The Friendly Swede Emergency Shelter Kit

The Friendly Swede Emergency Shelter Kit

Well before we get started lets just have a quick look at the contents of this kit. Inside the pouch there is: an emergency blanket, emergency sleeping bag, ferro rod and striker, tinder, wire saw, carabiner, water zip-lock bag, and whistle. Outside of the UK there is also a small knife in the kit, but Amazon rules prohibit the knife to be included in the UK kit.

 

It's not a kit that's going to catch you some fish or signal a distant passenger jet for rescue, but it will keep you warm and alive for a few nights while people are searching for you. Most people wont ever be in a real survival situation, but many more of us could find ourselves broken down in the middle of the night with no way of getting to help (it's happened to me twice already). Often when people get stranded somewhere they find themselves completely unprepared for even one night in a cold environment. They think that just staying in the car or even wandering off is the best way to go, but that can often bring about some disastrous circumstances. An emergency kit like this could be all you need to survive until rescue comes to find you. With this in mind you have two options. Sleep in the car or sleep outside. Now depending on the weather, one of these will be better than the other, but this kit should help you in either situation.

Inside of the Car
Well as warm as it might be in your car when the heaters are on and the radio is playing your favourite tunes, come night-time with no heat it can actually be a really dangerous shelter. The metal and glass will suck all heat out of the car leaving you in a really dangerous environment and I, like many of you out there, have jumped in my car on a frosty morning and found it to be colder than it is outside. So if staying in your car is your only option then you have the use of the emergency blanket and the sleeping bag to double your thermal insulation. If it's a life or death situation though, feel free to rip the headliner and any other fabric and foam you can get your hands on to make a small space (maybe in the boot) for you to keep yourself going. Don't start a fire in your car, for obvious reasons, but you could always start on next to your car to keep yourself warm while not sleeping. It's always a good idea to wake regularly in extreme conditions and do some exercise to keep blood flowing to the most important parts of your body.

Outside of the Car
So here is my preferred method of survival in this situation although it does require the ability to produce a fire. For obvious reasons I wouldn't start a fire in the car but outside with enough dry wood you can easily use the contents to make a very effective shelter. You can use the blanket and rip apart the sleeping bag to make a shelter. I would only use one of these for that though and use the other for personal insulation. You could build a fire with the ferro rod and striker and use the reflective properties of either of these items to increase the temperature in your shelter. If you can't get any materials then you would be better off using the sleeping bag as a shelter as you can make a roof and back wall then sleep on or under the blanket. If you can gather materials Ii would use the blanket as a back wall to reflect heat back on to you and sleep inside the sleeping bag. You can then strip the paracord bag (which comes already split into separate strands to build and secure your shelter. Either way this would keep you warmer than being in the car as you wont be relying on your own metabolic heat generation.

So a good shelter should see you survive for up to 3 days depending on environmental factors and this kit should help you with that when you need it. The best thing is that because it has a draw-string design, it's easy for you to swap and change parts for your own needs. I wouldn't be inclined to have this pouch on my backpack as I often have most of the kit I would need in bad situations already, but as I described above it is perfect to have in your car and I recommend everybody to prepare for just this sort of situation.

If you want to buy one of these shelter kits click here.

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The Friendly Swede Emergency Shelter Kit

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