Train Yourself to Help Others

India is an extremely sensitive zone, ecologically speaking. Every year we witness some sort of natural calamity, either in the form of floods or earthquakes or cloudbursts or drought or some other natural disaster. And with global warming making itself felt across the world, the quantity of rain is concentrating more and more in shorter spans of time. What would earlier fall in a few weeks, now pours in a few days or hours. And the fragile geography, the young Himalayas and the rampant concrete jungles that are coming up, without any heed to safety, is aggravating the problem even more. Fingers get pointed after every calamity, political points are scored, demands for resignation are made, tribunals and committees are formed, promises are doled out like there is no tomorrow .... yet the more the things change, the more they remain the same. There is talk of the nexus between corrupt of every hue to whom is laid the blame for these calamities. Meanwhile people keep losing their own lives, the lives of their family members, they lose their homes and means of livelihood. Compensations are announced and life goes on as usual ... till the next disaster strikes.

There is a need to look at the reasons behind these disasters and the reaction to them. There is a need to speed up prediction and our responses to prediction. Relief and rescue needs to be looked at very seriously so that unnecessary time is not lost ... and thereby more lives are not lost due to avoidable delays.

But there is another aspect that needs to be looked into very seriously, which no one seems to be doing. It has never been seriously addressed and indeed, is not considered a priority. It is the training and preparedness of the people who are caught in disasters and calamities. Whether it be the earthquakes in Bhuj or Latur, the floods in Kosi, or the cloudbursts in Leh and Uttarakhand, it WILL take time for authorities to respond. With roads being washed away, it will be difficult for rescue vehicles to reach. First we have to identify the region and then gather the resources and then send them to the required places. This takes time. We might want to speed things up as much as possible, but there will be a time delay, however unfortunate. It is for times like these that the people who are caught in the calamity have to fend for themselves instead of waiting for relief and rescue.

India is woefully atrocious as far as rescue is concerned. It takes a calamity such as the recent Uttarakhand floods that is still unfolding, to bring the authorities out of their slumber. What about smaller disasters? India is a landslide prone country. Smaller landslides ensure that small pockets of people are cut off from humanity. With no search and rescue ... indeed often with no knowledge of the calamity ... the people have to fend for themselves. Even in cases such as Uttarakhand people have been stranded for four or five days before being evacuated to safety. And these are people who are labelled tourists and pilgrims. They are in relatively known pockets – Rudraprayag, Srinagar, Kedarnath, Pithoragarh, etc. These people are tourists and the authorities know where to look. But what about the locals? Farmers who were tending their fields or flocks when the cloudburst struck. These people may be small numbers – groups of two or three, maybe even a solitary shepherd. They are probably stuck in the folds of the mountains without any means of signalling that they too are an affected lot, and no chance of being rescued since no one is looking for them.

Each of the people have to learn the art of survival. Not only solitary individuals stuck in the middle of nowhere and the only way out being self rescue, but even those gathered in groups. It takes just one panic stricken person to turn the whole dynamics on its head. And soon you have a bigger problem in addition to the original one. Situations like these need a cool head, basic leadership qualities and the knowledge about how best to make use of the resources found in the devastation all around. At the same time, keeping the people together, keeping their hopes up that rescue and safety is just around the corner.

In every survival situation the basics are the same. Whether it be in the flattened town of Kedarnath or a group of trekkers stranded in the middle of nowhere. There are essentially SEVEN things that need to be addressed.

The first and most important is a positive mental attitude. If the mind is not in the right place, everything else becomes difficult. Worry or panic is not going to solve anything; only a calm and composed mind will. The rule I follow is acronymed STOP – Stop, Think, Observe, Plan. In times of calamity, where home and hearth is lost, there is injury or maybe even death, it is difficult to keep calm. This is where group dynamics comes into play. There needs to be people who are aware of the situation and make all efforts to keep people around them calm and composed.

If rescue and safety is not imminent, shelter is the next most important essential. In cold weather, if wet, if windy, hypothermia can set in very very quickly resulting in death. The first line of defense against the elements is the clothes on your back. If the clothes are wet, get them dry. If it is windy, find shade against the wind. If it is cold, find warmth. In a calamity such as in Kedarnath, there will be a lot of debris strewn all around. Construct a shelter to guard against the wind and the rain and the cold. Use body heat to warm each other. There are innumerable ways in which a shelter can be constructed ... if only you know what to look for and what to do with what you find.

People often complain about food. I was watching the television coverage of the Uttarakhand tragedy and saw one lady complaining that there was only rice and dal to eat. Lucky her, she at least had that. But the human body is an incredibly versatile piece of machinery and you can survive without food for maybe three or four weeks. In fact it is better to stay off food unless there is adequate supply of drinking water since food requires water to digest. I suspect good clean drinking water was at a premium in Uttarakhand, and hence people would do well to conserve their energy as much as possible and eat as less as possible. However, even amidst such devastation there is food to be found in the trees, in grass, in animal protein ... if only we know where to look and know what to eat.

Water is essential. Dehydration can set in extremely quickly and people can die in a very short time without water. Chances are that in Uttarakhand water was plenty. After it was a flood that caused all the destruction. But the water would have been contaminated. Debris, soil, and dead bodies of humans and animals would be in the water contaminating it. And drinking contaminated water is a surefire way of getting very sick. Not a good idea in a survival situation. Water HAS to be purified for drinking. And surest form of purification is by boiling it. Which brings us to fire. But even if there is no fire, there are many different ways that water can be made potable. If only people knew how.

Fire in my mind is a survivor’s best friend. It keeps you warm, it dries your clothes, it boils your water, it cooks your food. Fire is also a great companion in the middle of the night, when you are enveloped in darkness, with its crackling flames. It is almost a living thing that you can talk to. It warms the cockles of your heart. But how do you light a fire in the middle of all that devastation. Chances are you are not even carrying a matchbox or a lighter. There are lots of ways to light a fire in the wilderness, some easy, some more time consuming and energy sapping. But there are ways to light a fire. Learn how.

So with a right mental attitude, shelter, water, fire and food you have taken care of yourself. You are calm, have found shelter from the elements, have a fire to keep you warm and boil your water and if you have found food, you are not hungry anymore. Next is to find your way out of the problem you find yourself in. People may be out looking for you, or you may have to relocate yourself, either for others to find you or to effect self rescue.

You need to know the art of signalling so that people far away can identify that you are in distress. Without any signal no one knows where you are and whether you require help or not. I talked about solitary shepherds or farmers who might still be stranded in the folds of the mountains of Uttarakhand. If they could signal their presence, they could possibly be rescued. Without signalling you are pretty much on your own. And there are a lot of ways you can signal for help, some that can be visible for miles.

In most cases it is best to remain where you are. If you move and rescuers find your camp and you are not there, time taken is so much more. The search continues. But in case it looks like that rescue is unlikely and you have to self rescue, you have to know where to go, which direction to head. And that is where you need to learn the art of navigation.

These are some of the essentials that are required for everyone. Not for everyday life maybe, but certainly for disaster situations and survival situations. Life will be calmer, it will be healthier and more hygienic. Once rescue is effected and you are back in safety, the tears can roll and the frustrations can come out in the open. But the need of the hour is to find yourself and your group to safety.

Last but not the least is first aid. Even a small medical problem like a blister or a cut of a sprain can aggravate to something major. Just plain walking might become difficult or infection could set in very quickly. The techniques of administering basic first is an invaluable knowledge that you can have when stuck in an unfortunate situation.

To get back to where we started from, if more and more people, particularly the youth, were trained in these eight basic survival essentials, life in cases of such disasters could become more bearable. Why should we always depend on the administration or the police or the armed forces to come and help us? Why can’t we help them to help us by making sure that we have not made a bad situation worse by disregarding basic principles of survival.

If only more people are trained. If only more people are willing to be trained. After all, as many of us like to believe, “It can’t happen to me.”