How to Avoid Being Killed in a War Zone

by Rosie Garthwaite

  Back in Basra, Seb and I slept outside on the concrete floor, but it had been heated by the day’s sun to around 40°C, so we continued to sweat and barely managed a doze. We experienced all possible heat disorders that week, from prickly heat, which makes you itch and can be relieved only by washing and putting on dry clothes – an impossible dream in Basra – to cramps from lack of salt, heat exhaustion and heatstroke.

  Dehydration can happen in cold weather too. The dry air and the physical exertion of fighting the cold means you need to drink more than you otherwise would.

  Remember too that diarrhoea, fever and vomiting (all symptoms of cholera, incidentally) can lead to dehydration, as can exercise.

  Signs of dehydration

  • Dizziness.

  • Excessive sweating.

  • Disorientation.

  • Increasing lethargy.

  • Weakened pulse.

  • Nausea.

  • Unconsciousness.

  All these symptoms can be deadly if not treated immediately.

  Treatment for dehydration

  Almost all the symptoms can be cured by getting out of the sun and slowly drinking water with sugar and a pinch of salt dissolved in it.

  Some people are like camels and seem to need very little water, while others need to drink every five minutes. If you are in charge of a team, you should monitor how much and how often people are drinking, and if it is not enough, ignore their protestations and force them to drink. As long as you are not water-boarding them, it is not the torture they claim it to be. In a dangerous situation you need to load up on your water reserves and drink as often as you can because you can never be certain when you might get another chance. Remember, if one colleague collapses from dehydration, it could put the whole team in danger.

  Warning: I’m sure I do not need to tell you that alcohol will make all these conditions worse. If you are in a hot region and know you will be exposed to the sun over the next few days, avoid booze. You might want to enforce this rule within your team. Also note that drug-enhanced desert discos are not a good idea, though they always seem like one at the time. The drug Ecstasy can cause dehydration.

  /HEATSTROKE

  Although it often happens in conjunction with dehydration, heatstroke is different. It happens when the ‘thermostat’ in the brain that regulates body temperature breaks down.

  Signs of heatstroke

  • Headache.

  • Dizziness.

  • Sweating ceases.

  • Hot red skin.

  • Quickened and very strong pulse.

  • Temperature rises above the normal 37°C.

  • Unconsciousness can happen very quickly.

  Treatment for heatstroke

  • Move the person into the shade and remove their outer clothing.

  • Prop up their head and shoulders.

  • Wrap the casualty in a wet sheet or clothing and pour cool, but not cold, water on them until their temperature is back to normal.

  • If the cooling process is not working, you might need to immerse the patient in cool water, slowly, massaging their limbs to move the cool blood back to the core of the body.

  • Slowly feed the patient cool, but not cold, water when they are able to take it.

  • Once the patient’s temperature is normal, put dry clothes or a towel or sheet over them and keep them warm.

  /SUNBURN

  It is possible to avoid sunburn by staying out of the midday sun, in the shade, covering up with clothes and reapplying sunscreen as needed. You’ll need up to factor 50 in the most extreme situations, such as deserts and snow. Minor sunburn is something most of us have dealt with before. But serious sunburn across more than 50 per cent of the body can be very dangerous, especially in children.

  Treatment for sunburn

  • Stay out of the sun and rest in a cool place.

  • Drink plenty of cool water.

  • Immerse the body in cool water whenever possible.

  • Do not burst any blisters; protect them with a non-adhesive dressing, if necessary, and stop clothes rubbing where possible.

  /SURVIVING IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN

  Most mountains provide little shelter, food or water. Unless you are with someone who knows how to live off the fat of that particular mountain, you need to get to a valley and water and safety as soon as possible.

  When making a shelter, avoid steep areas or places directly under a large snowfall on a mountain, where there is a risk of an avalanche. The least steep slopes are the safest places. Also, trees provide a break in the event of an avalanche, so it is safe to shelter in front of them.

  If you are walking along a ridge of snow and are worried about an avalanche threat ahead, test it by shouting and clapping your hands to see if it is set off. Ninety per cent of people killed in avalanches caused them in the first place by walking or skiing across them, or creating a noise to set them off.

  If you’re crossing a large area of snow with other people, tie yourselves together in case one of you falls into an unseen crevice.

  If you are caught in an avalanche, use a swimming movement to stay on top of the snow – any stroke that works for you, except butterfly. And if you know which way is up, point your feet downhill.

  /SURVIVING POTENTIAL FLOOD ZONES

  If you are near the sea, never underestimate how far the water can move with the tide. You can never prepare for a tsunami, but you can look at where locals have their houses and place yourself there. When there is a full moon the tide can be dramatically larger.

  Similarly, if you are near a river or lake after a big rainfall or snow melt, look to the locals for advice. Don’t just plant yourself next to a river because it is pretty. Imagine what would happen if a dam was opened upstream. Pitch your camp away from the water, and walk to and fro to collect it for cooking and drinking rather than being right on top of it and in a likely flood zone.

  And if, despite your best endeavours, you suddenly find yourself under water and disorientated? Blow a bubble to find the way up.

  /SURVIVING IN JUNGLE TERRAIN

  In tropical regions you are unlikely to starve or be thirsty once you have established what you can eat and drink. However, the risks are manifold – from the insects, leeches and other revolting things that want to feast on you, to the fact that it is easy to get lost and hard to find your bearings when surrounded by dense vegetation.

  Making fire can be tough in the fertile and moist jungle. Find dead wood and strip off the damp outer layers. The inside should be good to fragment for tinder, to break up for kindling and to use as a whole for fuel.

  Marc Laban is a founding partner of AsiaWorks, an independent production company, which is super-organized at taking teams into inhospitable terrain. I was playing a round of golf with Marc in the glorious warm rain outside Kathmandu when he had a call from base. There had been a typhoon, followed by flooding and mudslides, in the Philippines. Before we teed off at the next hole he had already deployed teams and chartered planes to the disaster. I was impressed. And he won the game too!

  Large parts of Asia are dominated by jungle in all its various forms, and Marc has learnt the tricks of his trade marching through many of them:

  ‘The jungle trips I’ve taken over the years have provided me with some of my best experiences and stories. But there was one story that beat them all. In 1997 I travelled with Far Eastern Economic Review journalist Nate Thayer and cameraman David McKaige to Anlong Veng, the final stronghold of the Khmer Rouge. Once there, we met the leadership of the Khmer Rouge, who had extended an invitation to interview Pol Pot. Nate and David had already filmed Pol Pot weeks before at a staged trial, but this would be his first “normal” interview in 18 years – and, as it turned out, his last.

  ‘I spent a lot of time trudging through the jungle along the Thai–Burma and Cambodian borders in my early years in Asia. Normally, you’re travelling with soldiers, and in the case of the Karen – an ethnic group that ha
s been fighting the Burmese government for decades – hardened soldiers, who are not going to be spending any time worrying about how foreign journalists are holding up during a trek.’

  One man’s jungle can be another man’s overgrown garden. Staying at a friend’s house in the Seychelles one holiday, I found ants the size of small mice walking across plate-sized flower petals in his tumbling jungle garden. But he didn’t think anything of it. There are many different types of terrain, and each one will have its own challenges. But equatorial rainforests, secondary jungle, subtropical rainforests, montane forests, saltwater swamps and freshwater swamps will all vary widely from kilometre to kilometre within their broad definitions. The best equipment for navigating a jungle is local knowledge and advice. But James Brabazon explains why you shouldn’t take that for granted, and why you must stay in control of the situation:

  ‘Jungle can be a misleading term. There is no one type of jungle. It can be primary, secondary or tertiary jungle, and each demands a different approach. Very few people indeed actually live in the jungle in West Africa – almost everyone lives in a village – so you won’t find the same level of understanding about it locally that you would, say, in parts of the Amazon. In Liberia most villagers view the forest as malevolent, and stick to the forest paths. They sleep in huts and buildings.

  ‘We were pursued by a ruthless government army for hundreds of miles through the jungle, and the best thing we could have done to shake them off would simply have been to step off the path – but the group of rebels we were with refused: they were more terrified of the jungle than the government army. In most other places, fighters use the jungle to their advantage, but in Liberia they don’t. Local people there don’t have any idea what lives in the forest either – they told us there were alligators and tigers, but those aren’t even indigenous to Africa!

  ‘You need to acquire your own set of survival skills and knowledge, and don’t assume that just because someone lives in a place that they necessarily know what you need to know about it.’

  Jungle clothing

  In the jungle you have to stay covered up, and I mean really covered up. Ideally, you will be wearing a hat, a scarf up around your ears and tucked into your long-sleeved shirt, which should be taped tight around your wrists. Your shirt should be tucked into your tough trousers, which are, in turn, tucked into your socks.

  Night and day you need to remain on constant vigil. Exercise strict mosquito-net discipline by making sure there are no gaps and none of the net is touching you. Close the net behind you every time you leave. You have to choose the right style, shape and size of net to fit your particular needs. In the jungle you will likely need a wedge net to fit over a hammock or a cot bed. The net should be strong enough to withstand weeks of use without ripping, and be able to keep out the larger creatures that might want to crawl into your warm bed. Bring a needle and thread to carry out repairs.

  A bum exposed during a pee can be mottled with sandflies in a minute (I know – I have experienced it). A brush against the wrong plant or caterpillar could cause a violent allergic reaction. There is a risk every moment that some venomous insect will bite you with hideous consequences – malaria to name just one of them.

  Fortunately, most snakes can’t easily penetrate clothing. But you need to check for leeches on your legs and feet every hour – only for this are you allowed to be uncovered. If you find one, you need to remove it using salt, alcohol, or a lighter or a lit stick. Do not pull them off because there is a risk that the jaws or head could get stuck inside and cause an infection.

  Travel together in a line in the jungle so that the person behind you can see if a spider drops from its web down the back of your shirt.

  Avoiding creatures that bite

  • Be careful about kicking rocks or picking up sticks and logs for a fire.

  • Look where you are walking.

  • Shake out your shoes and clothes before you put them on, even if you have taken them off for only a moment.

  • Don’t plunge your hand into your bag without taking a look to see what crawled inside first.

  MARC LABAN’S TERRIFIC JUNGLE TIPS

  Treatment for bites

  If bitten by a snake or scorpion, or any little vile beastie:

  • Do not attempt to suck out the venom. Wash the wound and apply a compression bandage, but do not use a tourniquet.

  • Immobilize the area bitten (see Immobilizing fractures) and keep the movement of your patient to a minimum.

  • Do not try to kill the animal that bit your companion – just remember what it looked like in terms of markings and size.

  • Don’t give morphine or aspirin for pain – use paracetamol.

  • Get to a hospital quick smart. A bite is a medical emergency.

  /DEALING WITH NATURAL DISASTERS

  There’s danger, there’s war and then there are the five-star disasters – hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, floods and tsunamis. There is nothing that can prepare you for these.

  After one of these catastrophic events, the world as we know it stops. Man has lost to nature, and now he must return to nature to survive.

  In a man-made disaster such as war there is usually still access to water and food, and international laws remain in place. And if the supplies run out, you should be able to find a way out. But these events remove your ability to choose. Your options are reduced, and your focus is narrowed to finding a way to respond to your most basic needs.

  The fight for limited resources of water, food, shelter, heat and light will lead to riots. Fathers will trample over others’ small children to get water for their own. A rumour can turn into a deadly stampede – either towards water or away from another feared disaster. If you have some water or food and it is only enough to keep you and the people around you going, do not tell anyone. Make yourself secure, safe and healthy; keep whatever you need to do your job. Then you can turn to helping others.

  Your first thought after the immediate risk is gone should be communication with the people who know you are there – your colleagues, family and friends. Even if landlines and the Internet are down, the mobile networks will be working via the satellite link. Seek out an embassy or any connection to home. Establish a route for communication and use it.

  When the norms of the world are turned on their head you can rely only on yourself. Be as self-sufficient as possible. Carry your tent, a sleeping bag, a medical kit, some cans of food, a torch, a means of communication, some chlorine or water purification tablets and some salt tablets (to be dissolved in water). This is especially true when there has been an earthquake – when all infrastructure is broken.

  Sebastian Walker covered the Haiti earthquake in January 2010, and his principal piece of advice afterwards was not to sleep indoors…

  ‘In many places in the world, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake lasting just 27 seconds wouldn’t cause a huge amount of damage. In Haiti it levelled entire neighbourhoods, brought down the presidential palace and left more than 250,000 people dead. A major reason for this was cheap construction – building codes in developing countries are rarely stringent – but in Haiti, where the average wage is less than $2 a day, the average building is put together with the architectural equivalent of paper and glue, finished off with a ceiling of reinforced concrete.

  ‘Driving through the blacked-out city the following evening was like witnessing the apocalypse. Pancaked three-storey buildings looming out of the darkness, cars crushed by masonry with limbs poking out, every Haitian in Port-au-Prince sleeping on the street just yards from body after body of relatives pulled from rubble and piled up on the pavement. I could understand how they were afraid to venture back inside any structure still left standing, but having never been in an earthquake zone myself, I put most of it down to shock.

  ‘After an eerily quiet evening spent reporting on the dead, dying and dazed, our crew returned to base to file our story. We’d set up camp in the grounds of the Venezuelan embassy and it
was starting to rain, so when all was done, I settled down for a nap underneath an arch.

  ‘It was the sound of a Haitian subway train passing beneath my feet that woke me. It seemed to travel on and then return even closer to the surface. Finally, when the earth started juddering and the stone above my head made a cracking noise, I sprang awake and sprinted into the middle of the courtyard.

  ‘The aftershock was 4.6 magnitude, but it didn’t bring down the arch I had been lying under. Over the next few weeks, however, there were dozens more, some of which did collapse already weakened buildings. It was only after weeks of living in a tent that I felt confident enough to spend a night in a hotel – and I stared at the ceiling for a good few hours before falling asleep.’

  /WATER

  You can live for three weeks without food, but only three days without water. In extremis, you must make your own.

  HOW TO PURIFY WATER

  In extremes of hot and cold weather your body requires even more water than normal. Also, bleeding, injury or simple stress can all lead to dehydration. You need to find a drinkable water source as soon as possible.

  Watermelons are a fantastic source of safe water. And they have a few salts and sugars to help you rehydrate properly. Peter Stevens, freelance newsman

  Water is also essential to maintain basic hygiene, as Nick Toksvig remembers: ‘Moving into Kuwait after the coalition forces pushed the Iraqis out, we discovered there was no running water for the toilets. So we took it from the still full hotel swimming pool.’

  You need to stay clean. You may be surrounded by death, broken water pipes or floodwater. Disasters are a festival for bacteria, so now would be a good time to become obsessive about being clean.