Let’s hear your prepper/survival stories!

Mike Hill - November 2, 2020

I want to hear your stories about when you have used your preps, when you have survived a situation, or just anything along those lines of Prepping Stories.

I personally haven’t survived any major disaster or had to heavily rely on my preps (that’s why I want to hear from you guys), but I do appreciate my Get Home Bag in my car. So many times I’ve needed a snack, a band-aid, some tylenol, or a piece of rope and I’ve been able to go in there and have it when I needed it. My friends at work knew they could come to me for anything, and 90% of the time, I did have it.

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Several years ago my now ex gf drove her car through a low water crossing that was more full than she thought. Her car actually shorted out and died halfway through.  It was Nov in Texas and about 45F outside. She was only wearing medical scrubs and was soaking wet. She also happened to be in a very rural area. The tow truck was 90+ minutes out.   She happened to have a Heat Sheets emergency blanket in the back of the car that I’d given to her. She wrapped herself up in it and it held off hypothermia until the tow truck got there. She told me later that the driver took off his own jacket and gave to her and put her in the front seat to warm her up.  The Heat Sheets blanket likely saved her from a much more serious situation.  She had been texting me during the situation and her words were becoming more muddled.  She was having dexterity issues. I got to her about 2 hours later at the mechanic shop and she was just beginning to stop shivering. She had gone into the bathroom and wrung her clothes out and I brought a jacket and hat.

Moral of the story, a $7 Heat Sheets blanket that takes up NO room, saved her rear.   (second moral, don’t drive through a low water crossing) 

 

I had to leave town suddenly for an extended family medical emergency. It helped having extra clothing and food supplies ready to go. I was much more calm packing the car. It was nice not feeling frantic.

 

The closest thing that I have to surviving a disaster is from this year when my wife lost her job due to COVID and for a time we were wondering how to make it.  Seems all those prepper websites have it right. The most likely disaster you are to experience is a personal one. The rest of the world will be continuing on around you like normal, but you might be having a hard time.

Having a good emergency fund and food storage has sure helped us out this year. It was nice not to rely on the grocery stores so much, especially when all that panic buying was going on at the beginning of the year.

Things turned out well though. Because of most things being shut down, and having to stay away from others, we didn’t go out to eat, didn’t go to the movies, or didn’t take any summer vacations. That all saved us a bunch of money!

Keep on Prepping Folks!

 

My husband and I delivered our baby by ourselves on the side of the road in the winter. We were trying to get to the hospital but the baby came too fast for even an ambulence. It was very surreal.  I screamed for him to pull over and help me, so on some level I just accepted I was going to have the baby right there and we just did what we had to do. But I know alot of women in the same position end up delivering in the backseat while their partners are still driving. The entire situation was so fast and chaotic you aren’t really thinking during it, just reacting.

 

All I got is a couple times the water went out and I had emergency water to make coffee 😅

 

I mean, as a coffee drinker, I know that that is a serious emergency… 👍

 

Well, one time I had been jobless for almost a year, and the only thing that saved me was all the pasta noodles stocked in my pantry (I wasn’t really a prepper prepper at the time, but my mother instilled in me the notion that you always need to have a stocked pantry, just in case), the squash that I planted in my garden and that propagated out of control beacuse I have no clue on how to tend a garden, and foraging in the forest.

It was also one of the longest winters I had experienced (started snowing in November until the end of May), and I was living in a house with one little wood/coal stove, no heating in the bathroom, and a latrine (not fun when it’s freezing).

So, yes, yay for the pasta and my mum who knew better, yay to me for me being a noob at gardening, and yay for the woods providing wood, heat while chopping said wood, and some mushrooms, apples and other stiff I could snatch.

P.S. If you need squash recipes, hit me up 😉

 

Thanks for sharing your story! I had a similar scenario happen to me in college. I was working part time and going to school full time. I was very frugal during those years and used all my money from work to pay for school and was able to graduate without any debt! 

Anyways, I kept my grocery bill to like $10-$20/week by living off of my parent’s food storage. They had moved out of the country, and they left me all of their food storage. The food storage was nearing the end of it’s expiration date, and a few past the expiration date. But it was all edible and kept me alive!

I want to be a prepping dad so I can help my kids out someday if I need to. If I buy a bunch of #10 cans today with a 25 year expiration date, and I have some kids soon, they should be nearing the end of their expiration date by the time they go to college. I then can give them all my food, and buy myself some new stuff. 

 

I like the idea about the #10 cans. Hopefully they’ll get a better variety than just pasta 😉

 

Several years ago my now ex gf drove her car through a low water crossing that was more full than she thought. Her car actually shorted out and died halfway through.  It was Nov in Texas and about 45F outside. She was only wearing medical scrubs and was soaking wet. She also happened to be in a very rural area. The tow truck was 90+ minutes out.   She happened to have a Heat Sheets emergency blanket in the back of the car that I’d given to her. She wrapped herself up in it and it held off hypothermia until the tow truck got there. She told me later that the driver took off his own jacket and gave to her and put her in the front seat to warm her up.  The Heat Sheets blanket likely saved her from a much more serious situation.  She had been texting me during the situation and her words were becoming more muddled.  She was having dexterity issues. I got to her about 2 hours later at the mechanic shop and she was just beginning to stop shivering. She had gone into the bathroom and wrung her clothes out and I brought a jacket and hat.

Moral of the story, a $7 Heat Sheets blanket that takes up NO room, saved her rear.   (second moral, don’t drive through a low water crossing) 

 

What a great story! Thank you for sharing!

 

It’s an important story.  I didn’t really understand how you could get dangerously hypothermic in above-freezing weather until I got caught in a massive spring storm while backpacking with some friends, including one whose ‘rain jacket’ wasn’t really waterproof.  (Fortunately we were able to make camp, pack into a good tent, change clothes, and make soup in the vestibule.) I had read about it, but it is different when you see it. 

We keep dry clothes in our car bag, but reading your story makes me think that I should put those in ziplocks, like we do when hiking.

 

I wasn’t a prepper yet,  I just kept a very well stocked pantry. Lost my well paying job and could only find a restaurant job that paid barely above minimum wage. Luckily the job was full time but that doesn’t leave much money left over after paying the bills. I couldn’t find a better paying job for a year. 

I repurposed my daughter’s clothes so much that year as she out grew them I’m eternally thankful she was only in kindergarten and didn’t realize. Dress too short? Through a cheap pair of leggings under it and it’s suddenly a long shirt. Pants suddenly high waters? Cut the legs off and have a new pair of shorts. Shirt too short and showing the belly? But a longer shirt on under it and have a layer shirt and she can wear the longer shirt another day with no one the wiser. Did this for years before she refused to anymore. 

What really saved my hide was my pantry. I stretched those meals out and only bought staples for a whole year.  My grocery bill was never more than $60 a month. (This was only about 8 years ago groceries weren’t cheap.) With what I had on hand and the food  my job sent me home with we made it work. 

If I hadn’t found my better paying job when I did I would of had to for the only time in my life ask for public assistance. I had just accepted that I was going to need to apply for food stamps when I received the call that I was hired. I’m not afraid to admit I cried that day. 

And my pantry is once again stocked but I’m now learning about longterm storage and other preps so hopefully I’ll never be that close to being out of food again.

I’m  beginner prepper but an old hand at making do. 

 

I guess this isn’t a survival situation but a few weeks ago I was notified I had potentially been in close contact with a co-worker who had tested positive for COVID-19.  I immediately left work, grabbed my kids from daycare and went home to start my 14 day quarantine.  Thanks to my prepper’s pantry as well as a strategically stocked garage refrigerator we had everything we needed and more for our 14 days.

 

This is not MY story, but I found this piece about a lost hiker in the SF Chronicle educational. Learn from his mistakes!  (Insufficient water, food, no signal mirror, only one way to start a fire and he had no experience with it, reliance on a cell phone for comms in an area with poor signal, traveling alone, not listening to his body…..the list goes on!)

https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/hiker-peak-of-desperation/

 

I’m guilty of not preparing the best for day hikes. I figure if I stay on the trail and I ran into any issue that I could just flag another hiker down for some help. I should start carrying at least a small day hike emergency bag with things like

• Mylar blanket
• Small water filter
• Signal mirror
• A day or two of food
• Water bottle/canteen
• Fire starter
• And a basic first aid kit but make sure to have something in there to support a damaged ankle, that’s probably the most common injury that would take you out.

 

Good evening Mike,

As recently as only a few months ago, a senior citizen couple were hiking on a park path.  Something happened, splitting up the couple making the event an emergency.

The wife (or other status) reported this and a SAR team started to look for man. The man later reported that he twice saw the search squad but incapable of signaling them.

Foxx whistle company, besides traditional whistles has a battery-powered (9 volt) mini horn like a school sports coach might use. This mini horn has 3 tones and ideal for audible signaling. Worth checking into. Mine was under $15, it’s small for belt pouch and only headache is another size battery in inventory. 

It’s still a nominal cost when compared to medical care and the pharma.

 

I didn’t know about that Fox whistle but glad you mentioned it. At first glance I see a few ways why it is a good solution:

– An air horn will lose it’s compressed air and then you are out of luck. A 9v whistle can have the battery charged or replaced. 

– If you are stranded on a mountain, you may not have water and food which can lead to a parched mouth and weak lungs where you may not be able to puff a powerful enough blow on a normal whistle.

I would pack a small emergency whistle in addition to this electronic one because you don’t want to drop it and it breaks leaving you back to where you were without a way to signal.

I found a video of what the whistle sounds like

 

If you’re thinking about it, I’m a big fan of always including a cheap power bank and cord to charge your phone.  Gotta keep’em charged but inexpensive ones are easily available.

 

Great topic Mike! Here’s a gross one to share. Good lesson in maintaining water storage carefully and having effective filtration. I was in elementary school, on a secluded farm up north. We had a large concrete drinking water cistern since the available water was very alkaline. We began to notice a funny taste in our drinking water, and after a while my dad investigated. He found a floating layer (several inches deep) of DEAD CRICKETS. 🤢 Amazingly we had no ill effects that I can remember beyond horror. Maybe those stewed insects were good for us, but it was a real pain to clean them out of there. 

 

A few years ago, wakened by the local emergency notification system of an approaching wildfire at 1 AM, we grabbed our bags, meds, and our cat and bugged out, dozing the rest of the night along a quiet roadside.  The next day we checked out the local emergency shelter – not very appealing because the shelter was within the smoke plume of the fire.  My BIL had credits at a local hotel and we stayed there for three nights, returning home to an intact dwelling, thanks to good fire fighting…..

The most hazardous situation we faced was driving on streets that were dark, with nonfunctioning traffic signals.  In our area, the emergency shelters are typically underutilized, people staying with friends or in motels/hotels….

My general strategy is to bug out from wildfires, and SIP from earthquakes, at least initially……