TOTM Dec. 2015- Rule of Threes

My "SEE" was also a baby course for aircrews, on Okinawa in '68.

 

In a high-stress highly active situation, most people start losing weight immediately. Bearing in mind that most Americans are somewhat overweight and many adults are 90 lbs+ over weight, they can lose that without severe complications IF they have plenty of water and a least a little daily food intake.

Once you lose the lard, though, that 3 weeks starts running fast. Once you get down to 50% of your optimum unfat body weight, you're a corpse.

From what I've read, the people that survived a month or more without eating did so because the eliminated all movement. They laid down, and stayed down, and wasted zero energy.

In the Arctic, you can die within 24 hours of running out of food. It's hard to conserve energy in a cold environment.

There is, I believe 3,000 calories in a pound of fat. If you have 50 pounds aboard, that's 150,000 calories to get you through the famine. If you need 3,000 a day to keep the gears turning, you have about 50 days before your three weeks kicks in.

There are good reason that people in nomadic tribes store body fat whenever they can.

For the average unfat individual, I'd say that in five days they'd be runnin' on fumes if they had to stay active.

Long-term survival is really all about maintaining your body weight and your body temperature.

Note: Lose weight too fast without lots of water (or exercise much too hard) and the kidneys can get clogged up with cell debris. That's called Herxheimer's Syndrome, and you can definitely die from it.

 

I have always assumed if needed we would shelter in the dining/kitchen area. It is the biggest area to accommodate sleeping, living plus we would have the kitchen because IMO the kitchen is the most important room. The downside is that it is a really large area thus harder to heat and it has 3 big picture windows. Though it would be the best place for us, if it was winter it would take more to heat.

I read years ago that you can set a tent up in your house and you can survive a situation without heat because the tent will hold in body heat. Unsure it this is true. Actually there are a lot of things I wonder if they are true. They say in winter to keep from freezing, keep a candle in you car and it will put out enough heat so you are able to survive. We have candles in our car but I wonder if that is enough?

As for sealing off the house. I thought it was a waste to buy plastic for the windows that I may never use. We bought a new mattress set and I carefully took the plastic off and stored that for window sealing. Plus I had a neighbor that was getting a new mattress set and I offered to help carry it in if I could have the plastic. That stuff is great, it is a nice heavy plastic. I have been thinking about going to the mattress store and dumpster diving.

 

In winter, the living room where the wood stove is; in summer the sunlit basement where it is cooler.

 

A very good idea I think. It is heavy plastic. We went will the roll of contractors grade visqueen. We have one in clear and one in black. A couple of rolls of real 90 mile per hour tape, mil spec stuff or gorilla duct tape. 3m makes a good grade as well. NOT the el cheapo stuff you find at wally world or the dollar store. A good Arrow type stapler to quickly hang the plastic then go back over all the edges/seams with the tape. A box knife and a pair of EMT shears are part of the kit as well.

Be sure to inspect your mattress plastic for any punctures before hand.

 

Traditionally, tapestries were invented to help hold heat in a room, and keep out drafts.

I can tell you that you can and will freeze to death in a gd tent.

 

You both might be interested in reading about Nick Rowe, the father of SERE. He developed the Level C course at Mackall. near Bragg.
Col Nick Rowe

Yard Dart
My guess is by the location, you attended a Level B course.

 

Sapper worked with Nick Rowe way back when... When I was in the AF I was at Fairchild AFB for SERE not my favorite 19 days... Water survival at P-cola for 4 days...

 

Great stuff by a great man.

"Rowe's cover story was eventually broken but not through any fault of his own. All his efforts were destroyed when a peace seeking group of war protesters came to North Vietnam. As part of their visit to North Vietnam, the protesters had asked to see some of the American POW's so they could tell the American people that they were being treated fairly by the North Vietnamese government. Rowe's name was on their list that they gave their hosts along with the information that he was the intelligence officer for the Special Forces Advisor Unit."

A nation that ignores events such as these has truly lost Its way.

 

My personal rules of three:

1. Two in center mass, one in the head
2. You need three times what you think you need, because you will probably have twice as many people as you planned on and you already underestimated by 50%
3. Every thing will be three times harder than you thought it would be, so you need to work three times harder to get in shape than you are currently doing.
4. Never forget the Big Three - Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

 

I heard they took the last train for the coast...

 

Sometimes I think it is a mental thing. We live in pretty easy times and most do not have to use their brains. It is so easy to run to the hardware to pick up what you want verse looking at what you have and trying to figure out how to McGyver stuff. So I agree be mentally and physically in shape because you can't predict the unknown.

 

I agree with what you are saying Moto, but I do like to run to the local hardware/tire/towing/bait shop as well. If I need say a few drywall screws I'll run up there buy a box and BS over a cup of coffee with the boys. Helps get known and then I have enough drywall screws for the time when I can't go to the store.

 

turning off the ignition is swell if you are certain that the steering wheel will not lock short of that shift into lower gear, apply emergency brake and foot brake; slowly steer into the shoulder and ultimately into the grass of a median etc if your speed allows you to do so safely; if possible use the horribly damaging friction from a guard rail to slow and then stall the car.

 

We discussed going three weeks without food. I found this: 26 day water fast | Survival Forums
@melbo went 26 days without food. Amazing. His account is quite interesting. It can be done and it does not sound like a pleasant thing in my opinion. 26 days with only water just to do it. Amazing

 

When I was posting the ram pump thread I was reminded of another "rule of 3s" that I picked up somewhere at some fairly early point in prepping and have followed when possible and to the degree possible. Since 2 is 1 and 1 is none, you need 3 of everything. That simple...

 

Really, when was that?