In any given survival situation, you will naturally be worried about things like getting access to food, water, and shelter. As important as these are, it’s also important to remember that you won’t likely have access to a medical professional or a hospital of any kind.
Often times, the worries about health in a survival situation are related to things like disease and other things that can’t be cured with common first aid. However, it’s equally important to take steps to protect your body in other ways.
Physical injuries can be severely debilitating, even with access to first aid materials. This can hinder your movement a lot, and could even lead to internal complications like infections from a broken bone.
By stocking up on the right forms of protective gear, you can mitigate the chances of these injuries ever occurring in the first place. You can easily find different levels of protection to stay safe from head to toe.
External Joint and Digit Protection Keeps You Safe in the Wild
Some of the most vulnerable parts of your body are your joints and your extremities. Extremities are the parts of your body on the very ends of your limbs, such as your hands and fingers, or your toes and feet.
Since you typically wear shoes anyway, your hands are the only part of your body that typically interacts with the environment around you without any kind of protection. Whether it’s a natural environment or an urban one, going without hand and joint protection could be dangerous.
There are a wide variety of dangers that different types of gloves can protect you against. Impact resistant gloves, for example, can save your fingers from being injured badly if something heavy falls on them or hits them hard.
You may also want to look at gloves that are cut resistant and those that are difficult to pierce. In the wild, your hands might be cut by things like sharp foliage or a knife that you’re using, and in urban areas, they can be cut by things like broken glass.
By wearing cut-resistant gloves, you can handle these dangers with confidence that you won’t potentially cut yourself, which could lead to a harsh infection in some cases. An infection like that would be difficult to deal with during a survival situation where antibiotics may be in short supply or you’d be unable to get stitches.
When it comes to your joints, they need their own sets of protection. Your knees and elbows are the most likely candidates for injury in the event of a fall, and both are crucially important to keep healthy in a survival situation.
Almost all of your movement is done through your knees and elbows. Of course all walking or running relies heavily on healthy knees, but all hand based movements such as building shelters, carrying supplies, and so on requires healthy elbows.
Elbow and knee pads are simple pieces of gear that can save your joints by cushioning the blow from hard surfaces like rocks or concrete in the event of a fall. Without them, you might have to take the blow straight on your joints, which could be painful and cause a debilitating injury.
These pads also help prevent discomfort in the event that you have to crawl. Even if it seems unlikely, you might have to army crawl or crawl on your knees to get past something like a chain link fence or barbed wire, and doing that on your bare knees is very uncomfortable.
Optical Gear Helps You Navigate in the Dark
Traveling in the dark, especially out in the wild, can be dangerous. The dark makes it difficult to spot things like tree roots that you might trip over, as well as nocturnal animals that might be out looking for food.
However, it also comes with many advantages. In particularly hot areas, traveling by night can be more comfortable because it’s cooler outside then, and you can avoid things like heat stroke, dehydration, and general discomfort.
There’s another advantage to traveling by night, though. Depending on the extent and severity of the survival situation you’re in, you might want to avoid detection by other humans who might try to harm you or take your supplies.
In this case, you wouldn’t want to use something like a headlamp or flashlight, as it makes it much easier for you to be seen. Instead, consider some optical gear that helps you see in the dark, such as night vision goggles.
There are a few different types of night vision that you can get that all have their various advantages and disadvantages, and they all have varying price points. You can figure out which one works best for the potential situations you might encounter.
On the cheapest end, you have night vision goggles that rely on an IR flashlight, and an IR detecting camera. These might be a bit more bulky, but they certainly work well enough to see in the dark.
These goggles work by shining out an infrared flashlight, which is undetectable to the human eye. On one of your eyes, it has an IR camera that can see the IR light reflected off of the various surfaces you’re looking at.
Inside the lens, it displays that camera footage on a small screen, giving you a picture of what’s in front of you. The main upside to this kind of night vision is that it’s fairly cheap and accessible.
However, it’s not without its downsides. For example, to other people with night vision capabilities, the IR flashlight on your head will look like a normal headlamp, which somewhat defeats the purpose.
There can also be a slight delay on the camera, which can make you feel disoriented at times. A higher end version of these involves the use of what’s known as white or green phosphor night vision.
Instead of shining an IR flashlight, these goggles simply amplify available light. With the slightest amount of light from the stars and even through the clouds, these goggles amplify the light enough so that it’s easily visible to you.
These goggles often run a much higher price, ranging from anywhere from $1,000 to almost $10,000 in some cases. The main advantages of these might make it worthwhile to many advanced preppers, though.
First, there’s practically no delay in the image, meaning you won’t get motion sick and can still do things like drive vehicles without lights without worrying about the delayed camera.
These goggles also tend to work at a much longer distance and produce clearer images. You can also instead opt for thermal vision goggles. While they’re distinctly different from night vision, they can often provide nearly the same effect, with some advantages of their own as well, and only a few drawbacks.
Thermal vision reads the farther IR spectrum, detecting the heat signature given off by all objects. It differentiates them and displays a clear image of what parts of a room are cold and which are hot, but in a way that emulates night vision.
One of the few downsides of these is that you can’t always discern very fine details. Text on an object, for example, wouldn’t show up in them, as the whole object would have the same heat. They are perfect though for identifying living organisms, which are typically much warmer than their environment.
Find the Right Shoes for Your Survival Situation
Having the right shoes is critical for any outdoor activity, but they’re especially important in an emergency, when you wouldn’t have access to any kind of store to replace them if they fail you in some way.
The best shoes for survival are those that are durable, comfortable for walking long distances, provide a decent bit of protection, and also provide adequate grip for slick surfaces. It may be hard to find a shoe that fits all of these qualities perfectly, but it’s not impossible.
In terms of comfort, that varies heavily from person to person. A shoe that one person likes a lot won’t fit another perfectly even if they share the same size, as there are other differences in feet such as arch amount as well as foot width.
One thing that can help almost universally with comfort is the use of a high quality insole. These can be cut to size to fit the shoes you have and provide a greater amount of comfort than just wearing socks alone, and there are many different types available to suit different shapes of feet.
One of the most important parts of a shoe for survival situations is durability. You want your shoes to be made out of a fairly tough material, so that they won’t tear and break down too easily when put in rough environmental conditions.
Generally this can be found in outdoor shoes. They’re meant to stand up to all kinds of different weather conditions and scrape up against rough surfaces like trees, bramble, and rocks. Military-style boots may also be a great option for durability, though it varies depending on what kind you’re looking at specifically.
You also want these shoes to offer an adequate amount of protection. Soft shoes offer very little protection for your toes in the event that something heavy is dropped on them. Instead, opt for something with a hardened or steel toe, which gives you much more protection.
The material of the sole of the shoe, as well as the pattern it uses, are important for grip. Some materials and patterns that don’t offer a lot of ridges don’t offer as much of a grip on slick surfaces, which can lead to a dangerous fall.
Surfaces like angled rock faces in rainy weather can be incredibly slippery, so without a proper shoe that can hold on in these slippery conditions, you risk taking a fall that could injure you very badly.
Protective Body Gear to Stay Safe
Under particular circumstances, it’s very possible that a serious survival situation could turn violent. In the event of a large scale societal collapse, some people would undoubtedly be armed and could pose a serious threat to you.
Even if you don’t plan on engaging in violence to combat it, you want to have ample protection to keep yourself safe against armed aggressors. In these cases, you may consider getting some protective gear that can protect you against things like bullets.
The most common bulletproof protection you’ll come across is in the form of a bulletproof vest. The center of the body where your heart, lungs, and other vital organs sit is the most common place that a shooter would target, and apart from the head, it’s the most dangerous part of your body to get hit in.
By wearing a bulletproof vest, you’ll be able to stop those shots, and potentially save your own life. While bulletproof gear does come with some limitations, it can still be an incredible life saver, which is why almost all police and military personnel wear them on duty.
The first thing you’ll need for a bulletproof setup is what’s known as a plate carrier. This is a vest that you wear in which you can insert armor plates that are bulletproof. Often times, they have MOLLE attachment points on the outside, so you can carry more gear such as medical kits or general storage.
A plate carrier isn’t technically required, as there are bulletproof vests made of Kevlar that can stop smaller rounds. However, you can still easily sustain injuries wearing Kevlar vests, even though the bullet was stopped.
This is because all of the force from the bullet still impacts your body, even though it doesn’t penetrate your skin, which can lead to things like broken ribs or severe bruising. There are other forms of bulletproof protection, as well.
You can get side plates to protect the sides of your body, and one of the most appealing forms of protection is head protection. Bulletproof full head helmets do exist, though they are naturally expensive. Some have been shown to even protect the face and eyes against small arms fire, which would be incredibly helpful in any situation requiring protection from bullets.
How to Find the Best Protective Plates for You
There are a few different kinds of bulletproof plates that you can use in a plate carrier. You might have to choose between different plates based on price, material, size, and even shape. There are advantages and disadvantages to all of them, but only a few will be ideal for you.
First, you should decide on a material. The two main kinds of plates you’ll come across are either steel or ceramic. You might not think that something made of ceramic would be bulletproof, but it’s highly effective, and is used by the majority of armed forces.
Steel has more drawbacks than ceramic plates do. First, it’s much heavier. Lugging around steel plates on your chest all day can be tiresome, since you’ll also be carrying a backpack with other gear in it most likely.
Another serious drawback of steel plates is that they can ricochet. While they do stop bullets, the bullet will fragment upon impact, sending shards of metal in every direction. This could be dangerous for you and those around you.
Ceramic, on the other hand, shatters intentionally to catch the bullet. This prevents dangerous ricochets that could lodge shrapnel in anyone’s body. The only downside to this is that you’ll feel the impact a bit harder, but it’s still far better than taking a direct bullet shot.
Ceramic plates are also much lighter. The decreased weight helps prevent you from tiring out so much when travelling long distances on foot, and helps save energy so you won’t need as many calories.
The only drawbacks of ceramic plates is that they are a bit more expensive, and also can’t survive quite as many consecutive shots. The difference in price isn’t too significant, though, and it’s unlikely that you’d ever be shot at multiple times on multiple occasions.
You can also decide what level of plates you want to get. The level in body armor refers to how strong of a bullet it can stop. Typical armor plates come around level IIIA or higher, which easily stops higher powered pistol rounds. Levels III and IV are more suited towards stopping stronger rounds, like those from rifles.
Another decision you can make about your body armor is the shape of it. The first shape decision you can make is what’s called the “cut” of the armor. There are two main cuts, shooter cut and swimmer cut.
The shooter cut is a bit wider and covers more area of your body. The swimmer cut, on the other hand, provides slightly less protection around the shoulder area. This might seem nonsensical at first, but it provides much more mobility while still protecting the vitals, which might be ideal for some people.
Finally, there are a lot of different curves to armor plates that you can pick from. The cheapest plates you’ll find are flat ones, but those don’t quite conform well to the human body. Some plates have a singular curve so that it wraps around your sides a bit more, and even some that have multiple curves to shape around you even better.
Eye and Ear Protection May Be a Necessity
In the event of a violent conflict, if you were also using weapons to defend yourself, you would be much happier with some high quality eye and ear protection to keep your hearing and sight safe.
Firearms are particularly loud. Even if you were just using one for hunting, you’d want to still keep your ears covered so that you don’t damage your sense of hearing. Eye protection is also very important, as small debris being kicked up by anything can hurt your eyesight.
The lowest level of hearing protection that would even begin to be functional would be earplugs. Earplugs can certainly help reduce the noise levels from things like a firearm, but they’re far from perfect, and you might still suffer a little bit of hearing damage with them.
Ear muffs, on the other hand, are far more effective. Since they fully cover your ears, they reduce the sound far more than earplugs do, and they work even better if you use them both in combination with one another.
Still, there’s a drawback to using non-electronic hearing protection. Since it’s meant to muffle out very loud sounds, it also completely muffles quieter sounds. Things like footsteps might be totally inaudible or very quiet with non-electronic hearing protection.
While they do cost a little bit more, electronic ear protection is very much worthwhile. These have small microphones that muffle loud noises, but can even amplify quieter ones. This way, you stay protected from loud noises, but can still communicate easily and can hear if someone or an animal is nearby.
Eye protection has a lot less variety, but you still have varied options. Typical eye protection keeps small objects like rocks and debris from hitting your eye if they get kicked up, and usually they just look like a clear pair of glasses.
You can opt for total eye protection, which usually looks closer to goggles. This gives you even more protection, since it prevents anything from any angle getting into your eyes. You can even get prescription eye protection if you usually wear glasses.
Hiking Packs Can Also Offer Protection
Even if you don’t opt for a dedicated vest for armor, you can still add in a little bit of extra protection in certain hiking packs and backpacks. In a survival situation, you’re going to need something to carry your supplies anyway, so you might as well add in a bit of protection along with it.
These work by having a similar space that you would find in a plate carrier, giving you a small slot to slide in an armor plate. You can still pick any kind of plate that you’d like, as long as it fits the dimensions of the pocket provided.
Some bags are even made out of Kevlar or other bulletproof cloth materials, which can be effective against much weaker calibers. This can help prevent injury if you are attacked from behind.
You can find bags like this in all kinds of different styles. Some look like regular backpacks and are therefore fairly unassuming, while others look more tactical, but may still provide some kind of camouflage depending on the pattern.
Since hiking packs are essential for survival situations, you might as well add in a little bit of extra protection while you have them. You’ll need a sturdy pack anyway so that you can carry things like food, water, and shelter with you as you travel.
One thing to look for in a protective hiking pack is to make sure it offers good weight distribution. It should include the shoulder straps, of course, but also something to brace around your midsection to evenly distribute the weight more.
Since an armor plate isn’t necessarily light weight, this weight distribution will matter quite a bit. With improper weight distribution, your shoulders will get tired too quickly after walking for long distances, which can be painful and can slow you down.
Keep Your Head Safe with the Right Gear
Both in potentially violent and nonviolent survival situations, head protection is very important. The head is very susceptible to damage from blunt force, which could either come from a natural place or from an attacker.
The first thing you need to worry about with head protection is protecting from impacts. There are tons of different helmets you can pick from that could provide sufficient protection against different amounts of impact.
Sports helmets, for example, would work in a pinch. Things like football helmets, hockey helmets, and even baseball helmets are meant to take impacts while still keeping your head safe, since they’re cushioned properly on the inside.
There are other helmets that can offer similar protection, as well. Things like bicycle helmets, motorcycle helmets, and even rock climbing helmets might help protect against impacts, which can help prevent things like concussions.
A lot of the threats you might need to worry about when it comes to head injuries are natural. For example, in a forest, the branches overhead aren’t always stable. A dilapidated branch hanging overhead could snap in high winds, and crash down on top of you.
In rocky areas with high cliff faces, animals or people walking overhead may cause rocks to slip off of the cliff, which can send rocks of any size falling down fast towards you. Getting hit by something like this without head protection could be very dangerous.
If you wanted the best in protection, you might consider something like a modern military style helmet. These are built to protect against falling objects and debris, for the most part, as they are not typically bulletproof.
Bulletproof head protection does exist, though. Although there aren’t many companies that produce them, helmets capable of stopping almost all pistol rounds are available for purchase, although at a high cost.
Some of these helmets even have built in eye protection in two ways. In some, the eyes of the helmet themselves are bulletproof glass. This means that even a lucky shot at your eyes wouldn’t penetrate. They also often are polarized, which can help give you a clear image of the area ahead of you.
Conclusion
There are different types of survival situations where protective body gear can come in handy. It might be while trekking through the wilderness, in the event of a civil event or war, or even just while navigating through your daily routine in this period of time, so make sure you consider body gear for yourself and all of your loved ones, too.