Signaling and self-recovery and I have incorporated them into my version of the Out several things we know to be priorities. Needs of the military or survivalist operator, the old “Rule of Threes” leaves A given need may become more or less urgentĪnd opportunities seldom present themselves in order and when it comes to the It can take weeks to die from hunger, placing food procurement as last in the Unlike perishing from injuries, hypothermia or dehydration, Source should be procured one medical and shelter have been tended to becauseĭehydration can kill within three days. The next priority concerns the need for water, stating that a water Therefore, once medical treatment has been given, the survivor should then procure shelter.

In wilderness survival ordeals, more people die from hypothermia and hyperthermia than from any other preventable cause. It is possible to become a casualty of either heat or cold within about 3 three hours. The second entry relates to exposure to heat and cold and the need for shelter and fire. According to the “Rule of Threes”, the first thing a survivor should do is treat any injuries that have been inflicted. The first entry in the “Rule of Threes” relates to medical needs and is easy to remember because it refers to another mnemonic, “The A, B, C’s of first aid” which denotes the urgency of treatment as: “Airway, Bleeding, and Circulatory Shock.” At normal temperatures, a normal person will lose consciousness within about three minutes if unable to breathe and death will soon follow. While they are not exact times, it useful because it gives the survivor a default priority structure that is easy to remember. The “Rule of Threes” is a memory aid that ranks urgency of survival needs by the length of time a healthy person can survive without them during a survival ordeal. Relate the traditional Rule of Threes so you can compare the two.

For this reason, several modified versions of the Rule of Threes have been proffered and this article will relate the one that I use. One of the better ones is the Rule of Threes, but the original version omitted priorities such as security, signaling, and navigation, which I think most of us would agree to make it incomplete. Remembering survival priorities is a problem that survivors face any time they build a kit, plan or gather supplies and there are many mnemonics out there to help them.

What are the 3 rules of survival