24 Objects that save lives

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Water is essen­tial for human survival. Even if there is no abso­lute consensus on the minimum amount required (figures range from 1 to 3.5 litres per day), it has been proven that humans can survive for only about three days without drink­ing water. Clean drink­ing water, that is―ac­cord­ing to the World Health Organ­iz­a­tion, contam­in­ated water is respons­ible for around six per cent of all deaths today. A light­weight, port­able, inex­pens­ive and durable filter can solve the poten­tially lethal prob­lem of water contam­in­a­tion. One of the best-selling filters is the LifeStraw, intro­duced in 1996 and designed and manu­fac­tured by Lausanne-based, family-owned global health company Vester­gaard. The LifeStraw is about 25 centi­metres long, has a diameter of 3 centi­metres and weighs only 50 grammes. It is made of high-impact poly­styrene, two types of resin and activ­ated carbon. Its hollow fibre-membrane tech­no­logy works like a bundle of straws whose holes are micro­scop­ic―so small that organ­isms like bacteria or para­sites, dirt and even micro­plastics cannot pass through. Proven effect­ive against water­borne diseases such as typhoid, chol­era, dysen­tery and diarrhoea, the filter removes particles as small as fifteen microns. The latest models are also capable of remov­ing chem­ic­als and heavy metals includ­ing lead.

The oldest known tin can is 2,000 years old. Found under­wa­ter, on a sunken Roman ship, the little tin can had kept its contents (medical pills) safe all that time. With the begin­ning of indus­tri­al­isa­tion, tin cans developed into one of the most popu­lar types of pack­aging―­though initially they were not used for food. The inven­tion of the tin can for food preser­va­tion can be traced back to at least three people. First, the Parisian pâtis­sier Nicolas Appert came up with the idea of heat­ing food in airtight contain­ers made of glass to preserve it. Then, French engin­eer Phil­ippe de Girard proposed using tin, rather than glass, to make the contain­ers. The Brit­ish merchant Peter Durand paten­ted the idea in 1810. Early cans were made of tin, then steel, and, from the 1950s, aluminium. At first, metal cans came in all shapes and sizes. But by the early-twen­ti­eth century, the canned food industry was flour­ish­ing. This promp­ted manu­fac­tur­ers to adopt stand­ard sizes, ranging from #1 to #10 (300–3,000 milli­litres), for economic effi­ciency. The large #10 can has become the prep­per’s go-to size. With a capa­city of up to 3 litres, it ensures food remains safe and fresh for up to twenty-five years.

Subsist­ence Research Lab, J. W. Speaker Corpor­a­tion and Wash­burn Corpor­a­tion.

When it comes to canned food, can open­ers are crucial. And they come in many forms. There’s the lever-type kind of opener, the trick­ier-to-handle church key opener, the toothed-wheel crank version and the simple butter­fly opener. The P-51, intro­duced in the 1960s, is an evol­u­tion of the slightly smal­ler P-38, developed by Chica­go’s Subsist­ence Research Lab in 1942 to open field rations during the Second World War. The P-51’s greater lever­age makes it a faster can opener than the P-38. Its compact size and ease of use have made it an essen­tial tool for hikers, soldiers and surviv­al­ists alike. Opin­ions differ as to what “P-51” means. Either the numbers 38 and 51 corres­pond to the lengths of the two blades (38 and 51 milli­metres) or “P” stands for punc­ture and “51” for the number of cuts required to round the can. In the 1980s, milit­ary canned rations were replaced by soft-pack MREs (Meals Ready-to-Eat). But these open­ers are still used in disaster-relief efforts, and inter­na­tional rescue organ­isa­tions distrib­ute them along with canned foods.

Is there one, ulti­mate univer­sal tool that you should­n’t do without? Yes: the knife. Cutting, digging, chop­ping, pier­cing, prying, split­ting, craft­ing, carving, whit­tling, skin­ning, open­ing things: whatever unex­pec­ted situ­ation arises, a knife can help. One all-rounder is Opinel’s fold­ing peas­ant knife. Designed and manu­fac­tured in 1890 by Joseph Opinel, a French toy-maker’s son, the knife is composed of five parts: a carbon steel blade, a wooden handle, a metal clamp­ing band and pivot pin, and a safety twist-lock mech­an­ism. True to its slogan “It does one thing extremely well, rather than many things badly”, the Opinel is simple, safe and robust. It may just be the one, ulti­mate tool to always keep on hand.

Vesta Stoudt, John­son & John­son 

Duct tape is one of the most univer­sal fixers. Stur­dier than any other tape, it can stand heat, repair broken back­pack straps, secure loose car parts, mend ripped tents, seal cracked windows and even water­proof buck­et­s―at least tempor­ar­ily. Comprised of three layers, duct tape features a cloth sand­wiched between ­rub­ber-based, pres­sure-sens­it­ive adhes­ive, with a poly­ethyl­ene coat­ing on top. It is typic­ally a silvery-grey colour, but is also avail­able in camou­flage patterns. Duct tape was the brainchild of a concerned mother during the Second World War. Vesta Stoudt, anxious that weak­nesses in ammuni­tion box seals could jeop­ard­ise soldiers like her son, wrote to Pres­id­ent Frank­lin D. Roosevelt in 1943. She proposed the more reli­able water­proof fabric tape solu­tion that she had tested. Her letter and the diagrams she included explain­ing her solu­tion made their way to the War Produc­tion Board, prompt­ing John­son & John­son to develop a new adhes­ive tape, designed to be torn by hand, not cut with scis­sors. In the event of a duct tape short­age, you can fash­ion your own make­shift duct tape at home using cotton cloth cut into strips and soaked in a heated mixture of rosin (natural resin from pines and other plants) and rubber (from the inner tubes of bicycle wheels).

No matter where you are, in the wilder­ness or in an urban context, a rope can be a lifesaver. One of the world’s most widely appre­ci­ated ropes is the para­cord Type III 550, a light­weight nylon kern­mantle rope that has been in use since the Second World War. Consist­ing of a core of threads protec­ted by a woven exter­ior nylon jacket, it is designed to optim­ise strength, durab­il­ity and flex­ib­il­ity. The core fibres provide the tensile strength of the rope, while the outer sheath protects the core from abra­sion. The name “para­cord” origin­ates from the rope’s use in para­chutes. On land­ing, the para­chut­ist would cut the para­cord from the para­chute and then use it for all kinds of things, includ­ing carry­ing, hanging, tying or start­ing a fire―earn­ing it a repu­ta­tion as a versat­ile survival tool. The most commonly used para­cord is Type III 550, so-called because of the rope’s thick­ness and its break­ing load of 550 pounds (approx­im­ately 250 kilo­grammes). For climbers and fire and rescue services alike, this specific rope construc­tion is the only one considered suit­able for safety applic­a­tions.

Fire is essen­tial for gener­at­ing heat, cook­ing food, and provid­ing light and protec­tion at night. There are vari­ous meth­ods for start­ing a fire, includ­ing magnesium blocks and firesteel rods, flint stones, solar light­ers, fuels, or the ancient tech­nique of using a bow drill to ignite tinder. However, storm matches might be the fast­est solu­tion. Storm matches are not just any old matches. Also known as life­boat matches or flare matches, these very special matches are far more robust than others of their kind. They flame in gale winds and can even spon­tan­eously reignite after being briefly immersed in water. How do they do it? A special combust­ible compound (sulphur, fillers, glass powder and potassium chlor­ate, which serves as an oxid­ising agent) extends down an extra-long match­stick. As a regu­lar card­board match­box can get wet, the storm matches are securely stored in a water­proof case. Each box includes twelve matches and addi­tional replace­ment scrapers for strik­ing.

John Hudson, Acme Whistles. 

Making your­self heard is crucial, whether you are warn­ing others, trapped, or lost at sea await­ing rescue. That’s why every life jacket comes with a whistle, which can be up to one hundred times louder than the human voice. In addi­tion to the simple plastic whistle or the Hyper­Whistle, which claims to be the loudest whistle in the world, there are hundreds of differ­ent whistle models on the market. The clas­sic, however, is the Thun­derer by ACME Whistles. Now in produc­tion for over 150 years, this model is perhaps best known as the referee whistle used in sports stadi­ums around the world. It was developed by John Hudson in the 1880s. Having previ­ously developed the distinct­ive whistle of the Brit­ish police­man, Hudson kept on search­ing for a whistle sound that could both carry over a long distance and penet­rate through dense back­ground noise. The result is a whistle composed of two moul­ded brass pieces that, once joined, enclose a small pea (a cork pellet). The Thun­der­er’s distinct warb­ling sound is produced as the air in the whistle cham­ber moves the pea around.

To find our way today, we often use digital sign­posts: the GPS tower on a moun­tain top, the satel­lite navig­a­tion system in a car, or the smart­phone in our pock­ets. However, in the event of a mass cata­strophe, satel­lites may stop work­ing, and no GPS signal will exist to tell us where we are. It is there­fore vital to be famil­iar with altern­at­ive orient­a­tion tech­niques―and to include a local area map and a compass in your bug-out bag. It is most prac­tical to wear a compass on the wrist to keep your hands free. One example of a wrist-moun­ted compass is the M-9 by Suunto, a produ­cer of preci­sion devices foun­ded by Tuomas Vohlonen, a Finnish surveyor and adven­turer. Dissat­is­fied with the compass tech­no­logy avail­able, in 1932 he applied for a patent for a liquid-filled compass with a more stable and accur­ate needle. Three years later, the patent was gran­ted, and the design entered mass produc­tion as the wrist-moun­ted Suunto M-311 (today, the M-9).

Barter­ing commonly involves staple goods and commod­it­ies like long-last­ing food and clean water, medical supplies, luxury goods such as chocol­ate, sugar or tobacco, fuel and, last but not least, alco­hol. In addi­tion to being a bever­age, alco­hol serves vari­ous purposes: it acts as a disin­fect­ant and anti­sep­tic for wounds, equip­ment and surfaces; it preserves food; it func­tions as a clean­ing and cool­ing agent, a de-icer and a solvent. It can be used as a flam­mable agent and even as biofuel to power vehicles and machinery. Alco­hol is produced by ferment­ing sugars in grains, fruits or veget­ables and then distilling the result of the ferment­a­tion process. Many coun­tries require a licence for the produc­tion of homemade alco­hol. However, if you find your­self in a state­less situ­ation, boot­legged alco­hol could prove a much-needed resource. That’s why it can be useful to keep instruc­tions and ingredi­ents for produ­cing alco­hol your­self in a safe place.

When on the move, it is import­ant to be agile. You need your hands free, even if you’re carry­ing all kinds of equip­ment. Finally, the weight of what you are carry­ing should be evenly distrib­uted across the body. For those who want to carry a diverse assort­ment of survival equip­ment without giving up the conveni­ence of ready access­ib­il­ity, a tactical vest may win out over a tradi­tional back­pack. The ALICE (All-purpose
Light­weight Indi­vidual Carry­ing Equip­ment) system was intro­duced in the early 1970s for milit­ary and law enforce­ment purposes. However, it soon became popu­lar with civil­ians. Tactical vests are typic­ally made of a heavy-duty fabric, such as water-resist­ant cotton, nylon or (bullet-proof) Kevlar fibres. With their multiple (up to twenty) pock­ets and pouches, these vests are unmis­tak­able―and a favour­ite among outdoor adven­tur­ers. In the 2000s, the ALICE system gradu­ally gave way to a combin­a­tion of PALS (Pouch Attach­ment Ladder System) and MOLLE (Modu­lar Light­weight Load-carry­ing Equip­ment) systems. These vests are construc­ted using a nylon grid of webbing. A system of separ­ate pouches means the wearer can securely strap indi­vidual pock­ets and gear onto the webbing, allow­ing for a high degree of custom­isa­tion.

Kazuhige Miyake et Kota Kato, Muji 

An emer­gency radio is designed to func­tion even in the event of power outage. It tunes into stand­ard AM and FM broad­cast­ing bands, the weather, and alerts from the national emer­gency alert system. This is espe­cially useful in areas where sudden changes of weather or other fast-break­ing emer­gen­cies can occur. Other commu­nic­a­tions, such as national secur­ity state­ments, envir­on­mental and public safety state­ments, civil emer­gen­cies, evac­u­ation orders and hazards can be received as well. Emer­gency radio dates from the 1960s, when the US Weather Bureau began broad­cast­ing marine weather inform­a­tion. It allowed listen­ers to quickly receive poten­tially life-saving weather bullet­ins from their local weather fore­cast office, along with routinely updated fore­casts. An emer­gency radio must be able to run on very little energy, and be equipped with both a tradi­tional elec­tric plug and an altern­at­ive power source, such as an integ­rated solar panel or a hand-cranked elec­trical gener­ator, along with a rechargeable battery. Devices often include an emer­gency LED light and can also charge other devices, such as cell phones.