What's in your emergency kit? - Page 2

GazDavies · #21 25th February 2012, 08:37

I think that your friend has beleived a few of the urban myths that float around. Having done my fair share of survival training, I can assure you that leeches can be removed by simply pulling them off (no, not in that way!) without causing any harm to you or the leech. Condoms have many uses in survival but putting them on my old chap in the middle of a swamp would be quite a way down the list unless my nav was female.

Mister Towed · #22 25th February 2012, 09:51

I was only seventeen and quite gullible I suppose but I didn't think he was yanking my chain at the time.

I don't know who your survival instructor was but he's probably died of septicaemia by now if he's ever used the squeeze and pull technique.

The leech will vomit your blood and its toxic stomach contents back into the wound and give you blood poisoning before you can get it off. It'll also whip round and reattach itself to one of your fingers before you can throw it if you give it half a chance. That was the advice I got from the senior medical officer that accompanied us to the bush in Malaysia for the joint special forces jungle warfare exercise 'elang osprey' in 1997. Oh, how I miss those free adventure holidays I used to go on at her Maj's expense...

Anyway, if you keep a condom in the Sammio survival kit you could always use it as a waterproof dizzy cap cover in the rain though.

GazDavies · #23 25th February 2012, 10:14

Im ex SF too, although a little more recent than 97. Im not sure if procedures have changed since then but we were told to just yank them off, which we did quite often without any adverse affects. Infact a few used to play a little game of "can you stick one here" where you would out do the others by placing a leech in places the others wouldnt dare too. The game wasnt for me but ive seen them get pulled away from everything from balls to eye balls.

Im not sure that I could get away with keeping condoms in the car anyway, I dont think my wife would like the excuses of leeches and water in socks for survival when waiting for the AA.

Mister Towed · #24 25th February 2012, 10:56

Ha ha! No, I don't think my wife would buy into the 'condoms are part of the breakdown kit' story either.

I retired from the military in January '02 - just before the excrement struck the rotary air recirculation equipment big style in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was pretty fortunate for me as an EOD operator...

Oh, and the maggots are to clean wounds, a technique that the NHS has just rediscovered.

Nike55 · #25 25th February 2012, 12:58

While unlikely that a cruet set would be carried in any survival pack, I was given to understand that salt shaken upon a leech would cause a negative effect to the creature.

(As a humble Air Training Corps cadet who volunteered to assist the engine fitters on Varsities at RAF Finningley during the dock strike in 1972, (when RAF personnel were helping at the docks) I learned very quickly to take anything any ground crew said with a large pinch of cruet..).

davecymru · #26 25th February 2012, 16:19

Have any Sammio types not been in the forces or Cadets?

Im also an ex spacey and then VR(T) type. When no.2 some came along 3 years back, I jacked it all in to spend some time looking after my own kids rather than baby sitting other peoples! I always promised myself that if/when I finally quit the ATC I would build myself a kit car and so here I am, typing this after just getting back in from a blat and smelling mildly of petrol, oil and exhaust fumes

And I got away without encountering any leeches, so I count that as a result!