You’re All Alone… Now What?

Would you know how to survive if you were all alone? In this Survival Guide from History.com, survival expert Greg Davenport outlines all you need to know to stay alive. The first step to survival is to know what your needs are.

Make a note of these five survival essentials:

Personal Protection

To keep your body temperature in its safe zone, you'll need protection from the elements: heat, cold, precipitation and wind.

Clothing is your first line of defense, keeping you warm or cool by trapping air between its fibers and layers. It is important to keep your clothes clean and dry and wear them in layers. Clothes that are wet or dirty can't trap air, and thus can't keep you warm. Loose and layered clothes allow you to take off or add layers as needed for comfort. Wear a wicking layer, like polyester, next to the skin, an insulating layer, like fleece, in the middle, and an outer layer, like Gore-Tex, that protects you from the wind and rain. In a crisis, leather and foam padding from a car, plant fibers and animal hides can be used as personal insulation.

Shelter. In urban and suburban areas, find shelter in an existing structure. In the wilderness, you'll need to improvise a shelter from manmade and natural materials. When creating a shelter, use the same principles seen in home construction. Create a stable framework that will support the weight of the walls; a roof with enough pitch to repel rain and snow; and insulation in the roof, walls and floor to keep you warm. If the shelter is airtight, make a ventilation hole in the roof (to avoid asphyxiation).

Fire. Although it's nice to have, meet your clothing and shelter needs before you consider fire. When building a fire, remember that you'll need heat, oxygen and fuel. Your heat source may initially be matches and lighters but over time, you'll use this resource up. Better options are flint and sparkers. For fuel, don't limit yourself to wood. Consider other options like bundles of grass or scavenged wood products.

Signaling

Don't be left behind because potential rescuers didn't know you were there. A signal can be as simple as blowing a whistle or scanning the horizon with the flash from a mirror. Other options include honking a car's horn, beating metal objects together, painting a big S.O.S on your roof or creating a big ground-to-air signal out of sheets or other material that contrast with the ground. The key is to catch someone's attention so they decide to take a closer look. On the flip side, you never know who might be out there and what their intentions are, so use caution.

Sustenance

Without water, you'll perish in three to four days; without food, you can live for 3 or more weeks.

Water. Our bodies are composed of approximately 60 percent water, and it plays a vital role in our ability to get through a day. During a normal, non-strenuous day, a healthy individual will need 2 to 3 quarts of water. This amount increases with activity or extreme weather conditions. In urban and suburban areas, look for water in home gutters, drains and open containers where recent precipitation may have settled. Perhaps the town had a water storage tank or treatment plant you could access. In all situations, consider surface sources like local ponds, rivers, creaks or natural springs. If able, you should treat your water. The best treatment is to boil your water for one minute. Other choices include the addition of iodine and chlorine.

Food. If you have water, you can eat. Otherwise, don't--the digestion of food can speed up dehydration. To survive a disaster, first look to canned and dehydrated foods for nourishment. As soon as you can, create a garden using seeds found in decaying vegetables and fruit. Other food options include indigenous vegetation, bugs and small wild game like squirrels and rabbits. Don't eat any vegetation or bugs that you can't identify as edible. To avoid a parasitic infection, bugs should be cooked whenever possible.

Travel

As long as the area you are in meets your needs, stay put. If it doesn't, consider traveling to an area that does. Make sure you pack enough gear to meet all your needs during the trip or plan your route so that water, shelter and other needs can be met along the way.

Health

Survival stress will play a big role in how well you meet your other needs. Focus on positive events like a successful fire or catching that squirrel for dinner. Put the negative thoughts into perspective, and don't dwell on them. Avoid environmental injuries like cold and heat-related problems (hypothermia or hyperthermia) by staying hydrated and dressing appropriately. Treat all traumatic injuries immediately and do everything you can to prevent secondary infections in cuts and abrasions by keeping the area clean and protected from outside contamination.

Understanding the five survival essentials is key to meeting them. The order and methods used, however, will depend on your climate, circumstances and available manmade and natural resources.