Survival: Air

Only a year ago it wouldn’t seem that there would be a lot to say about air.  Unless you’re drowning or in a sandstorm, it seems like you’re pretty well set for oxygen.  But with all the other things we’ve learned during 2020, we now have a great deal of experience with face masks.  In case you’re a little behind the times, here’s a quick rundown of the types of mask and how they affect your body’s ability to obtain oxygen.

Surgical Masks / Cloth Masks

Surgical masks are designed to prevent splatter — both your coughs and sneezes as well as the body you’re working on spraying you with fluids — from getting into your mouth and nose or into your patient lying open on the operating table.  Though these masks do provide some level of filtering large particles and making it more difficult and more uncomfortable to breathe, they are not actually useful in preventing the inhalation of viruses, dust, gas, or other small things floating around in the air.  These masks are ideal for surgical use, but not much outside of that arena.

N95/P95 Masks

These masks are much more efficient at filtering the air as you breathe, stopping as much as 95% of airborne particles, assuming your mask is properly fitted and has a good seal all the way around.  The difference between the N95 and the P95 is that the P95 is resistant to oil, so it’s designed more for use around spray paint or liquid-based particulates.  If you have one of these masks and it’s properly fitted, it will do a better job at keeping things like dust and debris out of your lungs and keeping your sneezes and coughs from infecting other persons.  Finally, some N95 masks have exhale ports to better get exhaled air out of your mask.  This also means that if you are infected with a virus, your mask isn’t helping control the spread like a mask without the port would.

Respirators

Respirators are basically N95/P95 masks that attach to a more permanent mouth/nose covering.  The filters may be removed, disposed, and replaced, meaning you have a good-fitting mask and only need to replace the filters each day.  Many respirators also allow you to attach two filters so you can get more air with each breath, making it easier to breathe over some length of time.

CBRN Masks

Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) masks are designed to allow effective breathing even while in potentially dangerous environments.  These masks, with appropriate filters, can protect the wearer from various chemicals (gases, sprays, etc.), biological threats (viruses, nerve agents, etc.), and nuclear/radioactive agents.  Though these masks can do nothing to protect your skin, you can at least make sure you keep them out of your lungs.  Like the N95/P95 and respirators, these must be properly fit to your face and have a complete seal to be effective.  Facial hair is a bad idea as well, as it creates small gaps where CBRN particulates can get into your mask.

Important Note:  Once you use a disposable mask, it should be disposed of immediately, and if it’s possible that you were exposed to a virus or chemical, you should make sure the mask is disposed of into a biohazard receptacle so it can be properly destroyed without exposing others.  The exceptions to this rule are respirators and CBRN masks, where the filters should be disposed of and the masks properly disinfected and cleaned.  Cloth masks could potentially be disinfected and cleaned, but this should involve steam, pressure, UV-C, or strong bleach to ensure they are properly disinfected.

Masks and filters should never be reused as the health risk of growing bacteria or spreading viruses is much higher than the cost of obtaining a new mask.

Protecting the Air in Your Home

In the event of a mass outbreak of chemical or biological threats, or even in the case of a dirty bomb or chemical spill, it may become important to seal your home for some time to keep those things out of your air system until the threat dissipates or passes.  In that case, you should have enough large, heavy-duty trash bags and duct tape, to cover all of the windows, doors, and other holes in your house.  A high quality air filter may then be able to cycle the air in and out of your home, but you will want to seal things up as tightly as you can.

A far less exciting but far more important step toward higher air quality in your home is to change your furnace air filters regularly!  Depending on the size of your filter, it should be swapped out with a new filter every three to twelve months.  Check your furnace manual for further information.

Positive Mental Attitude

The biggest battle that must be fought and won for your survival is in your mind. To the Corinthians, Paul wrote about “tak[ing] every thought captive,” and rightly so, because if our mind is overtaken with doubt and despair, we have lost the fight even before it has begun.

To that end, one of the most important things to consider is: What are you putting into your mind? If you spend your day watching media broadcasts (regardless of which flavor), scrolling through social media sites, and listening to talking heads spew their doom and gloom, it will accomplish in you the very thing it was designed to accomplish: your dependence and despair. How do we combat this?

1. Get Unplugged

First, unplug. Like an IV drip of sedative, the constant input of media and messages of despair are shaping your mind and your thoughts. Turn off the television; cancel your social media accounts. Get away from all of it.

2. Connect to the Word

Jesus tells us in John 15 that apart from Him we can do nothing. We must become men and women who abide in the Word, whose minds and thoughts and desires are shaped by the living and active Word of God. Psalm 27 begins, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” It closes, “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” Let the promises of a sovereign God drown out the gloom and doom surrounding us today.

3. Surround Yourself with Positive People

We all need close friends who share our hope and our positive outlook. From time to time, we will all struggle and fall, but having a Barnabas (“son of encouragement”) in our corner is a tremendous hedge against despair. Find those people, encourage them, and share the journey with good company.

4. Make a Plan

Finally, remember that those who fail to plan have actually planned to fail. “We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls” (Heb. 10:39). We know that difficult times are ahead of us. In fact, since the fall of Adam when the soil turned against us, difficult days have been a common theme for all of us.

So figure out how you will care for and protect your family, surround yourself with a community who can help, and begin taking steps to be a light – first to your family, then to your community. Protect your mind and fill it with a steady diet of good news, not the junk being peddled on the street corners today.

Basics of Survival

While the rest of the world is caught up in the whirlwind of the election, now is an ideal time to be thinking about preparedness. An old Chinese proverb says, “The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today.” With that in mind, I hope you have been working consistently on becoming more self-sufficient, but if that’s not the case, the best time to start building a plan is right now.

The Essentials

As human beings, there are a few things that we need if we are going to stay alive. During training for Search and Rescue, we had to memorize and account for just a handful of things when we went out into potentially life-threatening situations where we might need to be self-sufficient for hours or days:

1. Positive Mental Attitude (PMA)

This is the most important of all because, without a positive attitude and a will to live, you’ve got no drive to even obtain any of the other items. If you’ve given up, nothing else matters. Determine that no matter what, you will survive.

2. Air/Oxygen

You can survive three minutes deprived of oxygen. After that, your brain and other organs begin to shut down, you will lose consciousness, and without intervention, you will die.

3. Shelter and Clothing

Your body can make it about three hours exposed to the elements (specifically cold) before hypothermia sets in and your body begins to shut down. If you have the will to survive and are still breathing, the most important thing is to find a place to stay warm and dry.

4. Rest

With the first three covered, the next most important thing is to get some rest. Trying to form or execute a plan while exhausted will likely lead to a poorly executed plan, or worse, landing in a much worse situation. Attack the situation well-rested and with a sharp mind.

5. Water

You can survive about three days with no water. With a shelter established, you need to know that you can access, collect, purify, and (if applicable) warm water. Drinking dirty water without filtering it or drinking saltwater can kill you just as quickly as no water at all.

6. Food

Finally, when everything else is in place, you need to get some food. You can survive as many as three weeks with no food (some of us can probably live longer), but in a survival situation, you’ll likely be expending more energy and will need about 3,000 calories a day to keep your body running.

Conclusion

In the coming weeks, we will be digging into these things in a lot more detail. Essential Preparedness, LLC exists to equip you and your family to not only survive in times of uncertainty, but to thrive, and to help your neighbors, friends, and community.

If there is a specific topic or question that you would like us to address, please reach out! You can contact us via email, info@essprep.com. Welcome to the premiere preparedness community!