10 Reasons You Will "Most Likely" Die During The Zombie Apocalypse

10 Reasons You Will Most Likely Die During The Zombie Apocalypse. There's a high probability of chance that you will die if there is ever a zombie apocalypse (or any major collapse of society) because you are most likely not ready. Just saying... It starts with health and knowledge. Here are 10 reasons you will probably die during the zombie apocalypse. This list is not a list of "how" many ways you could die. This list is about "why" you will probably not survive. There is a difference.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

For those of you who are not into the whole zombie apocalypse thing, a ZOMBIE in this context is the unprepared average idiot who just doesn't get it and doesn't understand why they should prepare for a collapse of society (the apocalypse). They will likely be the first ones to die during the apocalypse. Also, the "Zombie Apocalypse" is the perfect allegory for prepping to live off grid and survive. Even the CDC has articles about how to survive the zombie apocalypse because if you prepare to survive that, you can survive anything Including these other 17 things your should prepare for

So let's get into it, shall we?

1) Be Physically Fit: If you're not physically fit and healthy, you will likely die:

Zombieland (the movie) was right! No, this list is not a Zombieland survival list, it's just that Zombieland got it right because Zombieland is a smart zombie movie and those are rare things indeed.

You need to be able to run and do physical activities you don't normally do. In the military PT (physical training) is vital to a successful mission. Your mission is survival. If you're not physically fit and healthy, you will most likely die. Zombie apocalypse fitness is paramount for survival. You must be able to outrun and fight off the zombies and humans. There will be gangs of marauders/raiders running around looting, assaulting, killing and enslaving people.

A look at warzones across the world will show you that when faced with a survival scenario where society breaks down and economies collapse, in areas of conflict people resort to animalistic survival instincts. Rules and laws go out the window. There are no rules during the apocalypse. Every war zone in history society and the people have suffered from the effects of looting, violence, and human trafficking. The zombie apocalypse will be no different, except there will be an added dimension of zombies everywhere as well as marauding raiders and gangs. You will eventually find yourself in a situation where you will need to escape or you will die.

The best defense is good security and being situationally aware. If you do however find yourself at the wrong end of an attack, fight back, then take the first opportunity you can to escape. If you can't escape, then fight to kill because your life depends on it. Exercise. If you're overweight, physically out of shape, or disabled, there's a good chance that you will die during the zombie apocalypse. Sorry. It's just the cold hard facts of a survival situation like that.

At the very least, if you're not in shape this increases the odds you will not survive or at the very least will be taken prisoner or injured or both. Get in shape if you can. Walk, run, swim, lose weight, and eat healthily. Health wise, your body needs to be healthy, not just fit and in shape. Your mind and body needs to be healthy too. This means you have to take precautions against infection, disease, and the common cold. Medicine like antibiotics for treating bacterial infections will become as valuable as gold is now. Nutrition is vital to survival. Keep your blood pressure in check. Do lots of cardio, if you can get thin and do it healthily, then do it. Take care of yourself.

2 Hand to Hand Combat & Self Defense: If you can't fight, you will die

Hand to hand combat aside, you will eventually need to physically fight your way out of a dangerous situation. Whether that's against a human or zombie doesn't matter. Someone who does not have basic self-defense training has a higher likelihood of being killed by bad guys and zombies if they cannot fight off their attackers. The object of fighting off an attacker may not be to "win" the fight. It may only be just enough to break contact and escape to safety.

When faced with a superior force, pride is your most deadly enemy. Don't be afraid to fight back with the goal of escaping. If you can kill your attacker or are forced to, then do not hesitate. Don't think twice because thinking twice will get you killed. Fight or flight is a real thing. If you're caught in a situation where you must fight, then fight for your life and create an opportunity to break contact and escape to safety.

3 Situational Awareness: If you don't pay attention, you will die

Safety and security first. Be hyper-aware. Even paranoid. Take things slowly. Never rush into an unknown area. Go low and slow. Walking into an ambush or a booby-trap is a very real possibility during the zombie apocalypse. If you don't pay attention to your surroundings you could walk right into an ambush or stumble across a zombie horde and then you're screwed. You have to have great situational awareness. This means paying attention to everything around you.

All sights, sounds, and smells are information you need to pay attention to. Use all your senses. Sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch (feeling the air temps and heaviness or pressure changes in the air could all signal danger). Your sixth sense is real. Pay attention to it. This is your intuition. It's instinct. It's your subconscious mind paying attention to your surroundings and notifying you of possible danger.

That eerie feeling you get that someone is watching you is probably true. Stop, look, listen...smell the air. This section could be a whole book by itself. There is lots of information about situational awareness out there. Read it. Learn it. It could save your life.

4 WEAPONS TRAINING: If you don't have a weapon and know how to use it, you will die:

Locate a weapon, or multiple weapons and learn how to use them efficiently and effectively. Practice. Just having a weapon is not enough. You must know how to use it effectively. Zombies will give you lots of practice. But that is really a bad way to practice your skills because of the risk of infection/death. You must know how to use your weapon of choice.

It's also probably a good idea to learn how to use other weapons that you might find while wandering around the apocalypse. Guns, knives, swords, machetes, bats, crowbars, all are great weapons for zombies and bad guy humans alike. Train often and hone your zombie killing skills.

5 KNOW HOW TO MAKE FIRE: If you don't know how to make fire, you will die:

Knowing how to start a fire is one of the most basic and important survival skills you can have during the apocalypse. Most people think starting a fire is easy, and it is, if you have a lighter or matches. But you can lose your lighter, or break it in a fight with a zombie and matches can get wet and become useless.

It pays to know how to start a fire with basic materials. Learn how to use a flint and steel, a bow-drill, and how to make a friction fire with a simple dry piece of wood, a stick, and some dry grass or moss. You can also start a fire with steel wool and a 9-volt battery. The best method, in this writers opinion is simply carrying multiple Bic lighters in separate places on your person and in multiple packs, along with a backup ferrocerium rod (ferro-rod) firestarter. Matches are ok, and will do in a pinch.

It gets cold at night, you will need to stay warm to prevent hypothermia. Knowing the skills you need to make fire can save your life. Always remember that a campfire is a beacon that can lead bad guys to your location at night. The general rule during a survival scenario where evasion from the enemy is part of your mission to survive, you should not have a fire.

Don't build a fire unless you absolutely need one; and certainly, don't have a fire at night unless you block the light from it with rocks. Smoke from your fire during the day can also lead enemies to your location. You can see and smell smoke from miles away. Anyone can follow the smoke from your fire direct to your location and bushwhack you in the middle of the night.

If you do have to have a fire, make it quick and do what you need to do then put it out. If it's for heat, there are ways to block the flames so they're not seen at night. Piles of rocks and even a tarp hanging between you and the enemy will prevent it from being seen.

6 KNOW HOW TO BUILD A SURVIVAL SHELTER: If you don't know how to build a makeshift shelter, you will die:

You're going to need to know how to build a basic shelter for those nights when you're stuck in the woods. Especially if you're in the northern hemisphere in the winter. Not sure how zombies would be in winter, but if they're anything like the White Walkers in Game of Thrones you're screwed. Building a basic survival shelter is simple. You just need to remember 3 things.

Insulate yourself from the ground with about 6 inches to a foot of plant material (not poison ivy), build the sides of your shelter thick to insulate you from the cold and to reduce noise while you're inside, and leave a small entrance and exit for both escape and airflow. If possible camouflage the shelter with vegetation from the surrounding area and make it look as natural as possible this way if someone is walking through the area they will not notice your shelter.

If you decide to sleep in a natural shelter like a cave or rock outcropping, under a dry riverbank, just be careful of snakes and spiders and other creepy crawlies. Locating a safe place to build a shelter is probably just as important as the shelter itself. You don't want to be where someone can see your campfire. Stay out of sight.

7 WATER LOCATION & PURIFICATION: If you don't know how to locate & purify water, you will die:

Water is arguably the single most important resource you need to survive. It's even more important than your weapon. You can be in the middle of a desert hundreds of miles from civilization and have a million rounds of ammo and all the cool guns in the world and they won't do you a damn bit of good if you're dying of dehydration. Unless of course, you decide to simply take matters into your own hands rather than die a painful dehydration death, then sure, a weapon could be useful in that scenario.

The point is without water you will die. Of that, there is a 100% chance. Without the knowledge to locate and purify water you will most likely either die of dehydration or some kind of water-born illness by drinking dangerous pathogens or chemicals in contaminated water. Learn how to locate and purify water. Boiling the water, and chlorine bleach is good for killing pathogens. Water filters and chemical treatments can also kill pathogens and neutralize any harmful chemicals in the water.

Locating water is not easy in arid climates. There are lots of how-to videos and articles out there on how to find water. Look it up. Do your research. It will save your life in a survival scenario.

8 FIRST AID: If you don't know basic First Aid, you will die:

Familiarize yourself with basic First Aid knowledge and skills. Take a CPR course. Learn about how to properly dress a wound and how to stitch a deep cut. Learn how to properly clean a wound before sewing it up. Wound care is important for stopping an infection from ruining your zombie apocalypse experience. Add a sewing kit to your survival pack, not just for repairing holes in your clothes but also for closing wounds after you or a group member is injured.

Learn the correct way to tie a tourniquet without killing yourself or damaging tissue more than it's already damaged. Learn how to treat a concussion, this is a common injury. If you're shot, find help. If no help is around and you're bleeding badly you must stop the bleeding or you could bleed to death. Direct pressure and a pressure bandage might be enough to keep you alive long enough to find help. If you're stabbed/impaled with an object like a sharp stick or shrapnel, and the object is still in you, do not remove it if you can help it or you may cause internal bleeding and you could bleed to death or cause more injury.

It's sometimes better to leave the object in, especially if you're impaled in the torso area or near where a vital artery is located in your body. The object could have damaged the artery and it could be stopping blood flow from the damaged artery. If you remove it you may bleed to death. Find help if possible in this scenario. If you can't, then you may need to be able to physically push your fingers/hand far enough into your torso/leg/arm/neck to stop the bleeding.

Signs of arterial bleeding are fairly easy to recognize. Usually, if bright red blood starts spurting or pouring out very fast as that's a sign an artery is severed and you have about 20-seconds to a minute depending on the size of the wound and artery before you lose consciousness from blood loss, after that, you will bleed to death.

Apply direct pressure to the wound to stop the bleeding. Again, if bright red blood is pumping out, it's an arterial bleed and you need to use a clamp or shove your fingers or something into the wound to stop the bleeding or you will die. It is going to hurt like hell but it's better than death, you might pass out from the pain or sight of blood, just try your best not to pass out because if you lose consciousness you could die. Learn how to splint a broken bone and how to make a pair of crutches out of a tree branch.

Learn how to fix a dislocated joint. If possible also learn the basics of setting a broken bone. You won't have access to a doctor during the apocalypse so no X-Rays. You're just going to have to wing it or find a doctor or medical professional somewhere. Carry antibiotics. Yes! Find antibiotics and carry them with you. (in a pinch it is possible to make basic antibiotics like Penicillin; there are videos and how-to articles with recipes out there; yes, it is possible.)

9 LEARN TO HUNT AND FISH! If you don't know how to Hunt & Fish, you will likely die:

When all the food is gone, how are you going to eat? You might be able to scavenge for food in abandoned stores and houses and you might get lucky, but after about the first year or so, most food will be gone or spoiled. Long term survival requires hunting and fishing skills.

10 LEARN TO GROW FOOD! If you don't know how to grow food, you will die:

Look...long term survival requires food. After the first few months to a year most food will be gone or spoiled. Then what? Long term food supplies will have to be created or you and your family or group of survivors will die of starvation. You could try to hunt for food, but that only goes so far. Also, if you're starving you're more likely to get sick. Poor diet means poor health and poor health means you're going to be more susceptible to diseases. Even the common cold can kill you if you're not healthy. Stay healthy by eating right when possible. Long term survival means knowing how to grow your own food.

BONUS: Here are a couple bonuses that might increase your odds of survival.

11 Security: Trust No One! Everyone you meet out there is a threat.

Trust no one! The old adage is cliche because it's true. Humans are more dangerous than zombies because zombies are predictable, humans are not. Humans can lie to you, manipulate you, trap and ambush you. They will hurt you, exploit your skills and resources for their own gain and when they're done with you, during the apocalypse, they'll simply kill you, take your shit, and move on to the next schmuck. Don't be a schmuck! Never let your guard down.

Never give anyone the upper-hand if you can help it. Avoid contact with the enemy (other humans or zombies) if you can help it. Stealth is your best friend, but, if you have to meetup with a group or you stumble upon someone, don't go crazy. Stop. Try to communicate. Don't let anyone within 10 feet of you, they could be infected, or they could lunge at you and attack. If you run into an ambush and have a gun with enough ammo to spare, lay down cover fire and break contact as soon as safely possible. Move to a more secure location.

If forced to fight, fight to neutralize the threat as quickly as possible with the least amount of energy expended. Break contact and move to a secure location. The point here is to get out of danger, don't try to be a hero or a badass. If you have a family to protect, then this should always be your strategy to protect. Do not put them in danger. If you're with a larger group it will be easier to be more secure. But with a large group comes different security issues.

While traveling on foot, stop, look, and listen often. Smell the air. Does it smell like smoke, cooking food, oil, gas, or even sweat? You can smell a human (and a zombie) for a ways away. Think about it. During the apocalypse people will not bathe much. Personal hygiene will become secondary to survival. As such, you will be able to smell someone if you're always walking into the wind. If you're a hunter you already know this. If you're never hunted before, then understand that deer, and small game, all animals, have a better sense of smell than humans, and can smell you a mile away.

Animals walk into the wind so they can smell what's ahead of them. Hunters do it so they won't be smelled by the animals they're hunting upwind. Never walk downwind if you can help it. If you can smell other humans, they can smell you. Don't talk! Or if you do talk, speak softly or whisper.

Don't give away your position with loud noises. Target shooting is great, but it gives away your location, and while your ears are ringing from shooting, someone can easily walk up on your position without you knowing it until it's too late. Never just walk around a corner or curve without slowing down to a crawl and checking to make sure it's safe. Curves and corners are blindspots, avoid them if you can; if you can't, then be very careful not to give away your position or walk into an ambush.

Avoid choke-points, narrow passages, canyons, alleys, or dead ends. A dead-end is called such because it could be a dead end for your and your group. Never walk into an area without a plan for escape just in case shit goes sideways. There is a lot more to survival security during the zombie apocalypse. We'll be writing more in-depth articles on the topic of security in the future.

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12 Scavenging For Gear & Supplies: Supplies to survive are everywhere if you know what to look for and where to look

This topic could be a whole book, but I'll just touch on it briefly and give you some pointers and basics that you might find useful, and maybe it'll save your life. Always be aware of your surroundings while scavenging. Don't reach into places you can't see into. Keep your head on a swivel. Always be scanning the horizon, shadows, under cars, around corners, through bushes. Look for shapes that don't look right and that appear out of place.

In an urban environment look for movement, glints of light that could be reflection from sunglasses, binoculars or rifle scopes.

Stop, look and listen. Never move into an unfamiliar new area without first scoping it out, wait for a hour, or sleep on the edge of a town overnight in a secure area and watch. This is information gathering, you don't want to rush into a situation that will put you in danger.

The whole point of survival is to survive! Don't do stupid shit that's going to put you in danger and don't take unnecessary risks that could endanger you, your family or your group.

Even with all that. You're still likely to die during a real apocalypse, at least with these skills you and survive a bit longer.

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DISCLAIMER:

None of this is meant to be expert or medical advice. Always seek the advice of properly trained medical professionals. Never read something on the internet and think you're good to go because that's just f*cking stupid!

Rule # 1 of surviving the zombie apocalypse should be don't be a dumba**!

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