Zombies and Cannibalism in the News

According to this article, there have been at least eight instances of cannibalism and face-eating in the last couple of months. If bath salts are not to blame, then what is the factor at work? I have to agree with the author that this cannot be explained as merely marijuana. In the history of the world, there has been a great deal of marijuana usage without people biting off the faces of others. I am not conspiracy-minded by nature, but something strange is going on here. Mass hysteria?

Pandemic Simulation Video Game

The game Pandemic II challenges you to destroy the world. Are you up to the challenge or will you let a bunch of monkeys in lab coats defeat you?

Cross-Posted to theBellman and the Safety Neal's Fireside Chat.

Zombiepocalypse Rifles

In the zombiepocalypse, rifles are an important tool for survival. Rifles allow one to fight off zombies as well as human marauders. Additionally, rifles can be used to hunt game. Of course, rifles have some deficits. The sounds may attract zombies. Rifles rely on bullets, which will likely be in short supply. Rifles and their ammunition are heavy. Different rifle designs have trade-offs. Bolt action rifles are very reliable and typically are highly accurate, but are slow on follow-up shots. Semi-automatic rifles are quicker on follow-up shots but require cleaning. A scoped rifle can also be a challenge to use in close quarters combat. Of course, caliber is a significant issue. Small caliber rifles will be useful for hunting small game such as rabbits and squirrels but will be of little use on zombies.

Zombie Eradication Rifles: Patriot Ordnance Factory

I have been researching automatic rifles (ARs) for zombie eradication work. Patriot Ordnance Factory makes an interesting gas piston variant of the AR-15 that they call the POF-415 and POF-416. AR-15.com has a forum for POF here. A review of the P-415 in 6.8MM begins with this interesting proposition: "For many years now the argument has waged back and forth between 5.56mm and 6.8 SPC. “Which one hits harder, which one is better?” The questions and claims fly back and forth. My two cents on the matter is simply this, I’ve seen some massive wound cavities created with 5.56mm. I’ve personally blown holes through soft-armor clad ballistics dummies using 7.5-inch 5.56mm SBRs. I’ve watched 5.56mm Hornady TAP in 75-grain pierce holes in Level IIIA body armor and blow out sections of ballistics media measuring 5 inches in diameter and another 5 in depth. I know that the heavier rounds in 5.56mm will get the job done quite well. Yet with all this information, I’ll tell you hands down that given the choice to carry a 6.8mm or 5.56mm chambered weapon into the fray, I’d go with 6.8mm any day of the week. Anecdotal evidence proves that the current M855 steel cored rounds that our soldiers are being forced to use are tantamount to spitwads in a fight. Don’t misunderstand me on this, M855 is an excellent anti-material round but it acts like a laser beam on people. It goes right through the enemy creating small holes that don’t incapacitate the subject. A gun chambered in 6.8mm on the other hand acts more like an AK-47 firing the always-lethal 7.62mm." - Abner Miranda, Black Guns Magazine,(2010). Small Arms Review did a torture test comparing a POF-16 rifle with a direct impingement M-4 and they blew out the gas tub on the M-4.

Cold Weather Survival: Firestarting & Tinderbox

Winter has officially arrived in Minnesota. I just had an educational CCDC/CERT training session on cold water survival and hypothermia response.

A few ice safety take-aways:

Ice is never safe because of springs and fish activity. It's not necessarily a uniform consistency all over, so depth of ice varies.

Wear a PFD if you go out on the water.

Slush is always a bad sign. NEVER drive a car or truck out on the ice.

Snow mobiles actually exert less pressure per square inch on the ground than a human being. I think this is also true for a person wearing skis.

If someone is suffering from hypothermia, be sure to warm them up slowly. Getting them too warm too fast can result in cold blood shocking the heart and stopping it.

Carry a rope in your car to throw to people who've broken through the ice. (A small weight on one end with a hand loop is great too.)

Never go out on broke ice to "rescue" someone unless you've special training. You'll end up in the drink yourself.

If you don't have a rope, a ladder also works.

Firestarting

Another piece of advice the speaker offered offered was to carry some firestarter.

I'm not good at starting fires, so I struggle with this issue.

Kit Up has an excellent discussion of firestarting titled Lord of the Flame.

This is my current approach:

I use an empty vitamin bottle as a tinderbox. I added some cotton balls (with a dab of vaseline each) to the bottle. I then taped it to a plastic wallet on a lanyard.

The wallet is reinforced with duct tape. Duct tape is handy in an emergency, after all.

The wallet has a lighter, a multi-tool & Swedish Fire Steel in it. See Gear Junkie for a description of Swedish Firesteel.

A plain cigarette lighter at least has a piece of steel and tinder. I like the FireSteel as a backup, but I'm a safety geek...

Add some tinder (dryer lint, fat wood, twigs, grass, paper, char...) and you've a fire making pouch, aka tinderbox. A small candle rocks for light and heat generation. Tea lights, votive candles, candles also come in tins...

The duct tape on my fire making pouch is safety orange, so it's easy for me to find and retain my tinderbox.

Magnesium sticks sound good in theory, but I'm hesitant to use a knife so close to my fingers when I'm freezing to death. The bits of magnesium dust also blow away easily and it's not easy to get the spark strip to work when it's below freezing. (This I've tried.)

Here's a proposition that I've considered, but I would welcome feedback.

Starting a fire is difficult, especially in a strong wind.

In a life or death situation (with the wind blowing 50 mph), you could attach your tinder to a strip of duct tape to hold it in place long enough to get a spark on it. Otherwise tinder is easily blown away.

The downside to the duct tape method is burning a small piece of plastic in the duct tape, which is bad for the environment.

Other suggestions for a tinder box?

|Cross-Posted at Safety Neal's Fireside Chat|

Disaster Response and National Security, two interrelated concepts

Ran across this over at DefenseTech's blog.

After the September 11th attacks, the Department of Homeland Security was put together with two major goals in mind: deter further terrorist strikes, and respond to disasters, both natural and man-made -- since the evacuation plans, medical responses, and the like are largely the same in either case.

Four years and countless billions of dollars later, we've seen a clumsy, ten-thumbed response from DHS [to Hurricane Katrina]. Ships and troops were delayed for days before they were ordered to the disaster zone. Tens of thousands were left stranded, without food or water or medical care, while relief agencies were turned away.

All this, after a disaster everyone knew was coming. Now, imagine what would have happened after a surprise attack. Al Qaeda operatives have to be wondering the same thing. It's as if we've hung a giant "kick me" sign around the nation's neck.|Why Katrina Matters - DefenseTech|

Well said. I'd call this author a safety-hawk. This may overlap with being a greenhawk, someone interested in energy security and national security.

Mitzi Wertheim, a consultant to the DoD’s Office of Force Transformation [helped lead the greenhawk effort]. Dan Nolan, a retired Army colonel in charge of energy projects for the Rapid Equipping Force, crunched numbers to show that, since the transport of fuel to forward bases had become the soft target favored by insurgents, energy-inefficiency was costing the Army lives. Since then, the Army has begun to deploy tents made of solar-capturing materials to supply the energy needs of the bases. And also fuel-cell-powered vehicles that take advantage of the same innovations in batteries that have made laptops so small.
|The "Greenhawk" Moment - Standpoint|

Emergency First Aid: Flail Chest

My brother suffered a flail chest from a motorcycle accident a couple of years ago. The description and treatment are: