How to Make Emergency Socks

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Improvised Survival Gear that could Save Your Life

It's 25 degrees below zero F (minus 32 degrees C). Making your way along the edge of a stream in deep snow, the bank suddenly collapses and your foot plunges into ice cold water.

Or maybe you are walking on the thick ice of a pond, thinking it is safe, but an underground spring has made a thin section. You fall through.

Your winter survival training kicks in. You remember what Survival Topics has taught you.

You quickly extricate yourself from the ice cold water and immediately roll your leg in the powdery snow. The snow acts as a blotter, sopping up much of the water even as it soaks its way through your layers of clothing toward your skin. The less water that makes it through the better; the less water the more chances you have of making it out alive.

Winter Emergency

However good the snow is at capturing water, some gets in. It takes a little time for the water to penetrate your layers of clothing. You feel a trickle inside your boot as tendrils of icy water find their way in. The sudden intense cold is very painful as your boot fills, making your once warm socks worse than useless.

In a matter of minutes your painful wet foot becomes numb with cold. It feels blocky, not even a part of your body. You do not have spare socks (maybe the contents of your pack are wet), nor the means to build a fire for warmth. In the time it takes to gather materials for a fire it will be too late. It is too far to walk out in time to save yourself. You are in deep trouble.

Freezing Foot

Being wet in these conditions can only lead to bad things. What you do next will make the difference whether you survive or perish – or maybe just loose your foot to frostbite.

Your Wilderness Survival Skills will Save You

This scenario is not far fetched. It could happen to you. It happens to some hapless outdoorsman every day in winter somewhere in the world. Often times this emergency leads to hypothermia, loss of limbs or even the demise of the individual.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Survival Topics has got you covered; With a little ingenuity you can save yourself where others with equal chances fail. Here is what you do:

Speed is of the essence.
Grab one of the inner layers of clothing you are wearing. A shirt, a wool sweater, fleece jacket or what have you.
If it is too cold to take off your outside covering, rip or cut the inner layer off your body.
Take off your wet boot and socks.
Place your bare foot facing a diagonal of the cloth as shown in the photo (this is my black capilene t-shirt).
Fold this diagonal section up over your toes toward your leg.
Take the right side of the cloth and fold over the top of your foot.
Take the left side of the cloth and fold over the the top of your foot also, tucking it into the cloth that is tight against your right.

You now have improvised a dry sock that will save your foot and perhaps your life. Insert the foot back into your boot (first making sure you have drained out as much water as possible) and quickly head for safety.

Keep moving to get the circulation of warm blood flowing through your cold limb. Along the way you may be able to find additional insulation that you can use to augment your handiwork or replace the inner layer of clothing you removed: for example dry leaves or cattail down.

You will survive another day.

Making the Sock

How to Make Emergency Socks

Your Wilderness Survival Skills will Save You

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