If you and your children were dropped in the middle of a remote area with just a knife would you be able to survive?

[LizaRadleywasonthespectrum]

Following on from an early morning conversation with DP. Obviously this is an unlikely scenario but not beyond the realms of possibility. Can you build a shelter, make a fire, find food and water? Can your (say 8yrs and older) children make a fire or set a snare and skin a rabbit.

I think today's knicker elastic would be nowhere near sufficient for catapult purposes.

Now my mum used to wear large aertex knickers that required occasional re-elasticing. Those would've been good.

Come to think of it- the Olden Days' clothes fabrics would've been better all round for survival I think? Imagine a Victorian woman's clothes- yards and yards of fabric in a petticoat alone. That would go a long way to making a shelter/snare/fishing net.

😂

Only for the short term- wouldnt fancy our chances long term! And it would depend on the environment and time it year My knowledge is UK based and chances would be maximised with wood, meadow, stream and sea nearby, in summer or early autumn.

In ideal conditions shelter building would be fine and fire I'd get there eventually. I did guides when younger and the leaders were hardcore and did sessions where we had to build and sleep in our shelters and taught us different ways to make fire. I love reading survival stuff so I have the theory on snares and DC have done rabbit skinning at scouts. Some of the fish catching techniques are easier though so I'd focus on that. With nothing to boil water I'd worry, unless I had plastic and could make a solar still. I've done a foraging course so know some sources of nutrition. I reckon I could keep us going for a few days.

Is it accessible? My daughter could do all of those things, but if she can’t wheel anywhere, we’d be screwed.

I could manage, but as a short person I’d want my tall husband there to be able to do the big stuff.

I could probably hunt a Starbucks and demolish that. Maybe it would be next to Tesco? 🤣

I eat meat but I couldn’t eat it if i had killed it. I’d be turning vegetarian. I could make a shelter and a fire though

Olden days’ clothes could build you a tent, a net and a decent catapult, but you’d keel over from heatstroke before you finished your first snare.

Am vegan so if I didn't have a handy vegetable patch and orchard, that's the end of me. DC are adults, DD eats anything but wouldn't be able to kill anything and wouldn't be able to build a shelter either. If DS was with me, he'd be able to build a shelter, he's veggie and would be good at foraging while I cuddled the rabbit and made daisy chains to make everything pretty......

I’ve watched the Naked and Afraid series so no problem. Get that shelter up, set a fire and make a snare from cordage. No Boma needed in the UK though 😄

The question is would I want to go to that much effort to survive? Many people trundle through life simply because to die is an active effort. Tis easier to be passive. All that apocalyptic survival drama makes living much less passive.

I’d try and tough it out for a bit, say if it was a dry, 21 degree, warm week. With a nice breeze.

If the zombie apocalypse starts on a drizzly day in December, then fuck that, I’m running towards the nearest hoard of the undead shouting, “bite me.”

I get this. We live about 15 mins away from Birmingham. One of my friends is terrified of a nuclear bomb dropping on Birmingham. She keeps saying how she will get in the car to try and get her children away as fast as possible. Yeah, her and everyone else in the gridlock.

I’d be driving my car as fast as I could toward the city centre, hoping to be evaporated in the blast, rather to face a slower death.

My DC are adults. If it was just me and DS1, we’d be fucked. DS2 and 3 are quite practical and good at making stuff and improvising, so if they were with us, we’d be fine. Not sure about skinning rabbits though!

I think we'd stand a really good chance. I've always been into survival and can hunt, kill etc and DP is clever and highly practical.

Don't have kids. I am pescatarian so could not and would not skin a rabbit (could not even catch one I think). I would be useless in that situation.

I'm a scout leader and my degree was archaeology. So I can confidently say that lighting a fire without a steel or magnifying glass or matches is unbelievably hard.
The film castaway is a good depiction of the hours and hours it takes twirling a stick till it smoulders.

I’d be fine. I once bought a chicken from a butcher in France, and it was enormous! When I got it back and took it out of the bag and unwrapped it, it was just a dead chicken - head, feet, feathers, the lot. I had to pluck it, cut its head and feet off with a very blunt carving knife and stick my hand up its arse to pull out the insides by hand. In my mind, this experience qualifies me as Bear Grylls, and means I’d easily survive a zombie apocalypse.

No DP, sadly just you and your kids OP said.

Yeah, I’d have just had toast for dinner instead 🤢

Going from the title of the thread alone, I'd have to say... only if there is a coffee shop with WiFi.

"I have no discernable skills, but a reasonable amount of delusion and will to live" @MyLegoHair this would be me, too 🥲

No. We are outdoorsy. DD1 is not long back from a Scout Survival Camp where they were gutting, skinning and jointing rabbits but, in reality, we would not survive very long at all. The skills needed to live entirely outdoors with no resources are gone…they were gone thousands of years ago.

0 chance. I have no survival skills ie how to start a fire, kill/catch an animal, make a shelter etc.

We are all high functioning ND. We would have a better chance than most. We thrive in a crisis

A better chance than most because of ND?

Good God, absolutely not! My idea of camping is being able to see trees from the window of a 5* boutique hotel. And I have raised our DDs in my own image. They start to hyperventilate if ever more than 100 yards from a Costa or Urban Outfitters.