Jun 26
Jun 14
How to Survive …
We’ve all heard the miracle stories: The Boy Scout who survived for four days in the mountains of North Carolina. The Montana couple who fought off a bear. The guy in Utah who cut off his arm to free himself from under a fallen boulder. You’ve probably read many stories like this in Reader’s Digest (like the one on page 102 about a couple stranded in the snow) and wondered what you’d do in the same situation, but you always assumed freak accidents would never happen to you.
And you’d be wrong. While your odds of having a heart attack are much higher than finding yourself in most of these scenarios, strange things happen every day. For example, almost 2.5 million people called poison centers for help in 2006. In 2004, 112,000 people died of injuries from falls, drownings, and other accidents. In 2006, search-and-rescue rangers in our national parks responded to nearly 4,000 calls, more than a third of them for people who were also sick or injured. Every year, around 3,000 succumb to choking.
Another 400 are struck by lightning, and 67 of those die from it. How do you keep yourself out of the statistics?
Besides calling 911, here’s what to do in 12 life-threatening emergencies when no one’s around to help.
LOST IN THE WILDERNESS
To avoid becoming the lead story on the evening news, be prepared. Before you head out on a hike, check the weather (you can find forecasts for many wilderness areas at wunderground.com), take plenty of water, and make sure someone knows where you’ll be and when you’ll be back. Bring clothes to keep you warm when wet, like a water-repellent jacket, says Laurence Gonzales, author of Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why. Avoid cotton, which traps moisture. “The search-and-rescue people call it death cloth,” he says.
“Expect to get lost, and check often to make sure you’re still on the trail,” says John Dill, a search-and-rescue ranger at Yosemite National Park in California. “The minute you think you might not be on the trail, stop.” “First, you’ve got to acknowledge you’re in trouble,” adds Gonzales. If you’re not alone, focusing on the needs of others can help hold your own fears at bay. Other keys to survival: staying observant and remembering to rest. Keeping a sense of humor helps too—it reduces stress and promotes creative thinking.
The surest way to get out alive is to take basic precautions, such as stowing a survival kit in your car. Gonzales’s includes waterproof matches and chunks from fake fireplace logs for starting a fire, a folding saw for cutting branches, and a plastic tarp and cord for making shelter. Don’t forget an emergency blanket, a good knife, a first-aid kit, a flashlight, batteries, snacks, and water.
In general, people who try to find their own way out fare worse than those who stay put, says Richard N. Bradley, MD, of the American Red Cross. Find shelter before dark, and try to keep dry. Stay visible so anyone searching can see you. In a wide-open area, make a signal with colorful gear, make a big X out of rocks, or dig a shallow trench, says Dill. “The top layer of soil is a different color. Scrape it away and make straight lines, which are easy to spot from above.”
You can go several days without eating, so in most cases, you’re better off not foraging for food, since there are lots of poisonous plants in the wild, says Dr. Bradley. You need to stay hydrated, so if you run out of water, it’s usually better to drink from a stream with suspect water than to go without. If you’re stranded in your car, stay there: You’re more visible to rescuers, and the car provides shelter.
CHOKING
Richard Stennes, MD, was home alone in La Jolla Shores, California, eating a steak, when the phone rang. The 64-year-old gulped down the bite still in his mouth and answered the call. But the hunk of steak was stuck, and he couldn’t talk or breathe. He put his finger down his throat to grab the meat, but he couldn’t reach it. Gagging didn’t help either. So he walked over to the couch and forcefully thrust his abdomen on the hard arm of the couch, sending the meat flying and allowing him to breathe again.
An emergency physician, Dr. Stennes knew that if done right, this would have the same effect as the Heimlich maneuver. If you’re ever in the same situation, quickly find a chair or other piece of furniture or a kitchen counter, says Maurizio Miglietta, MD, chief of trauma at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. Aim to hit the top of the chair or edge of the counter against your upper abdomen, in the soft part below the bony upside-down V of the ribs. Thrust up and inward. If you still can’t breathe after six tries, call 911 from a landline, even if you can’t talk. They’ll find you. Write the word choking somewhere nearby, and leave the line open until help arrives.
HEART ATTACK
If you’re experiencing crushing chest pain with or without pain in your left arm, are short of breath, or have a sense of impending doom, you may be having a heart attack. (Women are more likely to have atypical symptoms like severe fatigue, nausea, heartburn, and profuse sweating.) Call 911 and chew one 325 mg uncoated aspirin, to get it into your bloodstream fast. This will thin your blood, often stopping a heart attack in its tracks. While waiting, lie down so your heart doesn’t have to work as hard, says Sandra Schneider, MD, a spokeswoman for the American College of Emergency Physicians. If you think you might pass out, try forcing yourself to cough deeply. It changes the pressure in your chest and can have the same effect as the thump given in CPR, says Dr. Schneider. “Sometimes it can jolt the heart into a normal rhythm.”
If someone else goes into cardiac arrest, note that the American Heart Association now recommends CPR without the mouth-to-mouth: Call 911, then push hard and fast on the person’s chest until help comes.
Apr 21
One of the hottest management tools around is something you might not have thought about since primary school: storytelling.
Storytelling is more than just telling interesting or funny anecdotes. It is about using the power of stories to unlock new connections and reveal tacit knowledge. Because the human mind relates to stories in a different way from the way it relates to analysis, storytelling can succeed in releasing new ideas in areas where conventional analysis or presentations might leave a group merely looking dazed.
Storytelling can also be used as a motivation tool to excite people’s hearts, not just their minds. It is thus a useful tool for times of disruptive change, when you need to create buy-in for new ideas or foster a sense of collaboration.
MinLaw’s Strategic Planning Division (SPD) officers have undergone training in using storytelling as a tool for Knowledge Management, and have already conducted a strategic retreat for the Intellectual Property Policy Division (IPPD) using the storytelling method.
Using a tale featuring Jack and the beanstalk, giants, cows, golden eggs, and even golden carrots, SPD helped IPPD officers explore their unstated assumptions and push beyond their current thinking in order to come up with strategies relating to IP.
SPD will be pleased to support any MinLaw department that wishes to use this tool to develop and tell stories so as to unleash the flood of ideas.
How storytelling can be useful for management
Action: Analysis excites the mind, but storytelling excites the heart, and is thus effective for getting buy-in.
Collaboration: Telling a story encourages other people to share their own experiences, which unleashes the ideas inherent in a group.
Knowledge management: People can use telling stories to describe problems and how they were (or were not) solved. This way an organisation can bring out tacit knowledge from its people.
Scenario planning: A story can help evoke a concrete vision of the future, inspiring listeners to consider various images of the future and help them anticipate potential
changes.
Values: Stories can illustrate the values of an organisation, thereby bringing those values to life (although leaders’ actions have to also be consistent with the stories they tell).
Credits to: Power of Storytelling
Feb 25
The Devil’s Sea or Dragon’s Triangle is a region of the Pacific around Miyake Island, about
100 km south of Tokyo. One of the triangle’s corners is said to be on the island of Guam. Although the name is used by Japanese fishermen, it does not appear on nautical maps.
In popular culture, especially in the United States, the Devil’s Sea is widely believed to be, together with the Bermuda Triangle, an area where ships and planes are said to disappear under mysterious circumstances. The Japanese, on the other hand, do not consider the Devil’s Sea to be more mysterious or dangerous than other coastal waters of Japan.
Contrary to several claims, neither the Devil’s Sea nor the Bermuda Triangle is located on the agonic line, where the magnetic north equals the geographic north. The magnetic declination in this area is about 6°.
Among the phenomena reported in the Devil’s Sea are the loss of ships and planes (more than the Bermuda Triangle), numerous ghost ships, unidentified craft and USO’s, missing time, and is even said to explain the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.
For the video please visit: HelpingHumanity