what she's managing now is superhuman
she would have lost a manual dexterity
hi my name is john hudson i'm the uk
military's chief survival instructor
lamdorsi arctic desert or jungle and i
train the trainers
how to teach that to everyone else in
the uk military today we're going to be
looking at ocean survival scenes and
movies
and we're going to be judging how real
they are
that looks to me like they're diving
vertically at the scene and nobody will
survive it'd be like hitting concrete
what tends to happen in aeroplane
ditchings is you're just trying to do a
controlled landing on water like sully
did like tom hanks does
and the hudson
the water's gonna flush backwards the
best place for tom hanks or any of us to
sit in that sort of scenario
is probably near an overwing exit
definitely be near an exit
if you take cold water you can only hold
your breath for about five or ten
seconds
and the lethal dose for salt water is
one and a half liters so if you're in an
airplane and you're not near the exit
and it fills with or a helicopter and it
fills with cold water and you go
you're gonna die because you've taken
the lethal dose of salt water into your
lungs
have a feel can you check next time
you're on an airplane when they say
your life preserver is under your seat
have a look around and see if anyone
checks
i always do remember in a sinking
airplane though do not inflate it until
you're outside
because as it sinks you'll be trapped
inside the fuselage
another bit of hollywoodism because all
of these life rafts have a
weak link on them so if there's any
strain like this put on the life raft
the cord will tear away without ripping
the life raft so if it's attached to a
sinking airplane the airplane sinks
you don't get dragged down with it it's
built in it's a clever design feature
he can hold his breath because he's in
the tropics but it's at night and it's
in a storm so in all likelihood the air
temperature and everything else could be
a bit cold it'll turn the sea up a
little bit you'll get that mixing
so it won't be warm water that he's in
it still is gonna
limit how long he can hold his breath
for it's a little bit of hollywood going
on i think this bit
[Music]
and that kind of storm is the fuel
likely to have caught fire probably not
but it makes for a good scene doesn't it
looks cool the aeroplanes
landed with such force that it smashed
apart and caught fire
and yet we've still got an engine which
weighs several tons
above the water so we're kind of playing
with time and reality for a brilliant
scene here
it's only going to get 4 out of 10 for
realism
this is people from the carpathia coming
to try and find survivors from the
titanic what signs of life you'll be
able to detect may be a ripple
there's some small movement but by this
point people are going to be unconscious
there's no way you can survive
and water that temperature for even more
than an hour you know half of us will be
dead within 45 minutes so the only
people who would have survived were
those who were floating on or in
something
rather than in the water itself
you can see the ice in her hair that's
realistic when we do ice breaking drills
in the arctic with our guys
as soon as you get out of the frozen
lake your hair is like glass
straight away but if you both wanted to
survive your best chance is to both try
and get on
it'll be a little bit wobbly but you're
gonna lie still and like we know the sea
was super calm that night so you've got
a good chance of getting on there
if you can get the big arteries away
from the water femoral arteries or
under your armpits and around your neck
you'll survive for longer
come back come back what could she do to
raise his attention
while she's actually on there maybe
she's got something she can
clank together to raise a metallic noise
that would carry a long way
[Applause]
that point there where she jumps into
the water what happens to humans on
immersion in cold water
is that you have an absolutely
uncontrolled gasp response
absolutely uncontrollable so the main
problem with hollywood films about cold
water survival is that they never gasp
and they never hyperventilate for about
a minute afterwards
and it's absolutely uncontrollable
she probably wouldn't have been able to
swim initially at first we've tested
olympic athletes at the institute of
naval medicine on how people respond to
this
and gold and silver medalists can't
can't do this
what she's managing now is superhuman
she would have lost a manual dexterity
absolutely no chance of being able to do
that when you're that cold that's the
inuit sign for greeting
proving that you've got manual dexterity
which is why grimly
in the bottom of life rafts you often
find human teeth because it's impossible
to open packets people try to
rip them out with fists and teeth so to
adjust a small whistle
into your lips when it's going to be
frozen to that guy's lips anyway
and then stick it in your own mouth
super unlikely that's why in modern life
rafts we give them plastic whistles
because they're
not as prone to those problems when we
get to the specifics about survival and
rescue
two out of ten i know of one person from
iceland who survive conditions like this
and that's a miracle
man two or three sips a day
yeah gotta make it last
if you're not in control of your
situation you've got to try and find
something that you can control
and that's generating a small routine of
tasks
heliographs are a brilliant survival
item packed in most military survival
kits
each little um reflective square each
inch of reflectivity will project the
sun back about 10 miles so 2 inch square
that's good for 20 miles which for the
size and weight of it's phenomenal
this is a pretty accurate view of what
people look like after being baked in
the sun in a life raft for a while and
and what you can do to try and prevent
that is use anything for shade so
commonly people will take the shirts off
and use it as a shade shelter
all life rusts these days have got shade
shelters on them you're going to get
blistered and burnt
what people have actually tried to do if
they've got no medicine supplies with
them
is any grease they can find there was a
guy in the second world war who in his
post-action report
described using his finger and any
little bit of grease like maybe behind
his ear
trying to use that to parched lips that
crack and bleed
people will catch sea birds in life
rafts and try to eat them one of the
best things to pack
a survival food is a can of dog or cat
food because you'll only eat it if
you're really hungry
same with an albatross what people try
to do to make it more palatable
is normally to dry it so if they've got
any kind of thin lines
they can dry in the sun so you get a
kind of sea bird jerky
i don't think i can do it
we gotta try
only eat it if you think it won't make
you sick if you're ill and you're sick
you lose the calories you've actually
got in your stomach and the fluid that's
with it which is worse for you
but the problem with foods like that
proteins is it takes
fresh water to digest and the bigger
problem that survivors have at sea is
water acquisition
because you need water far sooner than
you need food we can survive for weeks
without eating but you can't survive
more than a few hours or days in
scorching sun
without water so if you eat protein
it'll exacerbate the not drinking part
which is one of their major problems but
if you haven't got loads of water
don't eat the albatross
it's long enough for you to try and grab
the tail away from the bitey end what
you can do you know
it's giving it a good shoeing what you
can do with sharks if you catch a small
enough one is turn it upside down
when you flip them upside down they go
into a tonic state which makes their
sort of oh what's happening
i'd give this one 10 out of 10. this is
the scenario that we train
our air crew for surviving in a life
raft at sea where the life raft is
something that's packed along with the
aircraft survival kit
they are far more at risk from us than
we are from them
but great whites specifically are very
unlikely to take mammals from rocks
you see orcas do it killer whales will
do it but
you know great white sharks is unlikely
what they're trying to do is just get
easy meat if you're on a rock you're not
easy food
can you outswim a shark no
should you try no when sharks attack
there's not a lot you can do about it if
you're in a group if you're huddled
try and stay together don't start
smashing the water or doing any
violent movements because that'll
attract them you want to be unattractive
to this thing you want to look
and feel like something it's not used to
eating
it all depends on what kind of jellyfish
and goodness knows what they're supposed
to be but some of them are lethally
dangerous aren't they swimming to
jellyfish the shark's definitely gonna
have a munch at you
even if it's just an exploratory bite
because you're bleeding that could be
enough to sever an artery and then
you'll bleed out
shark's skin is incredibly thick the
thinnest part is on the nose so if you
did have the choice which you won't have
and you did have a weapon which you
probably won't have
and you we're gonna have a go then yeah
go for it around the nose
entertainment rating i don't know seven
out of ten realism rating maybe a two
where's the beach hey wake up it's not
uncommon for people to drift out
of range of getting back into land it's
a really common way for people to get
into difficulties
one of the first senses you lose in a
survival situation is your sense of
humor
and you know that in your mates if
they've ever had a real
crisis in their life though and it's not
right to joke about it they won't joke
about it
in a life raft what you can do is take
five now
really difficult if you're two people in
a one-person raft
but if it's any other sort of scenario
either shut up for five minutes
or just take a break you know just take
that time out
it should have been you now luckily life
rough knives have got a blunted end
and they float because that's the next
thing that would happen are you talking
about killing and eating me frank
maybe i am maybe i ain't from him
certainly in the accounts that i've come
across from british mariners
if you're in a life raft then it's all
getting a bit difficult and everyone's
really really hungry then you're going
to get one of you is going to get eaten
they used to draw lots in life rafts
back in the day like
1700s and so even up until then normally
it was the young cabin boy that got
knocked on the head so all the old
sweats have probably rigged
the draw but yeah they draw lots you
don't need to eat that urgently we can
survive for weeks without food
so yeah cannibalism not that high on the
uh
on the list all i'm saying is that when
you go into survival mode
it's every man for himself what is
survival mode
i don't know i know it's not everyone
for himself it's everyone together
realism 10 out of 10. so
so people haven't thought about it and
haven't been trained will probably react
so by trying to free the mass that was
bashing into the side of the boat
she's unfortunately got tangled up in
the sail that's now dragging her down
one of the things we teach pilots to do
is get away from their parachute because
it'll do exactly the same but you can
actually breathe through them
so there's a little air pocket so she
did the right thing
duct tape's amazing isn't it you can fix
most things with it it's commonly put in
survival packs
you've got to test somewhere first going
to make sure it's clean and dry
difficult to see but it's a calm day
because if there's any moisture that'll
affect the adhesive so the first thing
to do is protect yourself from the
hazards which she's done
the next thing she needs to do is get
rescued be located as we call it
military survival
so she's going right the way through it
logically and she's doing exactly the
right things try to get rescued and then
later when she's got some kind of
message for help out there then yeah
i'll worry about water and
food
what we'll tend to do is throw a line to
them if they're compass mentos
but if they're unconscious or if they're
further away than we can throw the line
then we'll tie it around someone's
middle just like she's done so what
she's doing
is absolutely the same as we would teach
people to do she hasn't got a life
preserver on is the one thing i pick her
up for on that
pulling someone out of the water is
really hard work if they've got a
buoyancy aid on what you can do is sort
of almost
semi-submerse the body and then the
buoyancy will give you a kick
up but with a high sided vessel a
relatively high sided vessel like that
is really tricky
and the other problem with getting
people out of the water not a lot of
folk know about hydrostatic squeeze and
post rescue collapse
prioritizing her survival options
protection location water and food
that gets a 10 out of 10.
[Music]
so what can you do in this situation if
you're these guys if there's a massive
wave like that coming straight at the
boat there's not a lot they can do the
reason he's accelerating is like
when you're trying to paddle out through
a big set when you're surfing you try
and go a bit faster to get beyond it
before it breaks
so and that's what all they can do but
it's wrong place wrong time
you can't turn a boat around fast enough
if the wave's coming that quick if you
get caught sideways on it's going to
tumble and
destroy it you could try and outrun it
but it's not
that boat isn't built for speed what
could you do
emergency position indicator beacons
that will broadcast the satellite where
you are
have one of those on your person have a
survival suit have a life preserver
and if the boat becomes untenable
because the sea is just too big if you
look at the top of the bridge house
on the fishing boat that white canister
is a life raft
even when the crib is going off when
it's really big it's nothing like that
they do happen though
there's varying theories as to what
creates them mostly it's down around the
south africa region there's an antarctic
current that comes up
meets the warmer water and creates this
kind of enormous pitching
that has broken ships in half in the
past this is a 10 out of 10.
there's a seafarers institute for a
reason to look after the families of
those who get lost at sea it's a really
really harsh environment
it's a typical kind of scenario where
people get into trouble there's
something like three or four hundred of
those shipping containers go into the
sea every year and they just float
around near the surface so you're not
gonna know especially at night
it makes total sense when things get wet
with salt water
as it evaporates like it would do in
that climate it forms little salt
crystals
he's checking out his communications
equipment and by washing it off with
fresh water that'll get rid of the salt
crystals that could stop them working
he'll let it dry in the sun he's not
using loads of water you can see he's
being really careful about measuring it
out
and that should make his sat phone work
again later and we can tell it's a sat
phone from the antenna
if the repair works or be a little bit
heath robinson he can phone for help
but if you've been on a life raft for
even a few hours it gets uncomfortable
if you've been in for hours days weeks
months terrible
and you get to your wit's end
so in this scene what robert is trying
to do is just generate a little light
and it's difficult at night i mean the
moon's right behind him and what you can
do with a mirror is reflect moonlight
but it's difficult on water because all
the waves the little ripples are
reflecting
so what robert's trying to do is make a
small fire a contained fire in his raft
now that is
fraught with danger typically if people
run out of pyrotechnics they're going to
scream and shout but you can't be heard
across open water but what he could have
done
is as well as packing some pyrotechnical
light devices
pack a laser flare because they're
brilliant
this is not uncommon for people to have
to make these really critical
life death decisions um and it is it's a
it's an all or nothing thing isn't it
if it doesn't work there's an amazing
anecdote from greenland in the war where
three american airmen who were stranded
on the coast set fire to their warm
jackets
in the winter and knowing that if people
saw the fire they'd get rescued
and if they didn't they'd freeze to
death in terms of realism for the scene
where robert redford
makes a small fire accidentally
satisfies his whole raft
realism nine
lots and lots of life rafts and
lifeboats
have got little manuals in them and this
is one of the sort of
standard diagrams that you'll see in it
like ocean ocean currents and where the
where the water will take you
i know it's all metaphor but would you
be able to trail behind
a metal lifeboat on a section of oars
and life jackets
i mean people have survived them worse
but that is pretty clever isn't it
triangles are one of the strongest
structures you can make it's minimizing
the amount of knots he's got to tie
it's got a little bit of giving it for
the sea establish a strict schedule
for eating keeping watch and getting
rest
spot on getting a routine is absolutely
critical
you can sense the passing of time by
watching the movement of the sun
so if you put your arm out and this is
the same for all of us because our hands
and our arms are about the right
proportion
that's 10 degrees which is just under an
hour 15 degrees is how much the sun
moves in an hour
so you know that you've got as many of
those as is for the time of year before
sunrise and
sunset so there are things you can do to
keep track of time do not drink urine or
sea water
yes never stop right everyone are you
hearing me
it will actually make you die quicker
because if you drink anything that's
salty
it exacerbates the problem of
dehydration above all
don't lose hope the first point i should
say being a proper survival geek is
never cutting some metal with your knife
because it'll just blunt in it
but if you go to the imperial war museum
not far from where we're filming this
there's a boat in there from the
anglo-saxon we spoke about
and it's got notches in the gunnel for
how long they survived at sea
and that's you will lose track if you
haven't got some form of log and paper
will get
wrecked and ruined so yeah just keep a
mental
thread of what's been happening it's a
good good eight or nine i think
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