You might always not have an emergency kit with you, but there’s one thing you, me,
and probably most other people on this planet will NOT leave the house without! That’s
right, our underwear. Oh yeah, and we also won’t leave our phones! Yeah, you might
be addicted to your phone, but, hey, it could end up saving your life in an emergency!
Now, assuming you’ve gotten yourself into a sticky situation that calls for quick thinking
and some sharp survival skills, I’m going to assume your phone has some juice in it
until the battery dies. So feel free to call me Captain Obvious (“at your service!”),
but I’ll say it: first and foremost, you can call emergency services! But let me add
to that before you say “Uh, duh!” and cancel me forever. You can call 911 in North
America or 112 in Europe even if the phone is blocked, deactivated, or it has no sim
card inside!
Another cool thing is that every cell phone is constantly looking for a nearby tower so
that it can keep its signal. And that’s true even when you’re on the move. So, once
every couple minutes, it sends a ping to the nearest tower. When it does find one, it’ll
be enough for emergency services to find your location within a mile. If your battery’s
running low or you don’t have a signal now, text as many contacts in your phone as you
can, giving your last known whereabouts, what happened to you, and how you feel. Once a
signal appears, the phone will immediately send the text.
But let’s go a little more extreme. Imagine your phone has run out of power. If you can’t
use it as intended, then just take it apart! A smartphone is full of survival treasures:
the screen, wires, battery, chips (not the edible kind, unfortunately). All of them will
make your life much easier if you’re alone in the wilderness with nothing but a dead
phone in your hand. So, it can serve as…
1. Pocket-sized storage You can use your phone or the case as a storage
box for some small items. It can be a razor blade, a needle, a fishing line, or a short
survival instruction in a plastic bag. That paper can also be used later to start a fire!
Or, ya know, you can use the phone itself…
2. A fire-starter Fire is your best friend when you’re stranded
out in the wild. You can make a smoke signal with it, cook your food, protect yourself
from predatory animals, and, most importantly, keep warm! Almost any battery, including the
one in your smartphone, can be used to start a fire. First, see to it that you have everything
you need at hand: a battery, a wire, and some tinder for your fire. Put one end of the wire
on the positively charged node of the battery and the other on the negative one. It’ll
immediately glow red-hot, so your time is limited! Also, you’ll only have one chance.
(No pressure!)
3. Reflecting an SOS signal Of course, most smartphones today have a built-in
flashlight, so that can really come in handy when you’re in an emergency situation at
night. But remember, your battery’s dead, so how can you send an SOS? Easy – use the
screen to reflect sun- or moonlight. Sun reflections can be seen over long distances, just like
a flashlight! But, still, you have to be pretty accurate if you want someone to see it. Let’s
imagine you’re stranded somewhere and you see a ship out on the water or a plane up
above. First off, make a peace sign with your index and middle finger. Stretch your arm
out and hold that “V” out in front of you. Then, put the plane or ship you’re
sending signals to between these two fingers. You’ll want to direct the light there. To
be extra sure that they know you need help, it’s good to remember the Morse code for
SOS: it’s 3 dots (or quick flashes of light), 3 dashes (or longer ones), and 3 more short
dots.
4. Navigation Your battery is out of juice, so your GPS
app can’t do much at this point. Don’t panic! You can just make a compass with your
phone, MacGyver-style! Even the oldest cellphone models have a magnet in them and a piece of
wire that can serve as a needle for the compass. You’ll need about ½ to 1 inch of a metallic
wire. Put one of its ends on the magnet to, well, magnetize it! Don’t forget which side
of the wire you magnetized – that’s crucial! Then you’ll need a small piece of paper
or a dry leaf, not much bigger than the wire itself. Put the wire on the leaf and let it
float in a clean puddle. Make sure there aren’t any metallic objects nearby or it’ll ruin
the whole thing. If you’ve done everything right, the magnetized part of the wire will
point North within a few seconds!
5. A weapon or sharp tool Phones are full of hard metal parts that can
be sharpened on a rock and used as a weapon or knife. And a sharp tool like that can be
a key to surviving in the wild. You can cut branches to put in your fire, scrape tree
bark to use for tinder, and cut roots to use as rope. You can even attach your little “blade”
to a stick or small branch, and now you’ve got a fishing spear! Or, again, a pretty hardy
weapon to protect yourself from wild animals!
6. Fishing hooks If you don’t think you’re fast enough
to “spear” your seafood dinner, then use some of those small sharp pointy parts in
your phone as “hooks” for fishing. You can attach the part to the end of a piece
of string or rope, put a worm on it, and there ya go! If you’ve got enough supplies, you
can even set up several of these bates and go about your business while dinner catches
itself!
7. First-Aid If you’ve got a bad cut on your arm or leg,
you can use the cable to your ear- or headphones as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. (Ok,
it might not be part of the phone itself, but, come on, you probably have your charger
or earphones on you too!) Anyway, hopefully you’ll never have to use any of these tips,
but especially this one because you have to be extra careful when it comes to using a
tourniquet. They’re only safe to use for arterial bleeding. That’s the bright red
pulsating kind – versus venous bleeding, which is darker and comes out in a steady
flow without pulsing. If it’s your last resort: then first put a piece of cloth on
your skin about an inch above the wound – the cloth serves to protect your skin. Then, take
your headphone cable and wrap it around that spot nice and tight. If the bleeding stops
within 2 minutes, you’ve done everything right! Just never keep a tourniquet on for
more than 1-2 hours. Otherwise, you can starve your tissues of oxygen, and you definitely
don’t wanna do that…
Hopefully your struggle for survival never gets to that point, and maybe the following
apps can keep that from happening! - Family Locator and similar apps link the
phones of your family members into one network. It’ll show your location on a map so that
your loved ones know where you are and how to find you.
- Emergency apps like SOS+ let you push an alarm button on your phone so that all the
people in your emergency contact list will know that something has happened to you. An
advanced version of this app will also call emergency services.
- There’s an app called SaveMePro that lets you call 911 without having to actually dial
the number! You just push the on/off button 8 times, and the call goes through. (It was
developed by a 12-year-old, by the way!) - If you’re heading to the mountains, be
sure to download the Uepaa! app (however the heck that’s pronounced) that lets your smartphone
work as a transmitter that sends a signal for up to 1,500 ft. If the app recognizes
that the user hasn’t moved for a long time, it’ll automatically send an SOS signal to
all available devices! - And, finally, Facebook Safety Check works
automatically if you have the Facebook app on your phone. The app determines if you’re
in a disaster zone and sends you a special request. All you have to do is answer if you’re
safe or not, and this answer will appear in your friends’ news feed as a notification.
So, if your phone is full of games and social media messengers, maybe check out the app
store and download one that’ll help keep you safe in an emergency! It’s always better
to be prepared ahead of time so that you don’t have to take your phone apart in the ultimate
fight for survival! Still, who would’ve thought your phone could do all that? Pretty
cool, huh?
Here’s something else to do: Give this video a like if you learned something new or helpful
from it, and help a friend out by sharing it with them! But – hey! – don’t go
all MacGyver on me just yet! We have over 2,000 cool videos for you to check out. All
you have to do is pick the left or right video, click on it, and enjoy! Remember in an emergency,
always -- Stay on the Bright Side of life!