PULSE Magazine | September 2018 Issue

LIFE SAVING SKILLS Every family member should take time to learn these important skills:

CPR/Take 10

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AED

Chocking First Aid

Control Bleeding

The following pages outline the process of several obscure but vital life saving skills that you may not think about needing during and after an emergency, such as what we saw in Puerto Rico last year.

How to purify water

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 How to open a can of food without a can opener  How to cook without electricity, gas or charcoal

Below you will find information detailing multiples ways on how to take care of yourself and your family after a disaster. These skills will come in handy should you find yourself without electricity & water for extended period of time.

Why Do You Need to Purify Water? Always purify water from an outdoor or unsure source before you drink it! It may not seem like such a big deal to drink a bit of dirty water (or even water which appears clean) if you are lost in the wilder- ness. But, sadly, most natural water sources are grossly contaminated.

Unpurified water – even from water which appears clean – often contains contaminants like:

Giardi intestinalis

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Cryptosporidium

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Campylobacter

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Salmonella

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E. coli

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Shigella

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Enterovirus

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Hepatitis A

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The CDC lists some of the possible effects of drinking these contaminants, the main ones being diarrhea and vomiting . Diarrhea and vomiting can KILL YOU when you are in a survival situation! They will cause you to further dehydrate, and can also limit your mobility (not to mention that they aren’t very fun to deal with). When the water is from sources near urban or agricultural environments, there are also risks of pesticides, herbicides, feces, chemical runoff, and much more. Boiling Water This is the best way to purify water if you don’t have a camping water filter. Simply boil the water for a minimum of 5 minutes, though it is even safer to boil the water for about 20 minutes. The problem is that this will require you to have some sort of fire-proof vessel. If you don’t, then you can try rock boiling.

1. Create a vessel to hold your water (such as out of pine bark) 2. Make a fire 3. Heat rocks in the fire 4. Put hot rocks in the vessel with the water 5. The rocks will cause the water to boil 6. Continue adding hot rocks to keep the water boiling

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