There are many knives branded with the label "Survival" and there are many videos showing some of these knives in action (but of course not during a real survival situation-who is going to holding the camera??) But many videos and even more blogs don't talk about the environment the knife is used in. For example, a survival situation on a island surrounded by the sea Vs a tropical jungle environment. What could you be doing with this knife? Stainless steel is it necessary? Even in a marine environment? What will be the most useful blade shape? Does it matter? Maybe you won't have a choice when the shit hits the fan.
Can you easily sharpen it? How resistant is to breaking, falling apart with time? How comfortable will it be in the freezing cold Vs continually wet?
Everyone talking about survial but how many of us have actually been involved in a situation? or are they talking BS?
Survival situations are often of very short duration, not like in the movies, ie lasting for months at a time or years stranded on a deserted island.
Let's look at survival scenarios. They could be long term or short term in duration before help is possible.
Without warning:
Man made:-acts of war, sinking vessel etc
Without warning:
Nature's wrath-earth quake, tidal wave, volcanic eruption, insect attack, animal attack etc.
Little warning:
Natures wrath: tidal wave, sinking vessel, flooding: (canyoning, caving , topside , equipment failure (SCUBA diving)
With warning:
No outside help possible.
For example 1: A situation that does not directly involve you but a party or party members (for example, an expedition gone wrong, party member injured or becomes irrational) Time to notice/act depends on the leader of the expediton.
For example 2
Lost -your party or someone else has become lost that your party has encountered, what to do?
Example 3 Party delayed due to injuries/sickness of party members, group is running low on food and water.
Ok now starting from the top. I have no experience with acts of war but the closest thing to this is being held hostage for about 30 minutes by armed rebels. Were there any knives involved in rectifying this situation? No sir! In fact if we had even attempted to become a threat, we were out gunned, out manned and in as close to as possible the middle of no where. The situation resolved itself by everyone keeping calm as these guys were looking for someone else AND even if they weren't, pulling your "Survival" knife would have got you shot immediately. The aggressors weren't checking for weapons, they knew we were out gunned and no threat plus they had the advantage.
A sinking vessel, ok you need to swim and if you can grab a small knife of any kind grab one, though there are generally ones kept in well maintained lifeboats (if you are lucky enough) better to concentrate on swimming away from the sinking ship to avoid getting caught up in rising air pockets otherwise you are going straight down asap!
Without warning: nature's wrath-earth quake, tidal wave, volcanic eruption, insect attack, animal attack etc.
How about these scenarios? Ok here I'll confine this to what I have personally experienced on more than one occasion:
Animal attack
In this case attack by unleashed domestic dogs (2 dogs). I was carrying with me my EDC for the month, a FOX Spartan Leonida Combat Survival knife attached to my waist and within easy deployment, a large 8ft tree branch with one forked end. Without warning except the sound of barking, two large mongrel dogs burst from cover at over 50 meters away. The barking was my only warning. No time to reach for the knife and spend the next 30 minutes fixing to the end of this stick I had! Not practical to try to defend myself with the Knife as it's reach is small. Use the stick man! Easily able to keep them at bay from both sides while at the same time keep moving to try to keep them in front of me. They did try to get behind me. Unfortunately for me I had to cross their paths several time but the second time I was better prepared, rocks: with these I started to attack them from distance until the got the message and backed off. Knives not necessary. Knives are short range weapons and better to keep your distance if you have that chance.
In the case of insect attack (they were bees) I simply tried to outrun them, I did get stung on my head where my hat did not cover at the same time trying to protect my face but if possible you can outrun them though in my case the distance was maybe a good 100meters before they gave up from their hive. I had the chance to jump into nearby water, this can be dangerous too if you don't know what you are jumping into or can't see the bottom clearly, you don't have much time, bees can actually fly very fast.
The other situations, you will be looking for safety from these events
In the event of a volcanic eruption earth quake or tidal wave/Tsunami, no one is going to concentrating on getting knives if you want to survive these events.
Little warning: natures wrath: tidal wave, sinking vessel, flooding: (canyoning, caving , topside , equipment failure (SCUBA diving)
Let's start with SCUBA diving. Here are two real situations:
Three divers, two very experienced, third, not a beginner but not much experience. Third diver begins to act strange under water at close to 80ft. This diver refused to acknowledge SCUBA sign language and in fact wanted to do their own thing contrary to the dive plan. Immediate recognition of the effects of Nitrogen Narcosis was paramount in the other two divers averting a possibly serious scenario from transpiring.
Ascent was planned after a air check, one of the experienced divers was actually running low on air, buddy breathing between him and myself on obligatory safety deco stop, whilst both experienced divers held the third member from ascending too fast. All three were carrying diving knives, no use for a knife here at all.
Second real situation. Inexperienced SCUBA diver's high pressure gauge blows off the high pressure line at shallow depth (under 10 metres). The instant this happens a large sounding crack is heard by me from the initial escaping air. No reason to panic as the dive had just begun, the actual diver involved was looking at all the air escaping, still breathing normally but no air content obviously was registered on their gauge as it was no longer connected to the hose.
Immediate action was to bend the high pressure hose in half. This almost stopped the flow of air reducing it to just bubbling. A calm ascent was planned from shallow depth, no need for no decompression dive safety stop due to the short surface to surface duration. All parties carrying diving knives, no knives required.
Caving situation:
Unable to untie, due to cold hands, an overhand knot in a muddy one inch tape in a caving situation. This tape had to be immediately retrieved to allow the party to continue it's journey safely. Action, using the serrations of one party members knife (we were all carrying knives), the nylon webbing was instantly severed.
Abseiling instruction gone wrong.
Failing to secure their loose clothing an abseiler is caught up in her desender unable to progress and over 25 meters from the bottom of the pitch. Instructor raps down beside them and cuts free her clothing (don't get excited- a loose fitting cotton sloppy joe). Lesson for all don't wear loose fitting clothing ever when abseiling.
Ok as you can see these are some simple "survival situations" of very short duration some requiring the use of a knife and others, despite carrying knives, did not.
Ok now I'm going to choose this following real scenario (as I happened to be the party leader at the time).
I can say we all looked back years later and laughed but it could have been very serious if some of us did not keep our heads.
Example 3:
Party delayed due to injuries/sickness of party members, group is running low on food and water environmental conditions are extreme.
A 2 day hiking trip in trackless terrain, topographic maps and compass proficiency required, good physical fitness mandatory. Rope work involved. Season: Beginning of Summer in the Australian bush. First day, is one full days fast walk for experienced bushwalkers away from any place to go for help. Mobile phone signals unreliable/non existent.
During the second half of the day I notice along with two others that a party member appears to be abnormally exhausted. On questioning him, he says he is very thirsty. I see he is overdressed for the temperature and I instruct him to remove some clothing and have a drink. I examine his water supply and it is indeed very low ( he appeared not capable of doing the latter and this started alarm bells ringing for me) . Subsequently everyone had their water supply checked. For several of the lessor experienced members, water was also low but not critical.
I now ascertained that the above person (we''l call them Jim- not their real name) needed to rest and have more water. We shared water as I had plenty and it was discussed that we should change our plan and head directly for a water source for everyone to "top up" their supplies.
on hearing this, Jim decided to race off through a tangle of vines and creepers that may have well been wire cable. He proceeded to pull out his Swiss army knife and attempt to cut his way through. An impossible task for a person in his condition and also using an impractical knife. On seeing my knife (a Ontario Spec Plus) he wanted to use this knife to cut his way along. He was becoming irrational and I demonstrated to him it was not practical to use the Spec Plus in such a situation, better to step over the vines. Jim was weak though and getting weaker. He insisted he had no water left but on searching through his pack I found several containers of cooked fruit; full of water and sugar, just what he needed but was unable to recognize this. I left the party in the shade and headed with Jim to a cliff face where I sat him down in the shade and within eyesight of not more than 5 meters, I climbed a tree near the cliff face and dug out a small pool of water in a crevice in the rock face of about 25cm in diameter. The water now was quite muddy but this small pool allowed me to get a cooking pot into it and scoop out some water. Jim refused to drink the muddy water until I showed him it was ok. After drinking some water and knowing there was plenty of water to be found here his demeanor started to change for the better. Jim was a big guy and the last thing I wanted was to have to deal with an irrational physically powerful guy out of control in the wilderness. Once I knew he was going to be OK, I left him to get the others and then we all headed to a better water supply.
So in the above survival situation (for Jim) , there were 2 knives involved, neither of them warranted being used in this case and one could, had the wrong decision been taken by me (ie giving Jim the the Spec Plus) this knife would be placed in the hands of an irrational person and thereby possible a hazard to the entire party.
We did not need to use a big knife or small knife to extricate the party out of this situation. However, we did have useful knives on our carry.
MY POINT HERE IS, DON"T GET HUNG UP on the marketing hype or even Youtube land hype about Survival knives. Get experience and loads of it, with this real experience, if the time comes when the shit might hit the fan, you'll keep your head, your best survival tool and hopefully keep your life and those of others around you.
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