Wilderness Survival – Are You Ready?

Imagine your car breaks down in a remote area and you're all alone, or you're hiking and you suddenly become lost and your cell phone isn't working. Would you panic or would you be prepared to survive until rescue comes? 

With all the hiking she does, CBN's Wendy Griffith decided it was time to take a wilderness survival course to make sure she knows the basics of survival. Hopefully after this – you will too.

Seven Main Survival Skills
 
Welcome to Mountain Shepherd's Wilderness Survival School, located in the beautiful and rugged mountains of southwest Virginia. Here, Reggie and Dina Bennett train military and regular folks how to survive "worst case scenarios" and live to tell about them. The Bennetts focus on seven main survival skills:

• Positive mental attitude
• First Aid
• Shelter
• Fire craft
• Signaling
• Water
• Food 

Most people in a wilderness situation think finding food and water is their top priority, but it's actually making a safe and secure shelter that should be your first order of business.
 
"The environment is going to do you in quicker than most anything else," Reggie Bennett explained. "If you can stay dry and keep the wind from blowing across you, you're going to do well – and guess what? It doesn't have to be pretty – just has to be effective."
 
Reggie, a former U.S. Air Force survival instructor, showed us how to take a simple plastic sheet you can buy almost anywhere, a piece of sturdy string and in no time, build a shelter.
 
And this time of year (autumn) the forest floor gives you all the "stuffing" you need to make a comfy mattress. CBN videographer Rachel Hooley and I were determined not only to make our own shelter, but to sleep in it.
 
I was very excited about the mattress we made. I thought it looked looked like it would be better than a hotel mattress.
 
It rained during the night, but our shelter kept us warm and dry – although our "leafy" mattress was not as comfy as we'd hoped. 

The Power of Fire

Another vital part of survival, especially in winter, is fire! Fire serves a number of purposes other than simply keeping you warm. It allows you to: 

• Cook
• Boil water for drinking
• Keep bugs and predators away
• Acts as a signaling device
• And supports the no. 1 survival skill – keeping a positive mental attitude 

Reggie says be careful not to smother your fire.

"What would happen if I put this all [kindling] on at once...smother it. That's why you use the brace [a stick to raise the kindling]; set it right over top of the fire...if you see any smoke, it's saying, 'I need oxygen' and all you have to do is just lift the brace up," he explained.
 
I chose the flint and steel method to make my fire. I used a cotton ball smothered in petroleum jelly as my tinder. Vaseline, hand sanitizer, even chap stick makes a cheap and easy accelerant in an emergency situation.  Don't count on matches as they can get wet and won't work.

If you're in the woods and don't have an accelerant to start your fire, you can simply take a very sharp knife and scrape a dry piece of wood and get what's called a "fluff," which makes excellent tinder. Sage, a fellow survival classmate, was successful using just fluff from the wood and a fire starter to get her blaze going.

Staying Hydrated
 
Now, we'll look at one of the most important elements of survival: Water!
 
The average person can only survive about three days without water. You can survive three weeks or more without food – so water is always a high priority in a survival situation. 

"Your body is about 75-80 percent water so you're going to get dehydrated really quick if you don't keep sip, sip, sipping that water," Reggie said. "We have a saying here at the school: 'Ration your sweat not your water.'"
 
If you're in a situation in which you don't have water purification tablets and cannot boil the water – try to find the entry place where the spring is coming out of the mountain.

"The waters coming out of the ground right there – see it!" Reggie said excitedly. "It's being filtered through the ground. This provides your best chance of drinking the water before it's contaminated by animals and other bacteria."   

Wilderness Cuisine of Choice? Bugs

And last on the list but not least for most of us is food! The forest has plenty of wildlife, but catching it takes skill and patience. Reggie showed us how to make a squirrel trap with a simple piece of wire.
 
Also, this time of year, edible plants are scarce except for mushrooms, which Reggie says you should never eat – they're just too risky and some can even kill you.

Fortunately, the forest provides plenty of edible bugs, which can be a good source of fat, carbs and protein. For example, termites have 14 grams of protein per 100 grams – that's more than steak!
 
The main rules when it comes to eating bug:

• No bugs with more than six legs.
• No bugs that bite, sting or smell bad.
• No brightly colored bugs. 

Reggie says the best way to eat any insect is to cook it. Worms, grubs, termites, crickets and beetles are your best bet, although today we went for what we could find: the popular wood roach.
 
The wood roach is found mainly in downed and rotting trees, and according to Reggie, is pretty tasty.

"Whoa! Look at this! I told you when you find one you usually find a whole family," Reggie explained.

"They say, 'there's no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.' They also say, 'there's no such thing as a vegetarian in a survival situation,'" said Reggie.  'You go long enough without food and your body will demand that you eat."

Wendy Griffith: So, in a survival situation if we were really hungry, this wood roach would be an excellent source of what?

Reggie Bennett:  Of the fats and carbohydrates that you need in a survival situation, which you're not going to get from plants. I'm not saying don't go after plants, but these [bugs] are readily available, they're all over the world and if you use those rules that I taught you, this is what you need.

Griffith:  Ok, so we're going to roast them? 

Bennett:  Yes, because they could have a parasite on there...

Griffith:  Ok, I can't believe I'm doing this, but in a survival situation this little roach would be a great source of fat and carbohydrates...

Griffith  pops roach in her mouth.

Griffith: Tastes like a nut!  A really tasty nut.  Thank you Reggie!  

**Mountain Shepherd recommends you keep some basic items in your car or when you're venturing out into the woods. Click here for the full list.

**Survival Trivia: If you're in a survival situation and are not able to boil the water but feel you're in danger of severe dehydration, should you go ahead and drink the water? Reggie says "yes." Better to risk it than die in the woods of dehydration. But be sure to try to find the source of the water (where it's coming out of the mountain). That's where the water will be the purest.