the modern world has made life pretty easy for most of us when's the last time you had
to worry about a bear eating you or dying of dehydration in the desert this will happen
sure but not to most of us but what if it did happen would you know how to survive if something
unexpected happened the internet's full of survival tips to help you if you ever find
yourself stranded in the middle of nowhere but it turns out those tips aren't always so reliable
10. never drink your own urine infamous survival expert bear grylls recommends
that people who may be dying of dehydration in the wild can drink their own urine to stay alive
this is flat-out terrible advice and the man just keeps on doing it
so to state the obvious this is not a good idea drinking urine can actually dehydrate
you faster it's pretty similar to drinking seawater it's waste from your body and it's
full of things like sodium that your body was trying to get rid of putting it back
inside you won't help you it would dehydrate you faster lower your blood pressure and potentially
accelerate you losing strength and dying grylls assures you that urine is sterile and that's a
very common error it's not true how could it be why would one single part of your body be sterile
when the rest of you is swimming in bacteria all the time in fact urine can hold numerous
different kinds of bacteria not to mention your urethra and the rest of your non-sterile anatomy
that make contact with it you could distill water from your urine and drink that but it takes time
still it's far less dangerous than what drills recommend people survived after drinking their
own urine of course but they survived more despite what they did not because of it 9. don't swim
parallel to the shore in a rip current you may float back faster the sea is a dangerous place
with all the deadly animals and crashing waves and so on dangerous rip currents can appear suddenly
near beaches and pull you out to sea making you feel like the water itself is trying to steal you
away and drown you many survival sites recommend that you swim parallel to the shore if you find
yourself in a rip current there are signs on the beach where rip currents are commonplace that
advise you to do that but it's not always a good idea rips can form almost anywhere the current is
narrow and very strong flowing back out to sea the swimmer is typically no match for the force which
can drag you a good distance away from the shore swimming against it has never been advised so
people began to think that the parallel plan was a good way just sidestep the current and it sounds
like it would work right rip current expert jamie mcmahon believed parallel swimming was the best
cause of action and used to swim in rip currents for safety videos just to prove it problem is he
noticed it was easier in one direction rather than the other mcmahon spent years studying ribs and
noticed over 80 of them travel in a circular pattern if you relax and don't fight the current
at all it will pull you out to sea turn you around and then send you back again he says it
takes around three minutes which might feel like forever if you're being swept out to sea but if
you can stay calm you can ride the current right back to shore in these cases his research also
showed that swimming parallel is potentially as deadly if the current is a circle you have a 50 50
chance of swimming against the current when you go parallel he says just floating may not work
every time it's worth trying at first to see if it works before trying to swim parallel it's worth
noting that many organizations do not support this viewpoint including the u.s life saving
association number eight don't try to outrun a brown bear or play dead with a black bear about
40 people are attacked by bears in any given year so it's not a big danger relative to most problems
we face more people are killed by lightning every year in the u.s alone but a bear attack sounds
dramatic so when one does happen it's big news and survival experts can get a lot of clicks by
telling you how to survive a bear attack most people are probably well aware of what to do
in the case of a bear attack despite how rare such things are popular thinking states that you either
need to run from a bear or play dead bear grylls is again to blame for that first point having
recommended it on an episode of his show playing dead is a recommended plan when encountering bears
but not all bears and it can make things much worse if you do it wrong playing dead is a plan of
action when you encounter a grizzly bear a grizzly bear is territorial aggressive and a powerful
enemy when it attacks it's almost always going to eliminate you as a threat you are a danger to it
and potentially it's offspring it wants you to die so by playing dead you're giving it what it wants
is it going to just walk away well no things are going to get ugly you'll probably be stomped
clawed and roughed up badly but it is likely to end much faster if you play dead and the bear may
be satisfied you're no longer a threat black bears are usually afraid of humans already so if one is
attacking you it's not defensive it's probably predatory that means it wants to eat you so if
you play dead you're just making it easier is the solution to run away no never running
from a bear is almost guaranteed to end with you dead or badly injured running is a prey response
so you're confirming to any bear that you're worth hunting this gets worse when you consider that you
cannot outrun a bear as big as they are they are much faster than humans a black bear can sustain
speeds of 35 miles per hour usain bolt the fastest man in the world reached 27 miles per hour so you
won't make it for what it's worth you should move slowly away from a stationary black bear
if possible stand tall and look big use sticks as weapons and fight back if it attacks you swinging
for the bear's face they're usually easily intimidated and this will make them back off
7. never throw your pack at a bear once again bear grylls is trying to get everyone who encounters a
bear killed in one video he recounts what happened to a hiker and recommended it like its advice for
you to follow the advice throw your pack at the bear to distract it this is another terrible idea
in this scenario the idea is that a packful of food will give the bear what it wants and let you
get away for some reason he recommends not running away in this video despite his earlier advice the
contrary but the problem with throwing your pack at a bear is twofold to start with giving a bear a
bag of food is called feeding the bears this is what every national park tells you to never do
because if bears think humans are food sources bears will continue to approach humans this is
encouraging bears to come after people the second issue is that a backpack just might save your
life if a bear does run after you and you opt to play dead you're going to want to protect your
vitals that means curling up head covered and back exposed the backpack is your own personal
turtle shell it may not offer a lot of protection depending on what's in it but it's better than
nothing 6. do not zigzag to escape an alligator if you thought bear attacks more in common get
ready for alligators which go after about three people per year basically it's a non-issue for
almost everybody in the world but nevertheless the internet will tell you how to avoid an attack
that is probably never going to happen so how do those people tell you to do it run in a zigzag
so where did this theory come from it's hard to say but it's very widespread seems to be one of
those things that everyone in florida just knows but it's not true in fact worse is dangerous
alligators are by no means speed demons on land however in a short burst an alligator can get
up to 35 miles an hour that's as fast as a bear and again if you recall people are not as fast as
bears or it seems gators they can't sustain that speed for long but they may not have to either
especially if you're running in a zigzag for some reason zig-zag running only makes you slower it
makes you stay in the alligators territory longer than you need to and it gives them more chances
to catch you with their oddly fast little legs run straight and fast if you want to get away
if one does catch you then do whatever you have to to fight back experts recommend fighting like
your life depends on it since it does and you should attack their snout rather than try to pry
their mouths open 5. never salt a leech leeches are some of the most off-putting creatures in
the world the little creeps latch onto your body and suck your blood until they're bloated with it
they can consume 10 times their own weight get a dozen of them on you and it's a pure nightmare
in some very rare cases leeches have gotten inside of human bodies and cause death which is even more
terrifying there's a popular method of leach removal that requires you to put salt on them
salt actually creates pressure inside the body of the leech that pulls moisture out and kills
them sounds like an effective and easy way to pull them off especially if you're worried about their
little suckers causing your skin more damage but you're going to want to think twice about
that as you can imagine if salt creates osmotic pressure to the point that a leech will die from
it the leech isn't going to respond well to being salted in fact you may just cause it to vomit back
into your open wound if you're worried about it sucking your blood before worry about it vomiting
blood and guts into your wound more number four don't hide in a doorway during an earthquake
depending on where you live in the world you may be more familiar with earthquake preparedness than
others one piece of advice you might have heard over the years is to try to weather a quake by
taking cover in a doorway the thinking here is that a doorway is a stronger more reinforced part
of a building and since there were times when people would see houses devastated by quakes in
the past with door frames standing when nothing else was it seemed like a reasonable conclusion
but it wasn't a couple of things are wrong with this scenario one is that in many of the homes
that left nothing but door frame standings the whole house lacked any kind of reinforcement
those cheap homes were fragile so the wooden frames were stronger but by no means strong
houses are made differently now in most places so this is less of an issue the door frame is not by
nature reinforced in any way there's nothing in there that is earthquake proof worse doors are
usually exposed that means you're opening yourself up to being hit by flying or falling debris
and that's the cause of most injuries during an earthquake your best bet in an earthquake
is to hide under a strong table or in a pinch keep low against an interior wall and protect yourself
as best you can number three don't try to drink cactus water here's one that everyone seems to
know if you're ever stranded in a desert you can cut open a cactus and find drinkable water inside
you can see this in several western movies and even cartoons like avatar the last airbender
as well as the book of boba fett so should you take survival advice from boba fett not really but
it reinforces this belief that people already have that this is a real thing and it's a dangerous
belief some cacti particularly the barrel cactus have liquid inside of them so this isn't a myth
that the liquid exists but drinking it can make a bad situation worse this isn't pure water then
it's full of acidic compounds and alkaloids from the cactus drinking it is known to cause severe
stomach pain diarrhea and even bone and joint pain it's possible that drinking a little could extend
your life but too much could actually shorten it by making your dehydration worse in the end it's
a bad idea to drink it at all number two do not hide under an underpass in a tornado few things
in nature are more terrifying than a tornado when people talk about nature's wrath that's
what they mean and by and large we have little defense against them but if one does come by you
need to do something to try and survive for many people outdoors the long-standing advice has been
to hide under an overpass the concrete structures survive tornadoes so it seems like they might be
a reasonable hiding spot the space under an overpass can actually increase wind speeds
when a tornado reaches it and this can make any debris being carried by the storm even
more deadly there's nothing to hold on to under an overpass either so those strong winds may just as
easily pick you up and throw you out basically everything that's dangerous about a tornado
becomes more dangerous under an overpass your best bet is to find indoor underground shelter if you
are outdoors and have nowhere to shelter it's recommended that you try to get into a low-lying
ditch and protect your head not the best place to be but it's still better than an underpass
1. don't try to punch a shark because you probably can't we've seen what not to do with bears and
other alligators so there's clearly only one animal awareness that's not really a menace left
and that's sharks in 2020 there were 57 unprovoked shark attacks in the whole world so once again
this is not really a serious concern for most of us but it could be a concern so what do you do one
popular story that gets a lot of play is that in the event a shark makes a runner you pop it
one in the nose shark sense prey with the organs in their nose and the thinking is that punching
a shark on the snout will deter it from attacking sounds plausible and what do you got to lose well
beside your hand here's the most thing people don't think about when they hear this advice
how do you take a swing underwater have you ever tried to punch underwater it's not easy and it's
not powerful whatever you could muster would barely phase a shark which would be attacking you
with far greater speed and this can't be stressed enough you're putting your hand directly in line
with a very large mouth if you do find yourself in the clutches of a shark aim for the eyes instead
why because nothing in the world likes to be poked in the eye sharks like to attack from behind and
they like things that remind them of tasty prey you can help counter this by not panicking don't
splash around the way a delicious seal might and maintain eye contact if you can keep it in sight
and move as it moves slowly and calmly poke the eyes or attack the gills if it comes in for a bite