The Personal Survival Kit - Part Two - Reflective Devices for Creating Emergency Signals

There are five major components of creating an emergency signal in a survival situation. The first three components involve sight, sound and movement. These are the basics that are involved in any effective means of communication, regardless of your current situation. If you can’t be seen, heard or draw their attention to your area, chances are nobody is going to find you unless it is totally by accident. They would almost literally have to stumble upon you in order to find you or determine your location. The other two major components deal with the time of day or night you are creating your emergency signal. Emergency signals at night will often be different from those that you would use during the day.

Creating daytime emergency signals gives you a lot of options as long as you remember to use sight, sound and movement. One of the easiest and most effective means of creating a daytime signal is to use a reflective material or surface. When considering items to include in your personal survival kit, you can use several different options to increase your options for an effective daytime emergency signal. Having a reflective surface of some sort can involve using a number of different items. Many of these items can be carried quite easily on your person and won’t necessarily need to be included in your PSK (Personal Survival Kit). This will leave room for other emergency items in your kit.

One of the most effective items for creating an emergency signal in the daytime is a signal mirror. These can be ready-made devices or ones that have been improvised from most any type of reflective material or object. It could be as simple as a piece of aluminum foil (which can be easily kept on your person - folded in your pocket or wallet), a CD, an old aluminum can that someone carelessly discarded or is sitting in the cup holder of your vehicle, a piece of reflective Mylar or any other item that that has some ability to reflect light. The quality of your signal will be affected by the type of item you are using. Regardless of this fact, you are still communicating some type of signal to enhance your chances of survival.  You can always opt to carry a signal mirror on a lanyard around your neck to free up space in your PSK.

Depending upon your circumstances, you may have more reflective surface options readily available than you realize. The majority of people usually travel in their cars in more instances than they do on foot. This in itself gives you a large number of available reflective devices that could be used in an emergency. Most vehicles have small vanity mirrors on the sun visors that could be utilized. All vehicles have inside and outside rear view mirrors that could be utilized along with any shiny chrome or chrome-plated items of trim, or any “shiny” object you can find, etc. Even the scope of your rifle could be utilized to create an emergency signal. You could actually create a number of reflective signals to further enhance your signal’s ability to get someone’s attention. Women have a slight edge over guys in this department as most already carry a make-up compact that usually has a great little mirror included.


Knowing more about your available options to create an emergency signal will make it easier for you to carry less gear.


You can read additional information here:

The Personal Survival Kit - Part Three - Using Sound to Create Emergency Signals

Got shiny surfaces for survival?

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Riverwalker