Kit de Sobrevivência para Selva e Urbano + Kit Primeiros Socorros

Intrigante a coincidência... Ganhei hoje de aniversário um livrinho de sobrevivência "98.6 Degrees the art of keeping your ass alive!". O autor é aquele índio metido a viking do desafio em dose dupla da Discovery, Cody Lundin, com certeza muitos de vcs conhecem. Há um capítulo que trata somente sobre esse assunto: Kits de sobrevivência. Abaixo vou reproduzir parte do capítulo do livro. Vou recortar e colar do PDF. Depois do autor discorrer sobre esse contexto geral dos kits ele explica detalhadamente cada um dos itens que compôem o kit dele. Eu não vou vou colar tudo para não ficar muito grande o post.

WHAT IS A SURVIVAL KIT?

A survival kit is a distillation of the most-effective and simple means of staying alive. In it rests the tools that could make or break your life. Kits can and should vary with the needs of the owner; thus, one carried by a Canadian bush pilot might look radically different from an earthquake kit in a southern California closet. However, the fact that we’re in human bodies on a physical planet dictates that many components, while they may look different, provide the same functions

Making Your Own Kit as Opposed to Purchasing One

The one-size-fits-all survival kit does not exist. There are plenty of kits on the market, and while I haven’t seen them all, the majority of those that I have seen need help. While some components are non-negotiable, regardless of your situation, people are different and therefore have different needs. Many personal needs are subtle, but in a life-threatening circumstance, these subtleties count. In my opinion, you will fare much better if you put together your own. Creating a custom kit has the following advantages.

1. You’re guaranteed that the kit meets your personal needs. The majority of the market sells products nby hooking a person’s ignorance, fear, and ego. The outdoor retail gear scene is a multimillion-dollar industry and the rules are no different. Compiling your own kit will allow you to buy or make topquality items as needed; therefore, the knife you carry will be one you’ve chosen yourself, not one “Joe Blow” thought you should carry.

2. You will be knowledgeable about what you’re carrying. Many commercial kits are “sealed for your protection” for whatever reason, and allow you less of a chance to explore the contents. If you do buy a commercial survival kit, rip the little devil apart and see what you’re proposing to lug around. Find out now if the thing the manufacturer calls a knife is really a razor blade, the snare wire is really two baggy ties, and the signal mirror is really a piece of tinfoil. Don’t you dare buy a commercial kit and shove it under the car seat without inspecting the goods! Thoroughly check it out, as the last things needed in a compromising situation are more compromises.

3. You are more apt to know how to use the components. Although it’s possible to design an outfit using components you don’t know how to use, the likelihood of this happening in a homemade kit is much less than for a commercial one.

4. You can replace worn-out or used items easier. Devising your own setup allows you to practice using what you carry until you virtually wear out the stuff. With a homemade kit, buying new items is easy because you bought or made them yourself initially. Ready-made kits are often dependent upon bizarre gizmos manufacturers bought on sale back in the ’90s at some outdoor show in Chicago.

5. You’ll gain the peace of mind and confidence of knowing that your kit is a part of you. You know it has been prepared as well as possible and is ready for action if necessary. (It also saves legal fees if you bite the big one due to kit failure, as there’s no one to sue!)

6. You eliminate becoming the victim of a bad idea by yet another wanna-be, urban-armchair survival instructor with limited field experience. All too frequently, survival equipment is designed and tested in air-conditioned offices or other temperate areas without  any thought given to the oftentimes crappy conditions faced by the user. Extreme changes in temperature sometimes alter not only the user’s dexterity, but the kit material itself. As an example, marine flares were wrapped in plastic that tore easily in a warm room but became stiff, tough, and slippery when exposed to cold water. One after-market test featured a Special Forces soldier who opened the flare package within seven seconds while in a warm and cozy environment. After spending an hour and fifteen minutes in 54°F water (12°C), the soldier required two minutes to open the package. To top it off, he couldn’t manage the twisting motion to fire the flare because his hands were numb!7. Last but not least, anyone who stands to make a profit at your expense will be biased about his or her merchandise. Face it—they have made a product they wish to sell in order to make money. To make a profit, many units must be quickly produced and then sold to a number of buyers. The maker will not be holding your hand if something goes wrong in the field.

There are decent kits out there and having one is certainly better than having none at all, but preparing your own kit or modifying a commercial one is a matter of taking responsibility for your own life. If you frequent the outdoors and can’t find the time or ambition to put together a kit that could save your life or the life of someone you love, then maybe your gene pool should end with you.

Relevant to the Environment

In Arizona, creating a survival kit that’s relevant to the environment encountered is a challenge because Arizona has more geographical diversity in the shortest drive time of any region in North or South America. I can drive from Phoenix in the Sonoran Desert, to the town of Flagstaff near the San Francisco Mountains with their alpine tundra in less than 3.5 hours. In that time, I’ll pass through 10 different vegetation life zones, which is the equivalent of driving from Mexico to Canada. As a result, it’s possible to be faced with a desert or winter-survival scenario within the same day. Even with this geographical challenge, if you stick to the basics of regulating body temperature, your kit should need little modification from region to region. Research the area you’ll be traveling in for specific information that might make or break your experience and pack your kit accordingly. An excursion into the wilderness of Alaska will have different needs than a backcountry trip to Mexico.

Waterproof

There’s at least one item that should always be waterproof in your kit. Can you guess what it is? Yup, your matches. Some environments demand that you waterproof the entire enchilada. Again, knowing as much as you can about the area you’re heading into will save you a lot of grief. If your trip research points to the fact that your destination will be dry, don’t assume it will be. In this age of plastic barriers galore, there’s little excuse for not having some way of keeping your kit and body dry.

Physical Fitness and Expertise

A point that’s completely overlooked in commercial kits is making the kit complementary to the physical fitness and expertise levels of the user. Human beings have dramatic differences in levels of physical fitness, ability, and agility. If you weigh 400 pounds, have bad knees, severe asthma, or are a couch potato in general, you’ll need to modify things—and that’s OK. I’m simply hammering home the myth of the one-size-fits-all kit. In any survival scenario, your physical body is what you’re trying to take home, sans the body bag. Obviously, the better shape you’re in, the more stress you can place upon your vehicle. If you had a Pinto compete in the Indy 500, it wouldn’t do so well. How can you expect your body to place much better if it’s old, tired, and out of shape? While I’m not Richard Simmons (thank God) the importance of physical fitness during stress situations can’t be ignored. Practice using your kit until you’re intimately aware of how to use its contents. While you might not be an expert, as if there is such a thing in the woods, your kit should reflect whatever skill level you’re at.

Variety of Conditions

For optimal adaptation in the field, your kit should meet a wide variety of conditions. Focusing on the basics allows for carrying less while improving options. Options are empowering as they provide choices. Choices allow you to pursue the best plan available at the time. Specialized gear, although it has its place, limits options for the survivor. You may find that a specialty item might perform one thing so well that it’s worth carting along—the choice is yours.

Multiple-Use Components

Quality, multiple-use components are worth their weight in gold. Don’t pack anything that has less than two uses and hopefully more. There are two master, multiuse components with which civilizations were built. Either one in the hands of a competent user can produce tremendous benefits, but either one in the hands of a loser can cause unprecedented pain, injury, and death. Can you guess what two goodies I’m talking about? They are a cutting edge and fire. Both have been around since time began and are each the epitomes of multiuse magic, accomplishing a plethora of tasks but taking up a minimal amount of space and weight.Desperate gear manufacturers have gone overboard trying to impress the population with a multitude of gidgets and gadgets. I’ve seen several multi-tools on the market and remain unimpressed. Some sprout so many contraptions that they are virtually functionless. Others have elements that refuse to work in the aisle of the discount store, let alone in the backcountry. If you need help extracting an emergency hangnail or getting a closer look at phone numbers in your little black book, they may be of some service. Don’t let your quest for sound, multiple-use gear lead you into a land of cheesy, madein- Hong Kong trash.

Calorie-Conserving Concepts

The energy stored within your body is one of the most sacred commodities you have in the backcountry. How much juice you have at the time of impending doom is determined by your physical fitness and attitude, prior activity level, environmental temperature extremes and clothing choices, the amount and type of food last eaten, your hydration level, and your level of fatigue. Energy can be intelligently conserved to last several days or be ignorantly wasted in a few hours depending on your state of mind, body shelter, and activity level.Your body is like a battery as it stores only so much energy (calories) before it needs refueling. The chance that your “battery” will be full at the start of a survival scenario is about as likely as an honest politician working for the common good of all people—possible but not likely. Anything done to slow down calorie consumption, or achieve better efficiency from the ones you do burn, can increase your overall survival time. Calmly using the glucose in your brain by carefully thinking out plans and actions before you move your body saves a considerable amount of energy. Prioritize your situation to determine the most important actions necessary to get you rescued as quickly as possible. Spending extra energy traveling to a sheltered location or improvising protective shelter from the environment can save an enormous amount of calories and water that your body would have otherwise spent trying to keep warm (shivering) or cool (sweating). Your ultimate challenge and dilemma, using the tips from the right, is deciding how calories will be spent in order to get the greatest bang for your buck.

1. Stay comfortable. Regulating body temperature from the start by adding or subtracting layers when needed is one of the easiest and most effective methods to conserve energy. Critical body areas to protect are the core and head and neck.

2. Slow down. Working at 60 percent of your maximum output allows the body to burn stored fat instead of limited carbohydrate reserves.

3. Prioritize and plan tasks in your mind. It requires a lot less energy to think about doing something than it does to do it.4. Don’t sweat. Unless the weather is hot, sweating is your body’s way of saying that you’re doing too much too fast. Sweating is the body’s response to burning huge amounts of metabolic calories and further dehydrates the body.5. Stay dry in cold weather. Wet clothing robs the body of precious heat energy.

6. Don’t freak out. Panicked and fearful people compromise their survival in several ways, including spending energy running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

7. Take rest breaks. Resting reduces your energy output, increases morale, breaks up periods of boredom, allows muscles to rid themselves of lactic acid build up from exertion, and helps the body recover from fatigue. Don’t forget the benefits of the all-powerful catnap talked about earlier.

8. Graze. Eating small amounts of food throughout the day, especially simple carbohydrates, provides energy while allowing the body to access fat reserves for metabolism.

9. Stay hydrated. If possible, drink warmed fluid in cold weather and cool fluids in hot weather to hydrate the body without sacrificing calories to heat up or cool down the water internally.

Calorie-Conserving Components

Every time you move, you’re accelerating the loss of calories and water, two very precious commodities in the backcountry. Packing and using calorie-conserving components gets the job done with a minimum of athletics. Guys love hearing this, but you want to be as lazy as possible in your emergency situation while still getting your needs met. If your compromising event becomes longterm, you’ll be glad you conserved all the energy you could from the onset. History is full of survival scenarios in which those involved took for granted they would be rescued right away and willfully pissed away all of their supplies in the beginning. Some of them lived to tell the story, others ... well, you get the picture.

Panic Proofed

Since accidents comprise a large percentage of how a person gets screwed, kit components should be panic-proofed and contain components that can be utilized if you are injured. Injuries are extremely common. The bummed-up knee, the sprained ankle, the nasty wound—all can be major bummers and severely restrict the ability to operate gear. Could you use your knife left-handed if your right gets mashed between rocks? Can you construct a shelter from emergency gear with a strained ligament? The fewer bells and whistles gear has, the easier it’ll be to use under the strain and stress of painful injuries. Again, sticking to basics helps increase your odds for success. Panic greatly reduces your chances for survival. It also renders fine and complex motor skills useless. Striking the match in your backyard was easy, but when you are consumed with fear, the task becomes monumental. Packing gear that involves fine- or complex-motor-skill movements is a big mistake. I’m not saying don’t pack matches, but have a gross-motor movement alternative just in case, such as a road flare or magnesium block with striking insert. Simple, gross-motor functions are far easier to perform under stress than fine- and complex-motor functions. This has been proven in combat situations for decades. Keep gear and how you use it simple.

Easily Purchased or Made

Some particulars need to be changed or rotated for maximal effectiveness as they rust, wear out, become frayed, brittle, or outdated. Using components that can be easily purchased or made allows for acquiring new items with less hassle. I have received several notes from people offering suggestions regarding what I carry. Many are good ideas but involve specialty-shop items that are hard to come by for the average person. Pack simple yet effective gear that is widely available. Replacing the bulb in your specialty flashlight is a pain in the neck if you’re not near the store you bought it from. Add in human nature and procrastination and you might realize that you forgot to score that new bulb when it’s dusk and you’re 10 miles down a trail with a torn tendon. The advantage of being able to make items yourself from everyday materials is a major plus. Creating gear yourself gives you an intimate, up-close perspective on what you’ll be carrying. This allows you to modify certain traits of the item at will, thereby better serving your needs. Best of all, it’s hard to imagine a homemade piece of gear that its creator doesn’t know how to use well. If you’re into specialty gear, that’s fine, but order a couple extras so you won’t have to hassle with restocking for a while

Field Tested

Your kit must be field-tested-use it or lose it. Ideally, you should completely wear out the contents by practicing how they’re used. Experiment with what you pack! Explore each item’s advantages and disadvantages now, long before the emergency arrives. Owning a survival kit that you haven’t used is like reading a book on how to swim when the boat’s going down. Practice on duplicate gear so the stuff you carry is 100 percent new and ready to go, not worn out and battered. Yes, it will cost you twice as much money, but aren’t you and your loved ones worth it?

SURVIVAL KIT COMPONENTS

In general, general, I pack the following items in my kit, but as I mentioned earlier, people’s needs are different. I’m not you, and vice versa, and we won’t be there to sing “Kumbayah” to each other if the ship goes down. High grade what you want from my list, add what you want from yours, and scrap the rest. I modify kits as necessary, depending on geographical life zones, weather factors, the number of people in my group, terrain issues, the accessibility of the area to rescue teams, or whatever other factors I feel are important. Don’t let your kit become a static lump that never sees the light of day until it’s needed. I’m constantly dinking around, replacing this, repairing that, adding something here, or taking something out. Certain core items, however, have remained intact for several years. I won’t replace matches with something else anytime soon, if ever, and some elements are so basic to regulating body temperature or signaling for rescue that they have become crucial. Their importance in helping us survive will be around as long as the physical laws that govern this planet. Next to each item in the list, I’ve included its weight in ounces.

Gostei. Conte um pouco mais sobre ele... Quanto de água ele purifica por vez? Peso e tamanho? Fiquei inclinado a comprar um para testar. Já estou pesquisando os preços.

Uma observação... Para comentarem se concordam ou não... Em caminhadas no mato, principalmente aquelas que contam com pernoite, espaço e peso dos equipamentos fazem toda a diferença. Nesse caso específico continuo achando as pastilhas de cloro opção mais interessante, pois não pesam nada e não ocupam espaço. Já para situações em que peso e espaço não fosse o problema e aquelas que envolveriam grandes períodos de sobrevivência como, por exemplo, em algum cenário de catástrofe escolheria sem dúvida a garrafa purificadora. Além disso, acho que usar as pastilhas por um longo período acaba sendo prejudicial à saúde, pois até mesmo o rótulo de algumas pastilhas diz ser prejudicial para o corpo o excesso de cloro