns after five days are lottery winners. When a missing person

isnt found within a week, its usually because hes been dead for five days.

This book is to assist in avoiding situations that lead to the need to survive those

crucial three days, and to provide the basics of how to walk out and how to find

water in the desert southwest. If you need the emergency information here it will

be because you became lost, stranded by mechanical failure, or physically

incapacitated. I wont address the bugs and plants you might find to eat. If you

have water youll survive without eating until rescue.

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