This is honestly something you should never attempt, and hopefully you’re never in a situation that would call for you to perform first aid on a lung puncture—but hey, knowledge is power. A sucking chest wound is a type of wound that penetrates through the chest wall and into the lung. Because of the extra lung hole, air can escape through the chest with a distinctive “sucking” sound (hence the name).
Needless to say, sucking chest wounds are usually fatal unless they’re treated immediately—and when you’re thousands of miles from the nearest hospital, you’d think that would be bad news.
But here’s what you can do: find a piece of plastic (saran wrap is perfect) with which you can seal the hole, so that the chest cavity around the lung doesn’t get more air pressure than the lung itself. If this happens, the lung will collapse. When you seal the hole, leave a flap at the bottom that will allow air to leave through the wound without entering it. This may seem useless now, but you never know—you might have to save someone’s life someday.
Water is always your most valuable resource; most people die from dehydration after three or four days without the stuff. Although there are cases of people lasting at least a week without water—the crew of the downed plane Lady Be Good survived walking one hundred miles (160km) across the scorching Libyan desert for eight days with no water—it’s not a good idea to tempt fate. If you’re pinched for water, you can always get it directly from the ground itself.
Enter the solar still, an easy-to-make contraption that uses a tarp or a piece
of plastic to collect evaporated water from dirt. All you need to do is dig a hole in direct sunlight and drape your tarp over the opening. Secure the edges with logs, rocks, boxes of tampons—anything you have lying around. Then—and this is important—place a little pebble right in the middle of the tarp, so it pulls the plastic down into an upside-down pinnacle.
of plastic to collect evaporated water from dirt. All you need to do is dig a hole in direct sunlight and drape your tarp over the opening. Secure the edges with logs, rocks, boxes of tampons—anything you have lying around. Then—and this is important—place a little pebble right in the middle of the tarp, so it pulls the plastic down into an upside-down pinnacle.
When the sun hits the tarp, the air trapped inside the hole heats up, which in turn evaporates the moisture in the dirt. As that moisture rises,
it will condense on the underside of the tarp and run down to the center—the lowest point. A cup or bowl on the floor of the hole right below this point will catch the pure, distilled water as it drips down—potentially saving your life.
it will condense on the underside of the tarp and run down to the center—the lowest point. A cup or bowl on the floor of the hole right below this point will catch the pure, distilled water as it drips down—potentially saving your life.
So you’re stuck in an icy wasteland and you need a way to stay warm. Maybe the weather on your camping trip took a turn for the worst; maybe your plane crashed and you’re being methodically hunted by a pack of wolves; maybe you live in Detroit—but regardless of the predicament, what you need is a fire. Fortunately, the very thing that’s killing you can save your life: ice.
An ice lens captures the sun’s light and focuses it onto one point, just like a magnifying glass. If that focal point gets hot enough, and if it’s focused on something dry and flammable, you get a flame. It’s such a simple concept, but put to work in a genius way. To form an ice lens, basically you take a chunk of ice and twist it around on the edge of a pipe. The circular pipe edge carves away the chunks and irregularities, and eventually you end up with a perfect ice sphere, which is essentially a rustic kind of Fresnel lens.
So you’re stuck in an icy wasteland and you need a way to stay warm. Maybe the weather on your camping trip took a turn for the worst; maybe your plane crashed and you’re being methodically hunted by a pack of wolves; maybe you live in Detroit—but regardless of the predicament, what you need is a fire. Fortunately, the very thing that’s killing you can save your life: ice.
An ice lens captures the sun’s light and focuses it onto one point, just like a magnifying glass. If that focal point gets hot enough, and if it’s focused on something dry and flammable, you get a flame. It’s such a simple concept, but put to work in a genius way. To form an ice lens, basically you take a chunk of ice and twist it around on the edge of a pipe. The circular pipe edge carves away the chunks and irregularities, and eventually you end up with a perfect ice sphere, which is essentially a rustic kind of Fresnel lens.
It’s an old adage: if you have enough condoms, you can survive in the wild for years. And even if we just made that up, it’s still true. Condoms can provide you with food, water, fire, and shelter—the four key elements of survival. Getting stranded with a condom shipment would be the luckiest break apart from not getting stranded at all. For starters, condoms make very decent water storage containers. You would be surprised at how big they can get—two or three full condoms will provide enough water for a person for a week.
Condoms also burn. A latex condom will light up instantly, making it perfect tinder for getting a fire going. And since they’re watertight by nature, they can also be used to safely carry dry tinder. In a pinch, you can use condoms as rope to tie up a tarpaulin for shelter or—seriously—even turn them into a slingshot to hunt small game. Yes, you can hunt wild animals with condoms.
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