A person who is part of the problem will never see their actions as a problem. Also, when it's life or death, morality will get thrown out of the window.
Being out relatively 'in the sticks' has made us preppers. Things like a 25 minute response time for an attempted home invasion and my wife's mother dying of a heart attack before we could get her to a hospital made it clear to us about 15 years ago. We are indeed our own first responders, and in a major disaster, *no one is coming*
@prepmedic Hi from South Africa. Our town doesn't have fire service at all. We have established a community of medical and fire rescue response teams as a result. We have to be prepared or risk death; as EMS takes at least 3 calls to be dispatched and if they are available they probably get lost or come from a neighbouring district (county) due to a totally broken system. They're staffed and purely stocked for mostly basic transport - no ALS. We have to be preppers; buy our own equipment with no refunds or replacements from the government. We work as a community to survive these life events...by the people for the people. As always, I much enjoy your vids and appreciate your efforts. God bless you and yours from South Africa.
As a former firefighter I have seen first hand during the initial stages of any community wide emergency how easy it is for the system to be overwhelemed. That is why I prepare, to take care of me and mine and if necessary to assist my neighbors until help arrives.
As an EMT in 1980, the company I worked for had roughly 15 ambulances staffed every day of the week. On any given 24 hour shift, we had between 22 and 28 calls. That's roughly one call per hour. SF Bay area. We didn't have an excess of time to sit around. And if we did, we were busy at the station stocking up. Rarely did we get into our bunks. I remember getting my jumpsuit off only to get a call before I could sit on the edge of the bunk. Burnout came at about three years. But you knew you were not giving it your all way before that. You were exhausted. Prepping could shave off some of that. But the public always has other priorities. Today, I live near a popular red rocks region. I hike the trails. Invariably I come across hikers in bad shape. It's 95°F, they have little or no water, dizzy, disoriented, some on the ground, extremely hot to the touch, some sweating and some not. These people are in a lot of trouble. Most of the time, cell service does not penetrate into the forest owned land. I typically carry an extra six pack of water. Accidents are one thing, lack of being prepared is just asking for trouble.
I just had such a wonderful experience yesterday. I have been watching your videos for quite a long time, and I started preparing equipment and knowledge for emergencies. Yesterday, I confronted a possible elbow dislocation. Pt complained of great pain, visible deformation took place. I had my FAK including a SAM splint, cravat, compression bandages, whatnot. I was able to not only immobilize the patient and manage the pain, but correctly assess the patient with the CMS algorithm looking for any nerve damages, ligamental damages, circulation blockage. Guess where did all these skill come from. You SAMMMMM, trained me although virtually, made me confident in what I was doing. The pt was seen by the doctor at an ED, and is stable and in tact. Thank you again Sam, for earning me the skills, and I hope you keep up with it that many will also thank you in the future.
2020 also helped us realize where our gaps were. Disinfectant and toilet paper were unobtanium for a while. It was mundane things we ran out of that really sucked.
I found that 2020 had the opposite effect for me. I thought I was well prepared living on a homestead, having a well, solar, generators, livestock, etc, but 2020 made me appreciate the interconnectedness of society and how dependent I actually am on others and the vast skill sets that have been lost in the past century. Humbling for sure. Having said that, I do believe that everyone should be self sufficient for at least a month. Beyond that, life will be tough.
I'm the unofficial first responder for our mountain top community. Response time averages 45 minutes, if they can find the incident. Medium level training and basic gear along with being able to find people has made life saving difference in situations of all types. It also helps if you are a "high responder" and not someone who dithers about
Completely agree! People must understand that in case of different situations first task - help yourself. First you have to be able protect yourself, next you must have at least 3 days water-food-medicine storage, and the knowledge what to do in different emergency situations. I have small experience from Ukraine's war: you by yourself as there were no police, no mobile (and no possibility to call ambulance) and danger to your life on the streets... Thank You for informative videos!
“ A little bit”, bro no one should ever second think about receiving you’re help, you’re well past experienced, thank you for being experienced in the medical field
3:00 This same principle applies to standby IT services. When a major event happens... well... there's sometimes only so many technicians who can get to a problem, at a time. Alongside the troubleshooting and coordination trying to figure out what happen... sometimes it takes a little while to get to everyone's business critical thing back up and running, much less the peripheral and unimportant things like gaming servers and chatrooms. Knowing at least a few basic elements of your computing hardware and software, the components, and troubleshooting steps, saves me a great deal of time, and the both of us a great deal of frustration.
After the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand, the message from Civil Defence, regional and city councils, and emergency management is that people should have enough supplies (including 3 litres of drinking water per person, per day) for their families and pets to last a minimum of 7 days and to not expect assistance as it may not be possible. Most people I know try to have at least something because something is better than nothing. In a natural disaster it’s the stuff that you don’t expect to be problematic that turns out to be a pain. No water supply means the sewage system isn’t working as it should…. Flushing the toilet is impossible - you are going to need to either pour buckets of your precious water into the bowl or you’re digging a big hole in your backyard (if you have one)., or converting a rubbish bin into a make shift commode. In modern times the average person has no clues as to how to deal with human waste. On the good side, you will get to know your neighbors pretty well as everyone needs to cooperate and check on each other to be able to get through the situation.
I live on the country FD is 20 minutes out on a Good day Sheriff about 30 minutes on a good day ,have fought Fire in field next to my home , have delt with shady people etc,,,
Fantastic take on "prepping". The word has a stigma to it, but this really breaks it down to the simplest terms on why people should prep. I have had a plan and somewhat of preps etc since 9/11.
Excellent points that refocus people on way more likely scenarios than EMP, SHTF, TEOTWAWKI etc. Having yourself ready to deal with a loss of power/gas/water for up to a week, and being able to take care of yourself if you need to evacuate, just gives you more options. Help is coming, but maybe you will have less crowded conditions if you can make it to a shelter a little further away. And taking care of yourself, learning skills, having plans, all hopefully avoid the need for help except in genuine emergencies.
Let me ad that there are community preparedness groups in most areas, usually run by the fire dept. that train you in useful skills like first aid, fire preparedness, etc but also give you a network and a reason to talk to your neighbors about preparedness. You'll be so much better off if you can work together with your community to be ready.
There is an incredible array of things a person can accomplish when you empower them to invest in themselves. These skills are not “difficult” but require time, knowledge, and the desire to better yourself and those around you. It’s sad that so many people become distant or even hostile to topics like this…
From France, prepping looks like you're crazy, waiting for the doom's day. But, when there is a huge storm, people simply rely on State services. And they often (if not always) get screwed. I prefer relying on myself. Thanks for your advise, keep going.
From Namibia. Been following you for years.. Our system is fairly ok we do not have the constant "load shedding events" like our neighboring South Africa has to deal with (no electrical power for large parts of your day rolling thru the country). The neighborhood I live in has regular water interruptions to the point we have 1000L, + - 270 Gallons with pump. 3 days with full laundry, drinking and shower use. We use "swamp cooling" when that dumps the water it goes to a tank and used for toilet flushing. To one of the other comments "prepping is for things you know will happen where you live or has happened" (we don't get tornado or earthquakes ) but severe sand storms at the coast - like cars sand blasted to the metal. Its not prepping here it daily life I live about 800m from a private hospital but if something happens at home you will have to deal with it the same as in any rural place. On the other hand if are in the bush here and something happens you are in big trouble if you cant deal with the initial hours.
We can all talk the talk, but everyone will respond different when it’s time to walk the talk. The other day my brother told me that if it ever rained so much that the houses get flooded they would come to my house because it’s a 2 story house. I have flashlights, camping lights, sleeping bags, air mattresses, two 5 gallon pro pane tanks, griddles. I’m sure my family staying over would be bringing things themselves. In 2011 we had a 7.2 earthquakein California. I checked all the visible gas lines from my house. It was a little scary, but luckily no fires broke out in the small towns near by. The pandemic with the Covid was scary too. I was one that rushed to the grocery store and spent hundreds on food supply’s before it hit everyone hard. I almost lost my brother to Covid. One can never know what kind of emergency will hit us next, but if you have a little training in response or in the medical department then you’ll be better off than most of us. These prep vids are very helpful. I’d have a pack with stuff to get my fam out of dodge if things got ugly. You never know if Yellowstone super volcano erupts, or a super earthquake splits California into two.
I work in a major city in North Carolina as an EMT. The same can be said here. It’s been beaten into our heads for the last 2+ months that we are “fully staffed”. Every day, especially weekend nights, there are numerous times we get down to 1-3 trucks available for the county.
I love collecting knowledge, skills and things to be prepared for worst. Those skills make us less dependent and can help us our lovedonce and other persons in vulnerable situations. And your channel teach so many important things 👍thank you
Murphy's law! Normal ebbs and flows will sometimes not have immediate availability of emergency services, large scale emergencies, fire, flood, explosion, building collapse, multiple vehicle accidents can drain resources quickly. Have gear and supplies on hand and know how to use them, it can be lifesaving for you and the personnel that may have to risk themselves to assist you. Policy, experience, human factor all effect the quality of assistance as well. During C@v!d ambulances were refusing to transport to medical facilities. Hospitals can be full or have severe wait times. The more you can help yourself the better we all are.
The largest CA wildfire ruined one of the best parts of CA. It was open access land for everyone to enjoy and it had an observatory; certain people need to be kept from re-assimilating to “society.”
Very good video. What a sad state of modern society of "just in time" conveniences when the words like "prepper" and "survivalist" require apologetics, explanations, or carry a derogatory meaning. Meanwhile, throughout the human history everyone from peasants to kings were storing things up from harvest to harvest and for the leaner times. It was just normal and routine. It's even mentioned in Aesop's fable of the Ant and Grasshopper, which itself harkens back to the Bible. And in the Bible there were "preppers" like Noah, Joseph, king Hezekiah. I'm sure that Abraham had lots of supplies and "survival" skills. It was just part of life. And it was a part of life until recently. Canning food for the winter. Having plenty of salt. Smoking meats. Not being a vegetarian (sorry, I had to put in a joke). I wish I had a root cellar :) Having lived through the collapse of USSR, my parents always had some basic staples put away - dry noodles, canned foods, whole grains (actual whole kernels like millet, buckwheat, rice, pearled barley, all delicious), soap, candles, matches. They canned fruit for the winter, despite living in a small apartment in a large city. My dad had a case of brandy in his garage, just in case. Having a meat grinder allowed turning inferior cheaper cuts of meat (the only stuff available to regular folks) into good meals (nowadays, in addition to a nice electric meat grinder I have a nice chunky stainless steel crank grinder - most animals aren't made entirely of steaks, chops and hamburger ;). They weren't outdoorsmen, not "preppers", it was just something people were used to, especially after the food shortages of "Perestroika". Most city dwellers had a plot of land where they'd grow potatoes, which helped them live through winters. There was no fancy gear, no pre-made kits, no how-to books. Neither glamor nor stigma attached, just part of reality. Having said that, living in the US for the last 30 years, it feels awful similar to those very late 80's, early 90's in the USSR. It's not the same, of course, but something subtle is there. I hope there's no disintegration, but some kind of economic hard landing is inevitable, and I'll say that it'll be far more of a shock to many here, because people are accustomed to a higher living standard. It's already eroded for millions, but easy credit is hiding how truly dire things are.
as patient that lives with cardiac issues mostly afib with rvr I found that in my city it's faster for my dad to drive me to my hospital ED where I'm well known by staff then it would to call Temple Tx ems American Medical Response Temple fire Dept. which like big city response on calls Paramedic fire engine company also the hospital is well known institution I'll leave unnamed for ethics reasons covers 39 counties as a level one trauma and cardiac Primary PCI facility
One of the largest benefits of prepping is that you will have the mental preparedness to navigate a crisis and communicate effectively with EMA if necessary.
Emergencies and disasters happen everyday. They may not affect "you" directly but they happen. Preparedness is just being a responsible citizen for when they do happen to you or your locality. We didn't even call it "prepping" 40 or even 20 years ago, we just called it "life"; we knew blizzards, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, motor vehicle accidents, etc happened and you were ready for the likely scenarios for your area. Today we have better medical gear and training available to the average citizen, more information available but seem to shirk any personal responsibility to be able to help ourself, our family, or our neighbors. People are forming lines immediately after a hurricane asking where their food aid is or going for a hike with zero gear and spend 10 days drinking toe fungus tea from their hiking boots, instead of carrying a few pounds of life saving gear or having some food on hand and an alternative means of preparing it. Stay Alert, Stay Alive Regulator5
45 years as a volunteer firie in a rural area. I hate the amount of learned helplessness in the community. Prepping isn’t weird and it isn’t about the zombie apocalypse. It’s about being ready and able to deal with the most likely risks. Life-threatening injury of the kind that can be stabilised with First Aid. Power-outage for long enough to cause severe problems. Could be a lack of aircon in hot weatger, or heating in cold. What’s your backup? Minor fire that can grow if you wait the 15-20 minutes for the Brigade to arrive, instead of dealing with it while it’s still tiny. (All fires start small… where’s your extinguisher?) Major fire heading your way. How will you know, what is your trigger-point for making decisions? What are your escape routes if evacuation is required? Where is your refuge area if you stay? Etc, etc, etc.
Great video. I pitched the idea of first aid/stop the bleed for our community, but there were excuses. It's up to everyone to stay alive until additional help gets there. As you said in the video, helping relieve strain on the responding services helps others, but one can help those helping you. First aid or as simple as reporting accurate location greatly helps response time.
The point behind this video presentation is spot on. However; the ‘silent’ detractor behind your overall message are the traditional emergency services themselves. When budget time comes service leaders will definitely raise the alarm for the need for more & more staffing and equipment but; would usually never state that the community has to do more themselves to offset budget requests. Also; persons working within the first responder roles will usually never openly tell family & friends what you did in your message. Oh! Yes, there may be some examples however; when jobs are on the line or associations are fighting to maintain or grow their membership roles they are exactly going to counter-serve their objectives by telling Joe-public that they can serve themselves. They are more likely to promote an attitude of: ‘You Need Me!’ which is sort of true but; ignores reality (as per some of your examples) and rolls the risk dice hoping that the service failure to the community isn’t too severe. Great video message Sam! (I’ll sit back now and take the cannon-fodder from those that will obviously disagree).
I appreciate your pragmatism. I try to keep my home ready for at least couple-day outages, my car ready for roadside emergencies, and myself ready for self defense and basic bleeding control. With medical emergencies my focus is just buying time for the person-if I can get bleeding under control or start CPR, maybe that’s the difference between getting to the hospital vs. croaking on the side of a road.
I'll add another simple reason. Imagine it's not anything truly severe, just a local disruption - washed out roads, a blackout, no trucks came in, maybe riots so it's unsafe to go to the grocery store. Now imagine you don't have to go. If you're out of milk, you can open a can of condensed milk. Use freeze dried eggs. Get by for a weekend or a couple of weeks. We do this when we get snowed in. It's fun. It's practice. It's as simple as the "deep pantry" concept. You don't need bomb shelter buckets (you can have them if you want, they're the last resort).
absolutely !!!! I have called to report problems on my street or in or around my apartment property and it may take a half hour since it is a low priority situation,and 10 mins for a higher prioity situation
Here in italy we have a specific emergency service made by volounteers that get deployed only during big emergencies like hertquake etc For the regular emergencies the average ambulance fire or police response is really long if you live outside a big city, an ambulance can take up to 40 minuts to show up on an emergency, same goes for the police (up to 2 hours)
Sorry, one more point - regular folk have to apologize or come up with rationale for this, but the biggest preppers are... governments. They do have vast stockpiles, bomb shelters, "strategic reserves", etc. In the Soviet Union, when the bomb shelter supplies like canned meat and canned milk were nearing their "best by" dates (there's really no expiration dates on most canned foods, they last far longer than the dates on them, if properly stored), they rotated them out by selling to the hungry populace, who were happy to snap them up. It always tasted just fine. They do have stockpiles, but not necessarily for you. As Stalin said "dark humor is like food - not everybody gets it".
Love your videos Sam very insightful and to the point. Keep up the great work. I am an EMT and hoping to move up to Paramedic soon. I just have a question about equipment, do you carry your own personal equipment to work for monitoring vital signs in the event where the equipment you’re provided with fails? Sp02 probes, BP cuffs etc. thanks!
Low key prepper myself and just carrying some basic medical stuff on me and the knowhow to use 'em has saved a couple of my friends a call to get an ambulance or at the very least given some ease for discomfort when they make their way to the doc to get things properly checked out. It's been funny to hear some snide remarks on having that stuff taking space in my work bag but when that person stepped on a shard of glass and opened their foot suddenly the tone changed to a much more appreciative one. Thankfully I haven't needed to use anything for life threatening situations but there'll be a day when someone gets a more serious injury and if that day comes, having carried less than a pound of extra weight won't mean much to me but will for the person who gets the help they need help fast.
The term "Prepper" used to have a bad connotation associated with it and the people who engaged in it. Then COVID hit. Now if you're not basically stocked up and have contingency plans then you're just being negligent, in my opinion. Having basic supplies to sustain oneself and/or family for a full week is not that difficult. Start with a 3 day supply and build from there. The Boyscouts have it right: Be prepared. Great video I've always enjoyed your content and perspective. Thx
Good for more and more people to get at LEAST your basic First Aid and practice it. Having a few people in your family and or group of people with that training really could save your life and or a family member's life. Same with your 2A lifestyle. Get something quality if you can afford it and practice several different drills. Ya really never know when you'll need to use that training and it SUCKS to be the person standing on the sidelines not knowing what to do while watching someone else die.
All great stuff and worthy of doing. These days though, it may be held against you in court on a self defense matter. Regardless, I believe it is better to be prepared to increase your skills, to not be a burden and to help others.
Hi, from Belgium Europe. Our responders are understaffed. So the times for emergency to come and help are getting higher. Even to get 911(112) on the phone can take some time because there is no staff. I live in the city, but when the fire department doenst have the staff they cant send an ambulance, this means there has to come an ambulance from another city 20min away. 20minutes is a long time. So what do i do... I have a basic understanding of first aid and medicine. I have a big first aid case at home, goes with us at holiday are further trips. Packed with all the things i could need and yes i have had the need to use it a lot. I also have my ghb/edc bag that i carry everywhere... I have a trauma kit and first aid kit in it. I can tend to bleeding and burns, eye wounds and so on... At home i have water for 1week in bags made to keep it good for e few years. I also have a few rations. The grayl waterfilter and another 3 waterfilters other brands... Sawyer and stuff. Im not a big prepper. Just the basics but i know i have more then all the people around me.
One point not discussed often, you're good at your job, whatever it may be, but if you can't be at the scene, "can you instruct someone through a disaster over the phone"? It's not easy the first time, but with practice you'll learn the most important steps and the less important things to ask during those first minutes.
If only a large portion of our community heeded such warnings about being prepared, not diverting resources needlessly, etc when it came to pandemics and vaccinations. The hospitals were (and some still are) so overburdened by PREVENTABLE disease(S) they can't take on more serious cases, it delays their care, or the patients get rerouted to distant facilities for definitive care. A heart attack or stroke victim can literally die because because someone else decided to get medical advice from a tiktok or blog. Happens daily. Get fit, get your shots, and learn the basics.
A generation or two ago "prepping" was considered normal life to the point that there was not even a word for it. Strange, right? I personally knew people in their 80s that literally slept on a 25kg bag of sugar, just in case and held enough preserved food to literally survive a year. These days sometimes if feels like you have to justify when you are not reliant to the point that you need to shop every other day.
If you buy more than 4 rolls of toilet paper at a time, you're at risk of someday becoming a prepper, because you're already making contingency plans for a future house guest possibly having lunched at Taco Bell.
Is there a better word for Prepper that emphasizes the focus on community aid and kindness? Prepper unfortunately means "toxic solo survivalist with lots of gadgets and little skill" to the general public and I'd like a better label to talk with folks about it.
I've had several brushes with death over the years & the one thing that has helped me more than anything else, is salt - from hypovolemic shock. (I've nearly died 3x & any EMTs would've been useless because it hits so fast & the recovery is just as fast, so no need to waste $ on medical bills.) I prep for general, local disasters here (mostly tornados & power outages), but I don't go overboard either. I've got a good 8 months' worth of food & supplies stored up & have my own yarden with wild & cultivated food & medicinal plants.
Prepping is for people who can see forward. It does not matter what the subject is.
YES, thank you.
First thing I say on this topic is: first step in solving a problem is not being part of the problem.
A person who is part of the problem will never see their actions as a problem. Also, when it's life or death, morality will get thrown out of the window.
Being out relatively 'in the sticks' has made us preppers. Things like a 25 minute response time for an attempted home invasion and my wife's mother dying of a heart attack before we could get her to a hospital made it clear to us about 15 years ago. We are indeed our own first responders, and in a major disaster, *no one is coming*
Bei uns in Deutschland the same thing.Möge Jesus Christus uns allen helfen.Amen
@prepmedic Hi from South Africa. Our town doesn't have fire service at all. We have established a community of medical and fire rescue response teams as a result. We have to be prepared or risk death; as EMS takes at least 3 calls to be dispatched and if they are available they probably get lost or come from a neighbouring district (county) due to a totally broken system. They're staffed and purely stocked for mostly basic transport - no ALS. We have to be preppers; buy our own equipment with no refunds or replacements from the government. We work as a community to survive these life events...by the people for the people. As always, I much enjoy your vids and appreciate your efforts. God bless you and yours from South Africa.
As a former firefighter I have seen first hand during the initial stages of any community wide emergency how easy it is for the system to be overwhelemed. That is why I prepare, to take care of me and mine and if necessary to assist my neighbors until help arrives.
As an EMT in 1980, the company I worked for had roughly 15 ambulances staffed every day of the week. On any given 24 hour shift, we had between 22 and 28 calls. That's roughly one call per hour. SF Bay area. We didn't have an excess of time to sit around. And if we did, we were busy at the station stocking up. Rarely did we get into our bunks. I remember getting my jumpsuit off only to get a call before I could sit on the edge of the bunk. Burnout came at about three years. But you knew you were not giving it your all way before that. You were exhausted. Prepping could shave off some of that. But the public always has other priorities. Today, I live near a popular red rocks region. I hike the trails. Invariably I come across hikers in bad shape. It's 95°F, they have little or no water, dizzy, disoriented, some on the ground, extremely hot to the touch, some sweating and some not. These people are in a lot of trouble. Most of the time, cell service does not penetrate into the forest owned land. I typically carry an extra six pack of water. Accidents are one thing, lack of being prepared is just asking for trouble.
100%. I manage a Level 1 trauma comprehensive ED and we reach capacity every single day. The system is easily overwhelmed!
I just had such a wonderful experience yesterday.
I have been watching your videos for quite a long time, and I started preparing equipment and knowledge for emergencies.
Yesterday, I confronted a possible elbow dislocation. Pt complained of great pain, visible deformation took place. I had my FAK including a SAM splint, cravat, compression bandages, whatnot. I was able to not only immobilize the patient and manage the pain, but correctly assess the patient with the CMS algorithm looking for any nerve damages, ligamental damages, circulation blockage.
Guess where did all these skill come from. You SAMMMMM, trained me although virtually, made me confident in what I was doing. The pt was seen by the doctor at an ED, and is stable and in tact.
Thank you again Sam, for earning me the skills, and I hope you keep up with it that many will also thank you in the future.
Yup I agree I'm a former EMT & try to stay in shape I also try to keep up on my knowledge & changes that come up as a 71yr old
Great video with sound advice. Personally, with everything that has happened since 2020, if that hasn’t made people wake up, I am not sure what will.
2020 also helped us realize where our gaps were. Disinfectant and toilet paper were unobtanium for a while. It was mundane things we ran out of that really sucked.
Made me get bidets. Now I'm not sure 2019 was all negative
I found that 2020 had the opposite effect for me. I thought I was well prepared living on a homestead, having a well, solar, generators, livestock, etc, but 2020 made me appreciate the interconnectedness of society and how dependent I actually am on others and the vast skill sets that have been lost in the past century. Humbling for sure.
Having said that, I do believe that everyone should be self sufficient for at least a month. Beyond that, life will be tough.
Yep, there's hundreds of millions of ignorant humans still living and partying like it's 2019.
@@joshcarter-com i had those, but i admit, i wish I had more, mostly because im an asshole and could have made a quick buck
I'm the unofficial first responder for our mountain top community. Response time averages 45 minutes, if they can find the incident. Medium level training and basic gear along with being able to find people has made life saving difference in situations of all types. It also helps if you are a "high responder" and not someone who dithers about
Completely agree! People must understand that in case of different situations first task - help yourself. First you have to be able protect yourself, next you must have at least 3 days water-food-medicine storage, and the knowledge what to do in different emergency situations. I have small experience from Ukraine's war: you by yourself as there were no police, no mobile (and no possibility to call ambulance) and danger to your life on the streets... Thank You for informative videos!
“ A little bit”, bro no one should ever second think about receiving you’re help, you’re well past experienced, thank you for being experienced in the medical field
3:00 This same principle applies to standby IT services. When a major event happens... well... there's sometimes only so many technicians who can get to a problem, at a time. Alongside the troubleshooting and coordination trying to figure out what happen... sometimes it takes a little while to get to everyone's business critical thing back up and running, much less the peripheral and unimportant things like gaming servers and chatrooms.
Knowing at least a few basic elements of your computing hardware and software, the components, and troubleshooting steps, saves me a great deal of time, and the both of us a great deal of frustration.
After the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand, the message from Civil Defence, regional and city councils, and emergency management is that people should have enough supplies (including 3 litres of drinking water per person, per day) for their families and pets to last a minimum of 7 days and to not expect assistance as it may not be possible. Most people I know try to have at least something because something is better than nothing.
In a natural disaster it’s the stuff that you don’t expect to be problematic that turns out to be a pain. No water supply means the sewage system isn’t working as it should…. Flushing the toilet is impossible - you are going to need to either pour buckets of your precious water into the bowl or you’re digging a big hole in your backyard (if you have one)., or converting a rubbish bin into a make shift commode. In modern times the average person has no clues as to how to deal with human waste.
On the good side, you will get to know your neighbors pretty well as everyone needs to cooperate and check on each other to be able to get through the situation.
I live on the country FD is 20 minutes out on a Good day Sheriff about 30 minutes on a good day ,have fought Fire in field next to my home , have delt with shady people etc,,,
very well said!!! its not hoarding if its supplies that you use every week anyways!!
Fantastic take on "prepping". The word has a stigma to it, but this really breaks it down to the simplest terms on why people should prep. I have had a plan and somewhat of preps etc since 9/11.
Excellent points that refocus people on way more likely scenarios than EMP, SHTF, TEOTWAWKI etc. Having yourself ready to deal with a loss of power/gas/water for up to a week, and being able to take care of yourself if you need to evacuate, just gives you more options. Help is coming, but maybe you will have less crowded conditions if you can make it to a shelter a little further away. And taking care of yourself, learning skills, having plans, all hopefully avoid the need for help except in genuine emergencies.
Let me ad that there are community preparedness groups in most areas, usually run by the fire dept. that train you in useful skills like first aid, fire preparedness, etc but also give you a network and a reason to talk to your neighbors about preparedness. You'll be so much better off if you can work together with your community to be ready.
There is an incredible array of things a person can accomplish when you empower them to invest in themselves. These skills are not “difficult” but require time, knowledge, and the desire to better yourself and those around you. It’s sad that so many people become distant or even hostile to topics like this…
From France, prepping looks like you're crazy, waiting for the doom's day.
But, when there is a huge storm, people simply rely on State services. And they often (if not always) get screwed.
I prefer relying on myself.
Thanks for your advise, keep going.
From Namibia. Been following you for years.. Our system is fairly ok we do not have the constant "load shedding events" like our neighboring South Africa has to deal with (no electrical power for large parts of your day rolling thru the country). The neighborhood I live in has regular water interruptions to the point we have 1000L, + - 270 Gallons with pump. 3 days with full laundry, drinking and shower use. We use "swamp cooling" when that dumps the water it goes to a tank and used for toilet flushing. To one of the other comments "prepping is for things you know will happen where you live or has happened" (we don't get tornado or earthquakes ) but severe sand storms at the coast - like cars sand blasted to the metal. Its not prepping here it daily life I live about 800m from a private hospital but if something happens at home you will have to deal with it the same as in any rural place. On the other hand if are in the bush here and something happens you are in big trouble if you cant deal with the initial hours.
We can all talk the talk, but everyone will respond different when it’s time to walk the talk.
The other day my brother told me that if it ever rained so much that the houses get flooded they would come to my house because it’s a 2 story house. I have flashlights, camping lights, sleeping bags, air mattresses, two 5 gallon pro pane tanks, griddles. I’m sure my family staying over would be bringing things themselves. In 2011 we had a 7.2 earthquakein California. I checked all the visible gas lines from my house. It was a little scary, but luckily no fires broke out in the small towns near by. The pandemic with the Covid was scary too. I was one that rushed to the grocery store and spent hundreds on food supply’s before it hit everyone hard. I almost lost my brother to Covid. One can never know what kind of emergency will hit us next, but if you have a little training in response or in the medical department then you’ll be better off than most of us. These prep vids are very helpful. I’d have a pack with stuff to get my fam out of dodge if things got ugly. You never know if Yellowstone super volcano erupts, or a super earthquake splits California into two.
Unfortunately there are to many liabilities is society, they are the ones who expect things done for them.
Great vid 👌🏻
This makes me feel better about how I prep. Thank you 🙌🏽❤️❤️
I work in a major city in North Carolina as an EMT. The same can be said here.
It’s been beaten into our heads for the last 2+ months that we are “fully staffed”. Every day, especially weekend nights, there are numerous times we get down to 1-3 trucks available for the county.
I love collecting knowledge, skills and things to be prepared for worst. Those skills make us less dependent and can help us our lovedonce and other persons in vulnerable situations. And your channel teach so many important things 👍thank you
Murphy's law! Normal ebbs and flows will sometimes not have immediate availability of emergency services, large scale emergencies, fire, flood, explosion, building collapse, multiple vehicle accidents can drain resources quickly. Have gear and supplies on hand and know how to use them, it can be lifesaving for you and the personnel that may have to risk themselves to assist you. Policy, experience, human factor all effect the quality of assistance as well. During C@v!d ambulances were refusing to transport to medical facilities. Hospitals can be full or have severe wait times. The more you can help yourself the better we all are.
The largest CA wildfire ruined one of the best parts of CA.
It was open access land for everyone to enjoy and it had an observatory; certain people need to be kept from re-assimilating to “society.”
One more reason:
"Keep small things small."
That also makes every days life better.
Great video with great information!
Thank you so much for sharing this perspective. We really are all in this together
Very good video. What a sad state of modern society of "just in time" conveniences when the words like "prepper" and "survivalist" require apologetics, explanations, or carry a derogatory meaning. Meanwhile, throughout the human history everyone from peasants to kings were storing things up from harvest to harvest and for the leaner times. It was just normal and routine. It's even mentioned in Aesop's fable of the Ant and Grasshopper, which itself harkens back to the Bible. And in the Bible there were "preppers" like Noah, Joseph, king Hezekiah. I'm sure that Abraham had lots of supplies and "survival" skills. It was just part of life. And it was a part of life until recently. Canning food for the winter. Having plenty of salt. Smoking meats. Not being a vegetarian (sorry, I had to put in a joke). I wish I had a root cellar :)
Having lived through the collapse of USSR, my parents always had some basic staples put away - dry noodles, canned foods, whole grains (actual whole kernels like millet, buckwheat, rice, pearled barley, all delicious), soap, candles, matches. They canned fruit for the winter, despite living in a small apartment in a large city. My dad had a case of brandy in his garage, just in case. Having a meat grinder allowed turning inferior cheaper cuts of meat (the only stuff available to regular folks) into good meals (nowadays, in addition to a nice electric meat grinder I have a nice chunky stainless steel crank grinder - most animals aren't made entirely of steaks, chops and hamburger ;). They weren't outdoorsmen, not "preppers", it was just something people were used to, especially after the food shortages of "Perestroika". Most city dwellers had a plot of land where they'd grow potatoes, which helped them live through winters. There was no fancy gear, no pre-made kits, no how-to books. Neither glamor nor stigma attached, just part of reality.
Having said that, living in the US for the last 30 years, it feels awful similar to those very late 80's, early 90's in the USSR. It's not the same, of course, but something subtle is there. I hope there's no disintegration, but some kind of economic hard landing is inevitable, and I'll say that it'll be far more of a shock to many here, because people are accustomed to a higher living standard. It's already eroded for millions, but easy credit is hiding how truly dire things are.
Thanks for sharing that.
as patient that lives with cardiac issues mostly afib with rvr I found that in my city it's faster for my dad to drive me to my hospital ED where I'm well known by staff then it would to call Temple Tx ems American Medical Response Temple fire Dept. which like big city response on calls Paramedic fire engine company also the hospital is well known institution I'll leave unnamed for ethics reasons covers 39 counties as a level one trauma and cardiac Primary PCI facility
A lot of prepped videos lately. Thanks for the great information
One of the largest benefits of prepping is that you will have the mental preparedness to navigate a crisis and communicate effectively with EMA if necessary.
Emergencies and disasters happen everyday. They may not affect "you" directly but they happen. Preparedness is just being a responsible citizen for when they do happen to you or your locality. We didn't even call it "prepping" 40 or even 20 years ago, we just called it "life"; we knew blizzards, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, motor vehicle accidents, etc happened and you were ready for the likely scenarios for your area.
Today we have better medical gear and training available to the average citizen, more information available but seem to shirk any personal responsibility to be able to help ourself, our family, or our neighbors. People are forming lines immediately after a hurricane asking where their food aid is or going for a hike with zero gear and spend 10 days drinking toe fungus tea from their hiking boots, instead of carrying a few pounds of life saving gear or having some food on hand and an alternative means of preparing it.
Stay Alert, Stay Alive
Regulator5
45 years as a volunteer firie in a rural area. I hate the amount of learned helplessness in the community. Prepping isn’t weird and it isn’t about the zombie apocalypse. It’s about being ready and able to deal with the most likely risks.
Life-threatening injury of the kind that can be stabilised with First Aid.
Power-outage for long enough to cause severe problems. Could be a lack of aircon in hot weatger, or heating in cold. What’s your backup?
Minor fire that can grow if you wait the 15-20 minutes for the Brigade to arrive, instead of dealing with it while it’s still tiny. (All fires start small… where’s your extinguisher?)
Major fire heading your way. How will you know, what is your trigger-point for making decisions? What are your escape routes if evacuation is required? Where is your refuge area if you stay?
Etc, etc, etc.
Great video. I pitched the idea of first aid/stop the bleed for our community, but there were excuses. It's up to everyone to stay alive until additional help gets there. As you said in the video, helping relieve strain on the responding services helps others, but one can help those helping you. First aid or as simple as reporting accurate location greatly helps response time.
The point behind this video presentation is spot on. However; the ‘silent’ detractor behind your overall message are the traditional emergency services themselves. When budget time comes service leaders will definitely raise the alarm for the need for more & more staffing and equipment but; would usually never state that the community has to do more themselves to offset budget requests. Also; persons working within the first responder roles will usually never openly tell family & friends what you did in your message. Oh! Yes, there may be some examples however; when jobs are on the line or associations are fighting to maintain or grow their membership roles they are exactly going to counter-serve their objectives by telling Joe-public that they can serve themselves. They are more likely to promote an attitude of: ‘You Need Me!’ which is sort of true but; ignores reality (as per some of your examples) and rolls the risk dice hoping that the service failure to the community isn’t too severe. Great video message Sam! (I’ll sit back now and take the cannon-fodder from those that will obviously disagree).
Having gauze and an Israeli bandage in my truck potentially saved my life after a chainsaw accident to the thigh recently
You could save a life, even your own, and that is the only excuse you need to do your part, as small as it could be, you can make a difference
Great video!
I appreciate your pragmatism. I try to keep my home ready for at least couple-day outages, my car ready for roadside emergencies, and myself ready for self defense and basic bleeding control. With medical emergencies my focus is just buying time for the person-if I can get bleeding under control or start CPR, maybe that’s the difference between getting to the hospital vs. croaking on the side of a road.
Could you make a video about most important things to buy/have for prepping
It's the cliche phrase of if you fail to prepare then you are preparing to fail. Always have a back up plan because things don't always go as planned.
I'll add another simple reason. Imagine it's not anything truly severe, just a local disruption - washed out roads, a blackout, no trucks came in, maybe riots so it's unsafe to go to the grocery store. Now imagine you don't have to go. If you're out of milk, you can open a can of condensed milk. Use freeze dried eggs. Get by for a weekend or a couple of weeks. We do this when we get snowed in. It's fun. It's practice. It's as simple as the "deep pantry" concept. You don't need bomb shelter buckets (you can have them if you want, they're the last resort).
How to use paracord or any strong rope as a tourniquet for multiple injuries in emergency situations? Are there special rope knots to facilitate this?
Never use rope or paracord for a TQ.
absolutely !!!! I have called to report problems on my street or in or around my apartment property and it may take a half hour since it is a low priority situation,and 10 mins for a higher prioity situation
Here in italy we have a specific emergency service made by volounteers that get deployed only during big emergencies like hertquake etc
For the regular emergencies the average ambulance fire or police response is really long if you live outside a big city, an ambulance can take up to 40 minuts to show up on an emergency, same goes for the police (up to 2 hours)
Sorry, one more point - regular folk have to apologize or come up with rationale for this, but the biggest preppers are... governments. They do have vast stockpiles, bomb shelters, "strategic reserves", etc. In the Soviet Union, when the bomb shelter supplies like canned meat and canned milk were nearing their "best by" dates (there's really no expiration dates on most canned foods, they last far longer than the dates on them, if properly stored), they rotated them out by selling to the hungry populace, who were happy to snap them up. It always tasted just fine. They do have stockpiles, but not necessarily for you. As Stalin said "dark humor is like food - not everybody gets it".
Love your videos Sam very insightful and to the point. Keep up the great work. I am an EMT and hoping to move up to Paramedic soon. I just have a question about equipment, do you carry your own personal equipment to work for monitoring vital signs in the event where the equipment you’re provided with fails? Sp02 probes, BP cuffs etc. thanks!
Nah, I only keep my own stethoscope.
Low key prepper myself and just carrying some basic medical stuff on me and the knowhow to use 'em has saved a couple of my friends a call to get an ambulance or at the very least given some ease for discomfort when they make their way to the doc to get things properly checked out.
It's been funny to hear some snide remarks on having that stuff taking space in my work bag but when that person stepped on a shard of glass and opened their foot suddenly the tone changed to a much more appreciative one.
Thankfully I haven't needed to use anything for life threatening situations but there'll be a day when someone gets a more serious injury and if that day comes, having carried less than a pound of extra weight won't mean much to me but will for the person who gets the help they need help fast.
I'm in the woods alot gathering food hiking and hunting,then I'm kayaking. I take the essentials with me, just in case.
Good video
Excellent video!
The term "Prepper" used to have a bad connotation associated with it and the people who engaged in it. Then COVID hit. Now if you're not basically stocked up and have contingency plans then you're just being negligent, in my opinion.
Having basic supplies to sustain oneself and/or family for a full week is not that difficult. Start with a 3 day supply and build from there. The Boyscouts have it right: Be prepared.
Great video I've always enjoyed your content and perspective. Thx
Good for more and more people to get at LEAST your basic First Aid and practice it. Having a few people in your family and or group of people with that training really could save your life and or a family member's life.
Same with your 2A lifestyle. Get something quality if you can afford it and practice several different drills. Ya really never know when you'll need to use that training and it SUCKS to be the person standing on the sidelines not knowing what to do while watching someone else die.
All great stuff and worthy of doing. These days though, it may be held against you in court on a self defense matter. Regardless, I believe it is better to be prepared to increase your skills, to not be a burden and to help others.
Hi, from Belgium Europe. Our responders are understaffed. So the times for emergency to come and help are getting higher. Even to get 911(112) on the phone can take some time because there is no staff. I live in the city, but when the fire department doenst have the staff they cant send an ambulance, this means there has to come an ambulance from another city 20min away. 20minutes is a long time. So what do i do... I have a basic understanding of first aid and medicine. I have a big first aid case at home, goes with us at holiday are further trips. Packed with all the things i could need and yes i have had the need to use it a lot. I also have my ghb/edc bag that i carry everywhere... I have a trauma kit and first aid kit in it. I can tend to bleeding and burns, eye wounds and so on...
At home i have water for 1week in bags made to keep it good for e few years. I also have a few rations. The grayl waterfilter and another 3 waterfilters other brands... Sawyer and stuff. Im not a big prepper. Just the basics but i know i have more then all the people around me.
One point not discussed often, you're good at your job, whatever it may be, but if you can't be at the scene, "can you instruct someone through a disaster over the phone"? It's not easy the first time, but with practice you'll learn the most important steps and the less important things to ask during those first minutes.
Wow 😳
If only a large portion of our community heeded such warnings about being prepared, not diverting resources needlessly, etc when it came to pandemics and vaccinations. The hospitals were (and some still are) so overburdened by PREVENTABLE disease(S) they can't take on more serious cases, it delays their care, or the patients get rerouted to distant facilities for definitive care. A heart attack or stroke victim can literally die because because someone else decided to get medical advice from a tiktok or blog. Happens daily.
Get fit, get your shots, and learn the basics.
ooo new intro
It’s not if…but when.
A generation or two ago "prepping" was considered normal life to the point that there was not even a word for it. Strange, right?
I personally knew people in their 80s that literally slept on a 25kg bag of sugar, just in case and held enough preserved food to literally survive a year. These days sometimes if feels like you have to justify when you are not reliant to the point that you need to shop every other day.
Doing a martial art is also a way of prepping.
No one is coming to help.
If they are. It isn't going to be quickly.
How about we all prepare. Then end the burden of over taxation on everyone also.
If you buy more than 4 rolls of toilet paper at a time, you're at risk of someday becoming a prepper, because you're already making contingency plans for a future house guest possibly having lunched at Taco Bell.
I cant think of any reason to not be prepared.
It really is getting bad out there when prepmedic is telling people to prep lol
Great video - check it out!
Is there a better word for Prepper that emphasizes the focus on community aid and kindness? Prepper unfortunately means "toxic solo survivalist with lots of gadgets and little skill" to the general public and I'd like a better label to talk with folks about it.
Responsible Citizen
EPC Emergency Prepared Citizen
I've had several brushes with death over the years & the one thing that has helped me more than anything else, is salt - from hypovolemic shock.
(I've nearly died 3x & any EMTs would've been useless because it hits so fast & the recovery is just as fast, so no need to waste $ on medical bills.)
I prep for general, local disasters here (mostly tornados & power outages), but I don't go overboard either. I've got a good 8 months' worth of food & supplies stored up & have my own yarden with wild & cultivated food & medicinal plants.