Imagine you’re having a fun day at the beach, enjoying the sun and waves, when suddenly you feel a sharp pain in your leg. You look down and see a jellyfish! You’ve been stung! What should you do next? There are many survival tips out there, but not all of them are helpful. Some can even be dangerous. Let’s explore some survival tips that might lead to trouble and learn what you should really do instead.
The pain from a jellyfish sting can be intense. You might have heard that urine can relieve the pain, but that’s a myth. Urine can actually make the sting worse by activating more venom. Instead, remove any jellyfish tentacles and wash the area with seawater. Use tweezers to remove any barbs, then apply vinegar or rubbing alcohol to ease the pain. If the sting is from a particularly venomous jellyfish, seek medical help immediately.
If you encounter a shark while swimming, you might think punching it in the nose is a good idea. However, this is not effective and could be dangerous. Instead, aim for the shark’s gills or eyes, which are more sensitive. Use any object you have, like a snorkel, to defend yourself. This might give you enough time to swim to safety.
During an earthquake, you might have heard that standing under a door frame is safe. This is not true for most modern homes. Instead, move away from windows and large furniture, and take cover under a sturdy table or desk until the shaking stops.
If you see a tornado, you might think hiding under an overpass is safe. However, this can be very dangerous due to high-speed winds and flying debris. The safest place is indoors, preferably in a basement. If you’re outside, stay in your car with your seatbelt on or lie flat on the ground with your hands over your head.
If you’re caught in a storm with lightning, don’t lie flat on the ground. This increases your risk of being struck. Instead, seek shelter in a building or a hard-topped vehicle.
If a bear charges at you, playing dead might work with a grizzly bear, but not with a black bear. Try to escape, and if that fails, fight back by targeting the bear’s sensitive areas.
If bitten by a venomous snake, don’t try to suck out the venom. Keep the bitten limb below or at heart level to slow the venom’s spread and get to a hospital quickly.
If you encounter an alligator, don’t run in a zig-zag pattern. Instead, make yourself look big and back away slowly. If necessary, run away in a straight line.
In cold environments, don’t eat snow to rehydrate. It can lower your body temperature. Instead, melt it first. In hot environments, don’t drink water from cacti, as it can cause illness. Look for water in rock crevices or eat cactus fruit for hydration.
When it comes to water, don’t ration it too strictly. Drink what you need when you need it to stay hydrated.
Now that you know what not to do, you’re better prepared to handle these situations safely!
Imagine you’re at the beach and get stung by a jellyfish. Create a role-play scenario with a partner where one of you is the lifeguard and the other is the person who got stung. Practice the correct steps to treat a jellyfish sting, including removing tentacles and applying vinegar or rubbing alcohol. Discuss why these steps are important.
Work in small groups to create a board game that simulates a shark encounter. Design the game to include different scenarios and strategies, such as aiming for the shark’s gills or eyes. Play the game with your classmates and discuss which strategies were most effective and why.
Participate in an earthquake safety drill in your classroom. Practice moving away from windows and large furniture, and take cover under a sturdy desk. After the drill, discuss what you learned and how you can apply these safety tips at home.
Create a poster that illustrates the dos and don’ts of tornado safety. Include information about why hiding under an overpass is dangerous and the importance of seeking shelter indoors. Display your poster in the classroom to educate others.
In groups, write and perform a short skit about what to do if caught in a storm with lightning. Highlight the importance of seeking shelter in a building or vehicle. After the performance, discuss how these actions can keep you safe during a storm.
Here’s a sanitized version of the YouTube transcript:
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Picture this: You’re having a lovely day at the beach, soaking up some sun and splashing around in the water, when all of a sudden, you feel a sharp pain in your leg. You look down and see a jellyfish! You’ve been stung! What do you do next? Thankfully, there are lots of helpful tips out there to teach us all how to avoid disaster, no matter what we might encounter! But as it turns out, survival tips can be tricky. Choose the right one, and you’ve got a solution that can help you live another day. Choose the wrong one, and you might be in trouble. Today, we’re taking a look at survival tips that could lead to serious issues!
The pain from the jellyfish sting is intense, but you manage to stumble back to shore and collapse on the sand. Your friend is here to help, and he knows just what to do! You’ve both read about jellyfish stings, and you’ve seen that one episode of a popular sitcom. It’s unpleasant, but you understand why he’ll have to help you.
But wait! As it turns out, urine doesn’t actually relieve the pain of a jellyfish sting. In fact, because urine is mostly water, it can cause the stinging cells from the jellyfish to activate and release more venom onto your skin. Not only is it ineffective, but having someone use urine on the sting wastes valuable time you could be using to treat the injury. Depending on the type of jellyfish, the sting could even be serious.
So what should you do instead? Remove any tentacles and wash the area using seawater, not freshwater. Look for any barbs in your skin and remove them with tweezers. Then, you can use vinegar or rubbing alcohol to help ease the pain of the sting. If the jellyfish is of an especially venomous variety, go straight to the nearest hospital.
Let’s say it was a milder sting, and you’re feeling much better after some vinegar and a little rest. Time for some more swimming! Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water… a shark comes swimming up to you! What do you do? Surely, the best course of action is to punch it in the nose!
After all, that’s a common piece of advice when it comes to repelling a shark. But have you considered doing something else? Stop and think about it for a second. How hard can you punch? Unless you’re exceptionally strong, probably not hard enough to seriously wound a shark. In spite of the popularity of this advice, punching an attacking shark is more likely to end with injury to yourself. A shark’s nose is right above its mouth, where all those sharp teeth are.
Even if you manage to make contact, it won’t be enough to scare the shark off. Most likely, it will just briefly stun the animal, not long enough for you to escape. So, what should you actually do if a shark attacks you? Aim for areas more sensitive than the nose, such as the gills or the eyes. If you have anything on you that you can use as a weapon, such as a snorkel, use that to hit the shark instead. Hopefully, this will buy you enough time to swim back to shore and safety.
Hanging out by the beach seems a bit risky, so you decide to head home, but danger seems to follow you everywhere! Imagine that you’re just relaxing on the couch when all of a sudden, the ground beneath you begins to shake! It’s an earthquake! You’d better find a safe place to hide, and quick!
It’s a good thing you remember that classic piece of advice: stand under a door frame during an earthquake! However, unless you happen to live in a very old home, chances are that your doorway is not the strongest part of your house. When the earth starts shaking, your best move is to get away from any windows or large furniture that might tip over, and dive under a sturdy table or desk and wait out the disaster there.
If you survive, you might treat yourself to a drive around the neighborhood when suddenly, the air begins to change. The sky takes on a strange hue. You can hear a roar, like a passing train. Suddenly, you see it: a funnel, touching down. A tornado! If you’ve heard the most common advice out there on surviving a tornado, you might start looking for an overpass to hide under. But here’s the thing: going under an overpass might actually be one of the worst things you could do during a tornado.
Tornado winds can sometimes reach speeds of more than 200 miles per hour. This high-speed wind flings debris through the air. If you’re under an overpass, this debris can be blown into and channeled under the structure, colliding with you at intense speeds and causing severe injury. The best place to be during a tornado is inside, ideally in a basement if you have one. If you’re not able to get back home in time, pull over and park. Then you can either stay in the car with your seatbelt on, or get out and lie on the ground with your hands covering your head.
So you made it through the earthquake and the tornado, but now you’re outside, and you hear a sudden clap of thunder! That sounded pretty close… sure enough, you spot a flash of lightning. What should you do? According to some advice, you should lie flat on the ground. That advice is incorrect and could lead to serious injury. When lightning strikes the ground, it radiates in circles out from its point of impact.
If you’re lying down, you maximize the amount of contact between the lightning’s energy and your body. The only options that guarantee safety are retreating to a building or a hard-topped vehicle.
Our next survival tip is one of the most commonly repeated and potentially dangerous. When you’re out in the woods, camping or hiking, one of the last things you want to see is a bear. But if a bear starts to charge at you, all you have to do is play dead! This might work with a grizzly bear, but if it’s a black bear, you should try to get away. If that fails, you should fight back by targeting the bear’s most sensitive areas.
Speaking of animal encounters, if you don’t watch your step, you run the risk of getting bitten by a venomous snake. That’s why you should always have a buddy with you in the wilderness! If you wind up with a snake bite, your friend can help! Just kidding, please never attempt to suck the venom out of the wound. When a venomous snake bites you, the venom goes straight into your bloodstream. Instead, hold the bitten limb below or close to the level of your heart to slow the spread of the venom and get to a hospital as quickly as possible.
Maybe you don’t want to explore the forest anymore after all the dangers. How about the Everglades? Surely you won’t find any trouble there—wait, there’s an alligator coming right toward you. No matter what you might have been told, don’t run away in a zig-zag pattern. Instead, if you come face to face with an alligator, raise your hands in the air, attempt to look as big as possible, and back away from the animal. If this fails, back away a few steps, then run away as fast as possible in a straight line.
Sometimes, one of the greatest threats to survival is the elements themselves. You might not have to worry about getting eaten nearly as much as you have to worry about dying of thirst. If you’re stranded in the woods in winter, surrounded by snow, don’t give up! You can eat the snow to rehydrate, right? Well, not exactly. Eating snow will sap body heat and bring down your core temperature. Instead, melt it in a container over a fire if possible, or place the snow in a container between layers of your clothes to let it melt.
What if you run out of water in a hot environment? You might spot a cactus and think you can drink the water trapped inside. Sadly, it’s not that easy. The liquid inside many cacti can induce vomiting and diarrhea, which can speed up dehydration. Instead, look for water in the crevasses of rocks, or eat the fruit of the cactus for hydration.
If you can’t find any external sources of water, there’s always the option of drinking your own urine. However, urine contains waste products, including salt. Drinking urine can lead to further dehydration.
Finally, we’ve left the worst piece of survival advice for last: ration your water. While it makes sense to conserve resources, people have been found dead in the wilderness with fresh water still on their person because they were trying to conserve it too carefully. Instead of rationing water, drink what you need when you need it.
Now watch “How 1 Man Survived 133 Days Lost At Sea On A Life Raft” or check out this video instead!
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This version removes any inappropriate language and maintains a focus on the survival tips while ensuring the content is suitable for all audiences.
Jellyfish – A sea creature with a soft, jelly-like body and tentacles that can sting. – While swimming in the ocean, we spotted a jellyfish floating gracefully near the surface.
Shark – A large fish known for its sharp teeth and powerful swimming ability, often found in oceans. – Scientists study the behavior of sharks to understand their role in marine ecosystems.
Earthquake – A sudden shaking of the ground caused by movements within the Earth’s crust. – During the earthquake, the ground trembled, and buildings swayed back and forth.
Tornado – A violent, rotating column of air extending from a thunderstorm to the ground. – The tornado caused significant damage to the town, uprooting trees and destroying homes.
Lightning – A natural electrical discharge in the atmosphere, often seen during storms. – We watched the lightning illuminate the sky during the thunderstorm.
Bear – A large, heavy mammal with thick fur, known for its strength and ability to hibernate. – The bear searched for food in the forest before settling down for its winter hibernation.
Snake – A legless reptile with a long, slender body, some of which are venomous. – The biologist carefully observed the snake as it slithered through the grass.
Alligator – A large reptile with a broad snout, found in freshwater environments like swamps and rivers. – The alligator basked in the sun on the riverbank, barely moving as it warmed up.
Survival – The act of staying alive, especially in challenging or dangerous situations. – Learning basic survival skills is important for anyone who enjoys outdoor adventures.
Hydration – The process of providing or maintaining adequate fluid levels in the body. – Drinking water regularly is essential for proper hydration, especially during exercise.
