Survive injury or escape a hostage situation when travelling. WORDS: Daniel Landon
It’s Saturday night, pouring rain, freezing cold, and I’m standing in a muddy field bandaging the stump of an amputee who’s writhing in agony cos his leg has been blown off by a landmine.
While it takes years to become a doctor or survival expert, I’m being trained in some basic first aid and survival techniques, which the average person can learn in a weekend. It could make a big difference until help arrives.
Surviving Adventure is a two-day, hands-on training course in what to do if the worst happens and you’re waiting for help.
Under the guidance of expert instructors, the participants have to respond to a range of mock incidents and casualties.
The situations are frighteningly realistic. In one scenario a jeep is driven up an embankment with an ‘injured’ family inside, while all the casualties have plenty of realistic fake blood, applied by a professional ‘moulage’ make-up artist, to demonstrate the thigh bone poking out of a broken leg, spinal and head injuries, and facial burns.
As the course unfolds the instructors add bits and pieces to your knowledge, so by the end we’ve covered the main strands of first-aid and incident response.
Interspersed are lectures on general outdoor survival, dealing with land mines, and how to survive being taken hostage.
The instructors are all doctors, paramedics, mountaineers or former special forces members who take great pride in having ‘been there, done that’. Each has defused mines, been held at gunpoint, patched up wounded soldiers or hiked up Everest — sometimes all the above.
By the end of the weekend everyone is surprised by how much they’ve learnt and just how useful that knowledge could be. So much so that by the time of the final exercise we manage to treat three serious injuries without — as happened on the first day — causing what in real life would be paralysis or amputations with our clumsiness.
It’s a strange feeling to return from a weekend away hoping never to re-live the experiences you’ve just had — but that new-found knowledge could well save a life — or at least a limb or two.
» Prometheus Medical runs the Surviving Adventure courses at its training centre near Hereford. Upcoming courses are August 30-31 and November 1-2. Cost £295, with meals and accommodation.
Hostage survival
Being taken hostage might seem a remote possibility, but if you are even limited knowledge can help you survive.
According to Michael Jaden, who has 17 years’ experience in the UK special forces, it’s important to survive with pride. While survival at all costs might seem the way to go, you won’t feel too good afterwards if you dob in a friend in order to escape, or don’t try to maintain your integrity. So, if the worst should happen:
Be aware of your surroundings
» It’s important to understand what’s going on around you.
Look after yourself physically
» Keep as clean as possible.
» Accept comforts if they are offered.
» If there’s a threat of violence sleep in a group, with women in the centre.
Be mentally strong
» Support each other, especially if someone is abused.
» Try to understand the pressures you’re facing.
» Keep your mind active. Some Vietnam War POWs imagined they were building a hotel, including every detail down to the colour of the taps.
Deal with your captors
» Humanise yourself and build a rapport (such as by showing photos).
» Don’t get angry, and don’t be overly arrogant or subservient.
» If it’s a religiously motivated kidnapping, never say you don’t believe in God.
Making an escape
» The best time to escape is early, when you know where you are and you’re still fit, but think of others you might leave behind.
» When a rescue happens, stay put and lie low.
Dealing with casualties — top tips
» Check for danger before rushing to help someone
» Check whether the casualty is responsive
» Call for appropriate help early
» Deal with major blood loss before checking airway and breathing
» If you suspect a spinal injury, keep the casualty’s head still
» Have one person act as incident controller to ensure a co-ordinated response to helping victims
» It’s vital to make sure the casualty does not become cold
» Doing the basic treatments well at an early stage can save a life
» Carry a first-aid kit: they can make all the difference, and you never know when you might need on
