To Drink or not to Drink that is the question

[BOD]

A friend in the US has been telling me about a boy scout who was lost for several days and who was found dehydrated even though he had been walking along streams. Despite earlier reports apparently he did not drink

It seems people are increasingly being told that it is better not to drink unless the water is purified as getting a parasite and an upset tummy will dehydrate you more.

He also says that is the view of someone called Barry Davies, a former SAS man .

This seems odd as you may or may not get a parasite, and if you do, it may or may not affect you, but dehydration, and the poor judgement that it entails, will probably kill you. Drink , live and recover with antibiotics, I say.


What do you all think? And what are Davies's credentials?

 

[Celt_Ginger]

It seems contary to anything I have ever been told, but then again you will always find a differing opinion. personally, I would drink.

 

[sxmolloy]

Drink , live and recover with antibiotics, I say.

What you just said!

 

[sam_acw]

There is an article in one of the woodsmoke books to the same effect. The idea is that dehydration will kill you first while parasites or diseases take a while to do it.

 

[spamel]

It's a gamble really, but if you vomit all the water you drink back up and get the screaming ab dabs to boot, you could be in worse state than you already were. Saying that, I know that I would do whatever it took to purify it if I thought it was at all suspect, so unless it is issuing from a spring when i drink it, it's getting boiled.

Most of us can start a fire in different ways, a scoop out of the round and lined with a plastic bag or some newspaper will hold water. Heat rocks in the fire, non porous and not from a stream, and then drop them in the water. The water will boil and your belly will be safe!

 

[xylaria]

Dirty water is the world biggest killer, but it normal kills in first two years of life and not healthy well fed adults who are lost in the forest. IMHO I thought the bugs that cause long term stomach upsets such as criptosporidium and ameobas take a few days to make you ill. The bugs that make you ill quickly you also get rid of quickly. I thought the idea is that if find yourself in sitution you get out ASAP and while having some idea of how to stay alive where you are for up to a week. I can't see how intentionally not drinking can help that as you shouldn't eat if you are not drinking. I thought better advise would always carry something you boil water in and have the ability to make fire in your environment.

 

[Goose]

I think it would depend on the circumstances.
Walking along streams I would drink, you have a good supply of water.
If I found a little pool with enough water for a drink I would be wary, as vomit and diorhea would take out more fluid than that pool could give me.
As has been said dehydration is a quicker killer than a bug so I would as a general rule drink and take the risk if I had no means to purify, but purification would be a high priority.

 

[Johnboy06]

As much as i know from books ect. Ray mears general idea in essential bushcraft is to boil everything, however iv just started reading john lofty wiseman's sas guide and he only talks about boiling and purifying in certain circumstances like very slow flowing streams whereas he seems to indicate at high altitude and fast running water its ok. It doesnt seem like a very clear subject specially for beginners like me. I would imagine as been said that u can survive a hell of alot longer with parasites than nothing at all? Seems too many differing oppinions be good for some clarification

 

[Goose]

As much as i know from books ect. Ray mears general idea in essential bushcraft is to boil everything, however iv just started reading john lofty wiseman's sas guide and he only talks about boiling and purifying in certain circumstances like very slow flowing streams whereas he seems to indicate at high altitude and fast running water its ok. It doesnt seem like a very clear subject specially for beginners like me. I would imagine as been said that u can survive a hell of alot longer with parasites than nothing at all? Seems too many differing oppinions be good for some clarification

This is because survival and bushcraft are different things, boil or purify everything you drink is the best way to go about things, as a bushcrafter you should be prepared for this. If you are in a survival situation you may not be prepaered so boiling may be difficult or even impossible but the priority is to stay alive, so drink it and spit the bits out! Yes you may end up ill, but alive.

PS I am talking about a survival situation rather than Survivalists.

 

[Johnboy06]

This is because survival and bushcraft are different things, boil or purify everything you drink is the best way to go about things, as a bushcrafter you should be prepared for this. If you are in a survival situation you may not be prepaered so boiling may be difficult or even impossible but the priority is to stay alive, so drink it and spit the bits out! Yes you may end up ill, but alive.

PS I am talking about a survival situation rather than Survivalists

Yeh good point loftys book is aimed more at survival still a great read find some bits to be more detail than mears ess bushcraft too.

 

[Goose]

Yeh good point loftys book is aimed more at survival still a great read find some bits to be more detail than mears ess bushcraft too.

Also from the military point of view it is E&E, escape and evasion, rather than survival skills. E&E can be moving, operating and hiding in a (military) hostile environment so uses different skills than survival too. E&E involves not being found and moving around whereas surviving you can make huge fires and stay in a place that will get you found, for E&E the opposite basically applies!
So you have really three disciplines, Bushcraft(whatever that is ), Survival and E&E, although being good at one discipline means you should be good at the other two. The problems can arise, as in this case, when instructions for one discipline are transferred to another!

 

[Johnboy06]

Yeh i thought so anyways but ill keep it more in mind now whilst reading the rest of the book cheers sorry for taking this off topic too

 

[Martyn]

A friend in the US has been telling me about a boy scout who was lost for several days and who was found dehydrated even though he had been walking along streams. Despite earlier reports apparently he did not drink

It seems people are increasingly being told that it is better not to drink unless the water is purified as getting a parasite and an upset tummy will dehydrate you more.

He also says that is the view of someone called Barry Davies, a former SAS man .

This seems odd as you may or may not get a parasite, and if you do, it may or may not affect you, but dehydration, and the poor judgement that it entails, will probably kill you. Drink , live and recover with antibiotics, I say.


What do you all think? And what are Davies's credentials?

If you dont drink, most people will quickly dehydrate and disorientate, they'll collapse and be dead in a few days or less.

If you dont drink, you die ...definitely.

Says it all really.

There are ways of making the water you do drink, safe. Boiuling it will make it safe, but if you cant sart a fire and have no means of purification, then I would look for water that was the cleanest looking and strain it through a t-shirt. Bottom line, ...I'd drink whatever I could find if I had to. Some people would be OK, many will get stomach upsets, a few may even die - but the odds are way better than not drinking at all.

It's a judgement call based on how much water is available, how clean it looks, whether or not you can boil it and how thirsty you are. But simply following a "dont drink" rule is barking.

 

[Johnboy06]

He also says that is the view of someone called Barry Davies, a former SAS man .

Thats what i meant by clarifying the subjject , although i wouldnt not drink in a true survival situation through fear of parasites i can see someone not drinking because of taking to heart one piece of information, specially like kids tend to do when they think there doing the right thing. Obv we dont know the full story but maybe there should have been questions asked of the quality of teaching at the scout school

 

[bambodoggy]

Dirty water is the world biggest killer.

Is that true? I always thought that Maleria was the world biggest killer


It's a hard question to answer Bod, I tend to agree with you in principle but as Spamel points out, if you have a little knowledge (which a lot of us on here do) then the problems can be reduced or even eliminated.

If you don't have the knowledge then it's one of those catch22 situations Personally, I'd drink

Cheers,

Bam.

 

[demographic]

If you don't drink you will definatly croak, if you do you might croak.

It's a tough one

As a kid I drank out of loads of becks with no ill affects so I would just drink in that situation.

Admittedly not out of a stinking pool of fetid water but out of a clean beck up in the fells.

In fact the water at the farm I lived at came in from a tank on the fell and was fed from a bit of a spring, one year it was so dry that it stopped and we went to the beck down the hill and filled buckets with water, can't say we boiled that either.

I am NOT saying thats the right thing to do, just what we did thats all.

 

[Tantalus]

What things could be in the water ?

Have a look round for dead sheep, avoid places where animals have drunk simply by going upstream a little.

Agriculture and sprayed crops ? Move upstream.

Answer a simple question , would you swim in it on a hot day ?

Yeah drink it is my opinion, be cautious and sensible you should be fine

Tant

 

[MitchelHicks]

Most of us can start a fire in different ways, a scoop out of the round and lined with a plastic bag or some newspaper will hold water. Heat rocks in the fire, non porous and not from a stream, and then drop them in the water. The water will boil and your belly will be safe!

You can actually use paper as long as you fold it correctly and heat it without a direct flame the water inside will boil before the paper burns as I think paper only burns at over 400 degrees C or so I've been told. I think ill try that next time I light a fire.

I would still try to find the cleanest water then pass it through the finest bit of clothing if I couldnt boil it.

Also If you had the bag you could try water by transpiration as long as you seal the bag. There are quite a few ways to try and get the cleanest water you can like the "gypsie well" I think. Its the one where you dig the hole near a river bank and fill it with a very tight bundle of dried grass and make a small depression in the center of the bundle and let that fill up a couple of times.

Im not sure if any of these methods do much but it cant hurt in a life or death situation.

Has anyone tried them?

 

[Tadpole]

Dirty water is the world biggest killer,

The top 10 killer diseases in the “whole world”
1 Heart disease, and not just in the "developed world"
2 Strokes,
3 Lower respiratory infections (pneumonia)
4 HIV/AIDS,
5 child birth associated conditions
6 Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
7 Diarrhoea,
8 Tuberculosis
9 Malaria,
10 Road traffic accidents.
May 27, 2006 The Lancet.

I’d drink the water, boil it if I could, if not, I’d find a way to distil it. Making a vessel to boil water in is limited only by your imagination, be it made from clay lined hole in the ground, in to which you drop hot rocks in, or made from bark that you heat over a fire keeping the level of the flames below the level of the water. (It works I’ve seen food cooked in a paper bag using this method). I guess that some people just blindly follow rules to the very detriment of their health

 

[xylaria]

The top 10 killer diseases in the “whole world”
1 Heart disease, and not just in the "developed world"
2 Strokes,
3 Lower respiratory infections (pneumonia)
4 HIV/AIDS,
5 child birth associated conditions
6 Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
7 Diarrhoea,
8 Tuberculosis
9 Malaria,
10 Road traffic accidents.
May 27, 2006 The Lancet.

I’d drink the water, boil it if I could, if not, I’d find a way to distil it. Making a vessel to boil water in is limited only by your imagination, be it made from clay lined hole in the ground, in to which you drop hot rocks in, or made from bark that you heat over a fire keeping the level of the flames below the level of the water. (It works I’ve seen food cooked in a paper bag using this method). I guess that some people just blindly follow rules to the very detriment of their health

Dirty water is not a disease. Dirty water is cause of diseases. I admit trying to find unbiased statistics on this is veritually imposible, and my quote of dirty water is worlds biggest killer is a sound bite based on 20 years out of date statistics from a breastfeeding manual, which I should not of quoted. By looks of the of the lancet report the world disease profile has become more affluent since then. The lancet is also less likely to be politically biased.

I am not malnourished child, I don't have HIV, TB, or malaria, so getting ameobic dysentry will not kill me, so I would drink dirty water if I had to But I can't speak for someone in third world whose daily life is real survival situation rather than a hypothetical one.