Lessons learned from the lost

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The Street Survival Newsline with Calibre Press

By Dave Smith
Lead Street Survival Seminar Instructor

There has been some interesting research over the years in the behavior of people who get lost. A simple Google search will lead you to several great articles but the really amazing thing is what people do when they are lost, even well trained hikers and campers, and how their behavior is often the exact opposite of what they have been trained to do.

In reading these studies and stories it is interesting that so many lessons for law enforcement personnel and trainers can be found. We might view our sudden life-and-death confrontations as being on unfamiliar ground with no clear trail indicating where to go next. This is a point that one can either become lost or create their own mental map and deal with what they are facing right this second.

Some of the remarkable behaviors of those who become lost include:

1. Not staying put, in spite of all they have been taught, the lost keep going and seeking, trying to find the familiar, an escape.
How many times have you seen or heard an officer continue onto the scene of shots fired call or other high risk call, failing to wait for the backups who are enroute?

2. Never backtracking, always going forward into the danger when all they need to do is turn around follow their own tracks out.
Again, think of the times all of us stood our ground foolishly when backtracking would have been the wisest choice.

3. Failing to use the very tools they have taken into the woods for just such an emergency.
I have watched so many officer/suspect confrontations and observed the officer fail to use the various weapons systems they carry on their belt!

4. Overwhelming panic where they race forward, ever onward, often exhausting themselves or even injuring themselves. .
Panic is an enemy we must always avoid; and training, confidence, and faith in our skills are essential.

One of the keys we can focus on in training is to make sure the sudden confrontation, the life-threatening critical incident, is something we are familiar with, something we have a mental map for so don’t feel lost, disoriented. This makes both crisis rehearsal and realistic scenario based skills practice even more important.

One final point that stands out dramatically in the studies of the lost is the fact that one of the highest survival rates is among a group we would never expect to survive a night in the woods let alone some remarkably brutal environmental conditions. This group is children six and under! Researchers speculate these children have not matured enough to project mental maps that lead others further into the wilderness and they tend not to panic, they just do what they need to do in the moment.

If they are hungry, they eat, cold, they find a place to crawl into to stay warm, tired, they sleep…they don’t race about expending themselves, they just tend to survive! Many times I wonder how often we take our wonderfully human gift of survival and train it away on the range or on the mat, essentially teaching techniques or expectations that don’t enhance our odds of survival, our chances of winning.

In the Street Survival Seminar we talk a lot about Condition Yellow, the mental state of attending to the world around you, living in the now so to speak, like those little lost children that tend to make it, do what you need to do right now and never giving into fear and panic.

So if you are going into the woods soon remember to take your survival gear, read How to Stay Alive in the Woods by B. Angier, and if you get lost, don’t panic, stay put, kick back read a book. If you are getting ready to go fight crime remember your survival gear, read Calibre Press’s Street Survival, don’t panic, remember your equipment and training, and WIN!

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