The information and tips that are on this site are intended to ensure that you have a happy and healthy time wherever you are and no matter what you do. If you read, view and interact with this site we will help you hone your existing skills and talents, focus and direct them, teach you new skills and approaches and broaden your knowledge in areas that you may have never thought of. No matter what your levels of skills are, it is our hope that you will grow and strengthen your odds to successfully survive your day, every day without negative after effects.
I spent most of my adult life being referred to a combination of Superman and MacGuiver (their words not mine). In both my work and personal life I have been very mentally and physically active. Designing, deciphering, engineering and reverse engineering all manner of mechanical, intellectual and digital conundrums. I have hiked, mountain climbed, rappelled, kayaked, skied, swung from ceiling trusses, crawled through unthinkable places, all in getting the job done as a private security contractor. I have worked on extremely boring jobs that at a drop of a dime turn highly demanding, all without any effect on my ability to go right back out the next day to tear down my Jeep, build it up, and go out camping and wheeling each weekend. Life was never about what name brand my clothes or car had on them, it was about experiencing everything, feeding my mind interacting with, mentoring and learning from people, life was good. Not fancy, not luxurious, the real world kind of good, fulfilling and meaningful.
Then in February 2011, out of the blue, that all changed; while sitting at a red light I was rear ended by a tractor trailer. My Jeep which I worked tirelessly on for over two years was suddenly junk. All of the hard work, all of the tweaking was gone, just gone in seconds. I was stopped in place in a line of cars; I had no hand in the accident except being there. What I didn’t know was that Superman was about to have a wakeup call. I am tough, trained, skilled, “I have had my share of bumps and bruises, no big deal”. Anyway, I have been trained in emergency first aid, I assessed my status and felt that I was ok, “I don’t need a doctor”, “my religious upbringing shunned the use of medicine and that’s all they would do anyway, is give me pills and discharge me”. The results, which were not immediately apparent, have interrupted my life as I knew it. Well, it took a little while, but within 48 hours, the “aches and pains” had developed into “I can’t do any pull-ups, I can’t workout, and I can barely lift my left arm. My neck hurt and I probably broke or bruised something in my left foot”. Heck, my whole left side wanted out of the game. So I started seeing a muscular specialist who helped me manage the pain and helped with therapy to regain some of the use of my left shoulder and arm. The next thing I knew I could not even get out of bed. Super Man had met his Kryptonite. I woke in the middle of the night spewing blood from both ends. Suddenly I realized that the accident and subsequent internal bleeding and hospitalization had stopped me from being who I was. I was known as indestructible, I climbed Mount Tammany (1599ft) rappelled and ascended on rope and hiked 12 miles around Sunfish Pond the week before and was raring to go again. I love the outdoors and plying my broad skills there, as well as mentoring and teaching others and always learning more. Now that was all in jeopardy. I might even die.
Now I don’t mean to be melodramatic but in my line of work I have held over 14 people, many my friends. Held either their hands or them in my arms as they took their last breath and have lost many more over the past few years suddenly. It has weighed heavily on my soul for years as the numbers mount. After losing my beloved Father who was kind enough to adopt me as his own when I was two I really started to evaluate my own mortality and the value of my life.
I love to teach and mentor. I have always been pretty good at it or so I am told by many who I have counseled and coached. I realized that I could use that skill and my vast and broad experience, knowledge and my network of well rounded and skilled cadre to help others, to make a difference. As I said previously; My life has been spent in a never ending quest for information and enlightenment. As an investigator, inventor, off road jeep adventurer, camper, hiker, climber, skier, and more I have always been a sponge. I have had the good fortune of meeting, knowing and even working with people from all over the world with unbelievable skills which they were happy to share with me.
The primary job of an investigator was to gather information, process it, formulate conclusions and determine how things happen based upon that information. As a formally trained interrogative interviewer I learned to gather information at high speed, vette it, log it, absorb it and go back for more. No one ever knows everything and as I have told my sons since they could talk; you should learn a new thing every day and you can learn something from everyone, no matter who they are, where they are from and their walk of life. Life is truly an adventure and being highly didactic I am never satisfied. Everyone brings something of value to the table if you are willing to learn.
The accident that has altered my life course will not stop me. It has caused both financial and physical trauma. It has also caused me to stop and contemplate my life. I have done so much, learned and gathered much, invented, built, taught, saved and much more. But as I perceive it had I died in the course of my ordeal after the accident it would have all been wasted; lost. Prior to the accident I had started fleshing out PracticeSurvival to help people understand the proper and safe way to enjoy outdoor adventuring. Since then it has become the conduit whereby I will leave, hopefully, something of positive value for others who appreciate the outdoors and the texture of life as I do. It is my humble attempt to do some good, not of Ego, PracticeSurvival.com is wrought from the sincere hope that the few gifts with which I was lucky enough to be endowed will in some way help others now and after I leave this mortal coil. Hopefully I will get to enjoy many more sunsets on the Shenandoah Mountains, either way I will do my best to help others enjoy it too while being safe and informed.
It took nearly 3 years to recover from those issues. I had help from several friends and a few doctors. Thanks to a bit of time, a new workout routine and some joint perseverance. But as of December I was finally back in the full swing of things.
You should never overlook your health or your wellness. Even when it seems too much, trust me, it will be way more if something goes wrong.
The Reason
for
SurviveWithWill.com
and
PracticeSurvival.com
PracticeSurvival Is Will’s Labor of Love
Created with the Hope of Leaving
A Positive Mark on the World
Commentary from Will
Founder & Primary Writer of PracticeSurvival.com
The point of PracticeSurvival.com is to launch you on a quest for information.
As I depict in the inverted pyramid graphic which I created (on the right and the main page of the
Useful Information section) indicates; informational input should be taken through a process
to an end which is not knowledge, it is enlightenment.
PracticeSurvival.com’s motto when it comes to preparedness is there is that
There is no catastrophe when you are prepared
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