Learning to survive from TV
Amongst today’s headlines was an article about a boy surviving overnight by himself in the Utah woods and crediting the TV show “Man vs. Wild” for giving him the knowledge to make it through his ordeal. While I am happy that the child survived and was found, I can’t help to think that he was lucky given the source of his survival information. On the show, host Bear Grylls uses a blend of survival techniques and outlandish stunts that make for good reality TV. While the former will help you make it though wilderness ordeals, the latter will most likely get you injured or even killed in the wild. The problem is, Bear does not make any distinction between the two on the show. As a result, the show is more entertainment than actual survival education. Many critics (including myself) think that shows like “Man vs. Wild” actually cause more harm than good by passing questionable survival advice.
On the flip side, I’ve been a fan of Les Stroud’s “Survivorman” for quite some time. While his show has less entertainment and shock value when compared to Bear Grylls, Les focuses on level headed survival techniques that can be realistically applied. Les takes a very conservative and risk avoidance approach to survival. The last thing you want to do when lost in the wild is to put yourself in more risky situations. This is the one rule that Bear Grylls most often disregards for making of more entertaining TV situations.
While I am by no means a survival expert, let’s take a look at Grayson Wynne’s situation though the eyes of a different TV survival show. Off the top of my head, I’ll take what I have learned from watching Survivorman and apply it to Grayson’s ordeal and see what kind of improvements can be made.
1. Have a plan when you go into the wilderness and make sure everyone in your party is aware of it. Grayson strayed onto a smaller path on his own and should have stuck to then planned route. Likewise, the family should have been more aware of sticking together and making sure everyone was aware of the stop. In this light, this situation was preventable.
2. Once you realize you are lost, stay put! This is the biggest mistake that is propagated by the Man vs. Wild show. Instead of seeking adventure and trying to rescue yourself, stay where you are. Rescue and search crews will start looking where you where last seen. Once you start to travel, you are more likely to move away from that point. Only after you realize help is probably not going to arrive, should you start to formulate an escape plan. 24 hours is certainly not enough time to give up hope on a rescue.
3. Don’t destroy your survival gear. It’s understandable that he tore bits off his raincoat in case he needed to retrace his steps, however, see my last point. A raincoat is a valuable item to have on hand, more valuable to you than a trail marker.
4. Always stay calm and keep a level head. Success in survival is more about your frame of mind. When you panic, it can get you into trouble. The loss of his backpack due to panic could have been a critical mistake had his survival ordeal been more drawn out.
The goal of this is not to criticize a 9-year old on his survival techniques. However, I do question what would have happened if Grayson had been watching a survival show that teaches more sound survival techniques. I believe Bear’s attitude of rescuing yourself from peril that plays well for reality TV entertainment may have caused Grayson to wander away from the point where he realized he was lost and delayed his ultimate rescue. In addition, I think the show led him to use his raincoat as a trail marker instead of seeing it as a valuable tool to protect him from the elements. Given this, I think the timeliness of his rescue was fortunate.
You could take the view that some survival knowledge is better than none. However, it’s good that Grayson didn’t attempt some of Bear’s more outlandish stunts such as scaling freezing waterfalls and making risky rock climbs while alone in the wilderness. Then again, the most valuable survival technique Grayson could have learned from Bear Grylls would have been to check into the local hotel at the end of hard day of survival.
