5 Survival Myths That Will Get You Killed

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. 01

   MYTH: "Drink your own urine if you're dehydrated"

   This one shows up in movies so often that most people assume it must work. It doesn't. Urine is roughly 95% water — but it also contains everything your kidneys just filtered out: urea, sodium, potassium, creatinine, and trace amounts of waste products your body rejected. Drinking it forces your kidneys to filter those waste products again, requiring more water than the urine contained. Net result: accelerated dehydration. The salt concentration alone (urine averages 9 grams of salt per liter) creates an osmotic effect that draws fluid from your tissues. Your urine also gets more concentrated and toxic with each cycle — by the third drink it resembles a highly concentrated waste solution, not water. The actual move: prioritize finding clean water above everything else. Any natural water source (stream, river, rain catchment, dew collection) run through a filter or boiled is a thousand times safer than urine. In a true no-water emergency, rationing your existing fluids and reducing physical exertion buys more time than drinking urine.

   Warning: If you have a water filter or purification tablets, contaminated water from a puddle, stream, or even a mud hole is a better hydration source than urine. The filter removes the pathogens — nothing removes the waste products from urine.
2. 02

   MYTH: "Suck the venom out of a snakebite"

   You have seen this in every Western and survival film ever made. A person gets bitten, someone pulls out a knife, makes an X cut over the bite, and sucks out the venom. Dramatic. Effective-looking. Completely useless and actively harmful. Snake venom moves into the lymphatic system and bloodstream within seconds of a bite — long before you could reach the wound with your mouth. Studies have shown venom extractors (including commercial suction devices like the Sawyer Extractor) remove less than 0.04% of injected venom. That's not enough to matter. Cutting the wound introduces infection risk and can damage tendons, nerves, and blood vessels near the bite site. Attempting mouth suction exposes any oral cuts or gum disease to venom, creating a secondary envenomation route. You're making things worse, fast. The actual move: immobilize the bitten limb at or below heart level. Remove constrictive items (watches, rings, tight clothing near the bite) in case of swelling. Mark the edge of any swelling or discoloration with a pen and note the time. Get to emergency medical care as fast as possible — antivenom is the only treatment that works. Call Poison Control (1-800-222-1222 in the US) immediately if you can get a signal.

   Warning: Do NOT apply a tourniquet, ice, or electric shock to a snakebite. All three are debunked and cause additional tissue damage. Do NOT try to capture or kill the snake — most snakebite victims are bitten a second time attempting this. Photograph the snake from a safe distance if possible; species identification helps medical teams select the correct antivenom.
3. 03

   MYTH: "Rub frostbitten skin to warm it up"

   Frostbitten tissue is ice-damaged at the cellular level. Ice crystals form inside and between cells, and the compromised tissue is essentially fragile, inert, and waiting for rewarming. Rubbing it — or applying snow, which is also what some people try — causes two catastrophic problems: the mechanical friction shears apart cells that were still intact, and it causes additional trauma to blood vessels that are already compromised by the cold. The result is a wound far more severe than the original frostbite. This myth probably persists because it 'feels' like you're doing something productive. You are — you're causing irreversible damage. The actual move: do not rewarm frostbitten tissue in the field unless you are absolutely certain there is no risk of refreezing. Tissue that thaws and then refreezes suffers catastrophic additional damage compared to tissue that was never thawed. If evacuation is possible, keep the affected area frozen and get to medical care. If you must rewarm: use warm (not hot) water at 99–102°F (37–39°C), or use body heat from an uninjured person — a warm armpit or groin works. Never use a campfire, heating pad, electric blanket, or hot water above 105°F. The sensation during rewarming is intense pain — that means circulation is returning, which is good. Keep rewarming until the tissue turns red or blue-red and feels soft.

   Warning: The cardinal rule of frostbite rewarming: only rewarm if refreezing is impossible. Walking on a rewarmed foot is possible; walking on a foot that has thawed and refrozen causes tissue death that often leads to amputation. If you have 4 miles of snowpack between you and shelter, keep the foot frozen.
4. 04

   MYTH: "If an animal can eat it, so can you"

   This sounds logical. Animals eat what's safe — so watching what they eat gives you a shortcut to safe foraging. The problem: animals and humans have completely different digestive systems, metabolisms, and toxin tolerances built over millions of years of evolutionary divergence. Birds can eat berries like holly, nightshade, and pokeberries that cause serious toxicity in humans. Squirrels eat Amanita muscaria mushrooms (the classic red-capped toadstool) without effect — the same mushroom causes hallucinations, nausea, organ damage, and can kill humans. Deer browse on plants like bracken fern and certain oaks that are harmful to people over time. Rabbits eat plants in the carrot family that include some of the most toxic species in North America (poison hemlock, water hemlock). The actual move: never use animal behavior as a proxy for human edibility. If you're serious about foraging, get a region-specific field guide with color photographs and learn positive identification before any emergency situation. In a true survival scenario, the universal edibility test (rubbing small amounts on progressively sensitive areas of skin, then lip, then tongue, then waiting 8 hours between each step) is a last resort that takes days — you're better off prioritizing water and known-safe foods.

   Warning: Some of the most toxic plants in North America are in the carrot family (Apiaceae) and are nearly impossible to distinguish from edible relatives without expert-level knowledge. Water hemlock (Cicuta species) is considered the most violently toxic plant in North America — one bite causes seizures within 15 minutes. Do not forage from white-flowered umbel plants unless you have expert-level ID skills.
5. 05

   MYTH: "Moss grows on the north side of trees, so you can navigate by it"

   This one is a classic because it has a grain of truth that makes people trust it too completely. Moss does prefer shaded, moist conditions — and in the Northern Hemisphere, the north side of trees receives less direct sunlight, so moss does appear there more often than not. The problem is "more often than not" is nowhere near reliable enough to navigate by in a real situation. In dense forests, moss grows on all sides of trees because the canopy blocks direct light everywhere. In open areas, wind direction, slope aspect, and local moisture from streams dominate over sun direction. Fallen trees, large rocks, and cliffs create micro-climates where moss grows entirely based on local shade and moisture. Near coastlines and in humid climates, moss grows on every exposed surface regardless of direction. In practice, testing this on any forest trail will reveal trees with moss in every direction within the same 100-foot stretch. Navigating by moss is guessing with extra steps. The actual move: learn three reliable navigation methods. (1) Compass — a baseplate compass with a declination-adjusted topo map is accurate to within 1 degree. (2) Sun — the sun rises roughly east and sets roughly west; at solar noon (highest point in the sky) it points due south in the Northern Hemisphere. A watch-based sun compass is accurate to within 15 degrees. (3) Night stars — Polaris (the North Star) sits within 1 degree of true north; find it by following the two pointer stars at the end of the Big Dipper's cup. These methods work. Moss does not.

   Warning: If you are lost in the wilderness, stop moving as soon as you realize you are lost. The search-and-rescue rule: STOP (Stop, Think, Observe, Plan). Most people who die while lost do so because they kept moving in the wrong direction. If you have a planned route and people know where you are going, staying near your last known position makes you dramatically easier to find.