The average healthy person can last without food for a month or more.
The same individual will not last more than a few days without an adequate supply of safe drinking water.
After resperation, hydration comes in a close second place in the survival higherarchy of needs. Your body weight is roughly 87% water weight. So, a 150 pound man is 130 pounds of water. The other 20 pounds is bone, muscle, organs, and connective tissue. If that seems hard to accept, take a 1\4 pound of beef and turn it in to jerky, then weight it.
- If you lose just 5% of your hydration you will become exhausted, dizzy, and your mental processes begin to suffer.
- A loss of 10% hydration will result in unconsciousness, and your organs begin to fail shortly thereafter.
- At 15%, you're as good as beef jerky.
If you are living in an urban area, the resources are abundant; drinking fountains, residential spigots, fast food restroom sinks, park pumps, and a myriad of other options are available to you.
In rural areas the opportunities for a quick refill dwindle, and the risk of contamination increases. The prevalence of livestock, chemical fertilizers, and untreated effluent greatly enhance the chance of waterborne hazards.
In a wilderness area, ground water (e.g. - lakes, rivers, and ponds) may be plentiful, appear and smell clean, even inviting, but that cool, refreshing brook may also contain dangerous pathogens. It's the deceptively safe appearance that is the real hazard here.
In a wilderness area, ground water (e.g. - lakes, rivers, and ponds) may be plentiful, appear and smell clean, even inviting, but that cool, refreshing brook may also contain dangerous pathogens. It's the deceptively safe appearance that is the real hazard here.
The most important caveat I have when it comes to drinking water from any questionable source...
IT IS BETTER TO BOIL THE WATER THAN TO DIE OF DIARRHEA,
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