[QUOTE=The Librarian]
Yeah!
The ‘big one’ has hit and we have a guy in his pyama with a pocketknife! We are saved!
you, Sir, have just bugged the snot out of me.
Not a first aid kit, not an emergency radio, not a decent supply of heavy duty tools such as shovels, pickaxes, No! A Bloody Pocketknife!
[/QUOTE]
I guess it doesn’t take much to rub some people the wrong way. Admittedly, silenus did mention “The Big One” but clearly tongue in cheek, and the frustration he expresses no doubt comes from the people who are so “surprised” “shocked” or “outraged” when rescue services can’t immediately extract them from their hazard. (I have a coworker who volunteers with a local rescue mountain group; the most frequent call is from a lost hiker by cell phone, and of course, they never have a map and compass. “Where are you?” “Uhhhhh…under a tree across from the big rock.” “Oh, is that the gray rock?” No, they don’t get the sarcasm.)
With a pocket knife, a pair of pliers, and some training you can do a hell of a lot of things to make life on the margins more comfortable, or indeed, possible. You can’t do all–or I daresay, even most–of the things McGyver did–but building the tools to start a fire, repair a simple engine fault, make a deadfall trap for small game, cut bandages, build a simple shelter, et cetera. With a larger, fixed blade knife, a canteen and filter, some matches, and few other simple supplies that will fit in a small bag or box, you can survive anywhere below the High Sierras and above Death Valley. A small first aid kit will at least let you treat minor traumas, and if you toss in a suture kit, some splints, and USP-grade topical antibiotic powder you can care for a wide variety of major traumas, at least long enough to stabilize the patient and move him to a qualified medical facility.
I’ve come across the “anti-preparedness” sentiment before and frankly it confounds me; I’m not sure what some people take such umbrage, as if in keeping a kit of tools and supplies at hand is paramount to attacking modern society. Should “the Big One” (or more likely just a “little one” like being snowed in in the mountains, or wrecked on some side road in Wyoming) ever transpire, I don’t expect it to let me hold out indefinitely, but I’ll at least have a few comforts and, should I need it, the means to cope with at least some simple emergencies before the Marines show up to rescue me.
Stranger
