Caught In The Crowd: What Makes The Difference Between Life And Death?

A car is approaching at high speed. One second after, you hear the wheels rolling over bodies that collapse right next to you.

You hear shotgun fires, and you see people running in despair around you. You don’t know where the danger comes from, and you can’t see your way out of this.

You’re trapped in the middle of a human turmoil that sweeps you and flows against your will.

How are you going to make it out? How are you going to survive?

The answer is simple but tricky: it’s not only the immediate actions that save you but what you should have done before.

Safety Becomes Obsolete

When things turn sideways like they recently did in various parts of the country, you need to understand and accept that there is no safe place. Nobody – especially the government – is going to save you. Holding out an unrealistic hope that there is a safe place or that others will take care of you will cause you to perish.

It is up to you to find a way to survive, facing a danger that you could hardly anticipate in a matter of seconds.

Power in Numbers?

Crowded areas and military outposts, if these even exist, will be fraught with danger. Crowds and overcrowded spaces can pose a considerable threat to your safety and even your survival in any disaster or chaotic situation.

Look at what happened in New Orleans, Louisiana, during and immediately after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. There was mass looting, assaults, sexual assaults, murders, and even police officers who shot and killed some of the people in a group of survivors who were crossing Danziger Bridge trying to find help.

Experts have found that 3 out of 4 people become so bewildered or overwhelmed that they are mentally paralyzed in almost any life-threatening or survival situation. They cannot act in their own best interest when it comes to staying alive and surviving.

Another 10% will be extremely dangerous because they will lose it and freak out, putting everyone in their vicinity at high risk of danger.

Only around 15% of individuals will stay calm and analyze the situation rationally. Would you be one of them?

3 Second SEAL Test Will Tell You If You’ll Survive A SHTF Situation

Why are crowds so dangerous despite the large number of people they include?

  • A large number of people together could make the entire area or group much more noticeable or attractive to people looking for an easy score. This will attract other groups who may want to harm you or take what you need to survive.
  • Rioting could break out and leave you open to attack.
  • In a disaster or other chaotic event, large groups could attract military or law enforcement attention, and you could end up in a deadly situation that you can’t get out of if these groups see you and others with you as a threat.
  • Large numbers of people you do not know dramatically increase the danger because any one of them could become unhinged or dangerous at any time. You could quickly become targeted for theft, assault, or even something worse.
  • A crowd can quickly go from calm to a full stampede in very little time. If you get caught up in a large mob, you could end up trapped or even crushed to death by the force of the crowd.
  • When your life depends on keeping a low profile and avoiding unnecessary attention, the last place you want to be is in a crowd of people. Stay isolated and avoid crowds and crowded areas whenever possible if you’re going to stay safe!

Situational Awareness

The simplest definition of situational awareness is to be completely aware of everyone and everything around you, paying close attention to even minor details that many people would miss. When you are aware of all the essential elements of a situation, you are far less likely to be caught by surprise or in danger.

Identify all the critical elements of the situation, process this information calmly, and then comprehend how this could impact you.

If you see some men fighting down the block or a large mob gathered, you can avoid the situation and protect yourself from any danger. If you are walking along in your little world, you could enter a hazardous situation.

You need to know where you are, what is going on around you, and how to escape the situation in the fastest way possible if this becomes necessary.

Practicing situational awareness can seem like a game while training you for almost any survival or disaster situation. Make a habit of really paying attention to your surroundings and other people, taking note of even small details like the color of a building or what a person ahead of you in line is wearing.

After paying attention to your situation, close your eyes and remember what you have seen and experienced. What color was that woman’s dress? Where are the two exits closest to you in the building? As you practice, you will be able to answer these types of questions faster because you will pay more attention to detail from the beginning.

Look around you and try to find things that seem out of the ordinary or abnormal in some way. If it is 100 degrees outside yet a man is wearing a trench coat or oversized jacket, this can be a red flag.

If a woman is standing still on a street corner and is holding a cigarette with long ash but does not take a puff, this is unusual. Someone who is profusely sweating while staying still when it is cold out would be suspicious.

When you first enter any building, always make a mental note of the exits, especially those closest to you.

Look at the people around you, determine what they do, where they are headed, and their thinking. This will help you pay closer attention to every detail about that purpose, and over time you will become more observant in a shorter time.

Visualize an emergency, such as a mass shooter or a bomb explosion, and practice what you would do in your head. This is similar to visualization, and it can be very beneficial for this type of situational awareness training.

Predator vs. Prey or Alpha vs. Beta

All animals fall into one of two categories: predator or prey, namely those who kill to survive and those killed for food. What the predator versus prey mentality means in a survival situation? Being prey means being a victim and the possibility of not surviving. Animals can’t choose the category they belong to, but you can turn from target to predator if you train your skills and mindset well enough to make the swipe from one category to another.

Today the word predator is associated with negative things, but in a survival situation, a predator survives while prey usually does not. Look inside yourself, then decide: are you prey or the predator?

3 Second SEAL Test Will Tell You If You’ll Survive A SHTF Situation

Another way to look at it is by using alpha and beta models instead of predators and prey. The predator is an alpha, a top dog. Someone dominant that others look up to and want to be like.

Prey is a beta follower instead of a leader and who is submissive to others. Alphas always tend to come out on top in any situation, while betas rarely do. If you want to survive, then you need to become an alpha, a predator.

If people around you see you as weak, they’ll try to take advantage of this weakness, and this threatens your survival when things become more primitive, and everyone is for themselves.

How to awake and train you alpha senses

  • Project confidence. This is different from being cocky or aggressive. When you are confident in your skills and abilities, this shows, and others pick up on it. Kill off negative thoughts that erode your confidence before these thoughts can take root and grow. Replace negative thoughts with positive affirmations.
  • You need to be psychologically dominant to stay alive because this can prevent danger in the first place. This means refusing to submit and letting others know that you will do what is necessary if push comes to shove.
  • Use body language to your advantage. Foes may be able to tell just from your stance, your facial expressions, and another primary body language whether you will put up any resistance. If you seem like an easy target, you are more likely to be engaged by an enemy.
  • Assume an aggressive or fighting stance with your feet placed apart for stability. Stand up straight and look the opponent directly in the eyes.
  • Learn to adapt to any environment or situation. Be realistic about your strengths and weaknesses, and then minimize the shortcomings you have while maximizing your strengths.
  • Practice persistence, even if you initially fail. Predators never give up, and neither should you. Set a challenging goal, such as walking 2 miles with a 40-pound pack, and then be persistent in trying to meet it. Eventually, you will reach this goal, and you will learn the value of patience while your confidence goes up.
  • Practice situational awareness and mindfulness. Prey goes through life blindly, hoping that they will not come across a predator. An alpha will pay attention to details and everything in their environment to fully understand the situation and respond appropriately to any threat.

When your life is on the line, safety is just an illusion while everything is out of control. Feeling safe will make you let your guard down. You will become vulnerable and open to attack.

Don’t become a victim or put your survival at risk with a false sense of security. Train your mind and your skills to overcome the danger and survive!

Written by

John Gilmore is an army Vet, specialized in wilderness survival. Now he lives with his wife and 2 daughters on their farm close to Arizona. He has instructor level credentials and skills in various survival disciplines. He is an enthusiastic DIY expert, self-reliant and a proactive defender of our Constitutional rights. He strives to make a positive mark in this world and that's why he's writing for Survivopedia, using a pen name to protect his real identity.

Latest comments
  • Without all the blablabla
    Short answer:

    Personal ability
    Willingness to not go along
    awareness
    And damn good luck as where you are at the moment it starts and you realize !

  • Good article & supporting facts! Negative person most likely will not make it. grateful person will take what they have just learned and add to their tool box. Great job, survivopedia!

  • The ability to understand and know there is always a solution.

    • Rule #1: Maintain distance from the (rioting) crowd and it’s “red fog” mentality. Commented from our remote AK cabin looking south to the lower 48.

  • I would go along with most of what you present except for the fact that no real planes hit the towers. It was proven that they were holograms by aircraft specialists and based on knowing the way the Towers were built. The conclusion is that it was an inside job.

    I would suggest that you study the findings as they have been presented and not what the press sent out.

    I have no trust in most of the media’s coverage of that event.

    I saw on the internet a reporter’s account who when his helicopter flew behind the Towers and he saw the nose of one of the alleged planes, sticking out the back side of the building. He contacted his desk who, immediately told him to cut that from his camera. I read that on the internet during the event!

    My end conclusion was that it was a deliberate act of destruction and murder!

    You have to read the views of those in the Aviation industry to get their findings both on what happens when a plane hits solid object and what takes place in the process.

    You also have to know how those buildings were built and hear the architect’s explanations as I did.

    No, no real planes hit the towers.

    • That’s the DUMBEST thing I ever heard. There were thousands of eye witnesses, many personal videos and pics of the event, and where did the planes go? Out to the ocean? If,so, why NOT just fly them into the buiildings, why destroy the planes one way and the buildings another when you can destroy them both at the same time and get the same resiults? Damn, you make the terrorist look alot smarter than your Deep State consparisist.I’ve heard this before and can’t believe anyone believes it. PUT DOWN THE WEED!!!

      • Before you berate someone who has researched the topic, maybe you should turn off MSM and use your cognitive thinking abilities. Reality is too painful for you it appears.

        • We preppers would love to think otherwise, but the fact is that much of surviving comes down to luck. Of course training and skills and gear and mental strength (perhaps above all) plays a role. That has been proved. Otherwise no one would bother. But we’re just tiny specks whenever any power of nature comes to play. Whether a pandemic, a hurricane, a riot, whatever. We’re dust and we better off being humble in the face of everything out of our control.

      • You ever smash a beer can on an I-beam? Jet fuel doesn’t burn hot enough to melt steel. No building made of steel and concrete ever collapsed by fire. Except on 9-11 then three did in one day. And a natural collapse like from a plane hitting the twin towers will collapse straight down as a controlled demolitions now. They have pictures of I-beams cut at forty five degree angles. What about the plane that was supposed to have hit the pentagon? Where did it disappear to? In New York how come with all the destruction, they easily found the passports of the hijackers relatively unharmed? One of the supposed jet engines found, the serial number was from a jet that crashed years earlier and did not even fit on the supposed crash planes. The military scrambles jets about instantly getting none were scrambled that day. It was done because Iran and Libya wouldn’t bow to the federal reserve board and let the federal reserve board control their central banks Kadafee (sp?) was an excellent leader to his people. Every citizen got a kickback from oil sales. Free schools, free utilities, when couples married they got a big check to go towards buying a house. New Mothers got a substantial check. Gas for cars was sold at cost. It goes back to before the thirteen families behind the thirteen colonies. By does between the Queen of England and the Catholic Church own 20 percent of all land on earth. How old is the queen anyway? I’m sixty five and she was an old bitch when I was born. How many heart transplants whatever else, has she had from living doners. The Illuminati has made it clear they want to reduce world population to 500 million. So that’s a declaration of war. There are 7.1 billion of us. Anyone who see one pick up a rock and throw it. Yeah thousands of people saw a hologram from two satellites from space. Check of time frozen pictures from the trade center. In one a wing disappeared from inner engine to cabin while the outer wing was still visible. It entered a shadow area. That picture was taken from a fraction of a second before impact. Do some research before you blindly follow idiots out to kill you. Why do you think they trying so hard to ban guns. They know gun control doesn’t work. If it did Chicago would be like Mayberry.

    • Those that deny the situation (whatever it is) is even happening will be among the first of those that will not survive.

    • That makes no sense for several reasons, which others have responded about.

      But then you contradict yourself when you say the planes were holograms, but then say that a reporter saw the nose of an airplane sticking out of the back of (opposite the side of the impact, I assume) the tower.

      If the planes were all holograms, there would be no plane nose sticking out of the opposite side of a tower.

      • Only a hologram could produce that picture. How many beer cans have you smashed through an I-beam? Anyway he fuel doesn’t burn hot enough to melt steel. And how come all three buildings collapsed straight down unless it was a controlled explosion. One of the jet engines found at site, the serial number was from a jet that crashed years earlier and it didn’t even fit on the supposed plane type. And at the pentagon where did that jet disappear too. Probably in that hole in the ground in Pennsylvania (?). Freeze frame pictures of many screwups. On and on.

        • Doesn’t have to be hot enough to MELT steel, only hot enough to make it lose its structural strength. It definitely IS hot enough to do that.

    • There is only one problem with your conclusion. My room mate and i lived right across the river and he was eating his cereal on our balcony when he saw the first plane hit and then we had the tv on following it and saw the 2nd one hit also. You were probably not even anywhere close but you have made up your mind.

      And we were not the only ones we know who saw the planes hit.

      This aint like santa or the easter bunny my friend.

  • The important thing is, don’t die from lack of shootin back…got it?

  • But a liberal might get offended!!!

  • Thank you for this excellent article.

  • Now I have heard it all, and it could only come from the American continent

  • I make it a point to avoid large crowds. I do not go into cities. I am always watching other people and yes, i do profile.

  • Excellent,short article,
    Your wrote “you need to understand and accept that there is no safe place, and nobody – and especially the government – is not going to save you. Holding out an unrealistic hope that there is a safe place or that others will take care of you will cause you to perish.”.
    This describes prepping accurately.
    It also made me guess you were ex-military.

    AS for the hologram troll – Everyone else please ignore it. Any response is wasted

    • Building 7 went down without being close to the twin towers. Pentagon was hit by a missle. There was no plane debris what so ever. How did the terrorist passports survive heat that melted metal that jet fuel could not put off enough heat to melt the structure.. It was impossible according to experts. Inside job all the way.. What happened to the Trillions missing from the pentagon that Rumsfeld mentioned the day before 9/11? Never heard about that $ being missing again. It just disappeared. Our Government has many many false flags through out history to hide or start an event. 70% of airline crashes are intentional. Fact! Being gullible can get you killed as fast as panic in a crowd. Instinct must take over for survival if you want to raise your odds of surviving any situation.

  • “And nobody,.. is not going to save you” (Proof-reader) Just saying.

  • Good idea, indeed, to practice and develop your situational awareness, and imagine worst case scenarios and how to react–just like our military soldiers do routinely. You can’t prepare for EVERYTHING, really, but if you have the right mindset you can deal appropriately with almost anything.

  • God gave you you for a reason. Honor the blessing. Take care of it and help others to be grateful and pay it forward also. That is the only way.

  • You guys are on your ‘A’ game. Did you also wonder why car and truck engines were melted 5 blocks away from the towers? Why were the dead meticulously removed from the rubble until the excavators hit the underground concrete that was holding all the buried gold? Why were the towers blown up the very day that the United States was ordered by the Worl Court to return all the gold being held from Germany and other countries? Why was the clean up stopped and everyone removed until the gold was loaded into box trucks and removed? After the gold was removed, why was the balance of the dead bodies from the towers scooped up and dumped into dump trucks with the rest of the debrie? Why were there no airplane parts, seats, luggage or passengers in the rubble? Why was bldg 7 reported on live news to have been destroyed while standing in front of bldg. 7 all intact before they blew it up? Maybe because all of ENRON documents and paperwork were inside as the their court trial was in progress and their crimes just went away. How come Beverly Eckhart just happened to be on the airplane that cerashed in Buffallo NY and was killed the day before she was to give a seminar @ the University of NY @ Buffalo where her husband graduatewd? How come she was killed after meeting with Obama and demanding a full investigation of the 911 exposion that killed her husband and so many others. She was one of the Jersey girls that refused to take a bribe payout for her husbands death. Thermite and C-4 brought the towers down and not aluminum planes with fiberglass nose cones. Truely a False flag.

  • I’m not going to enter into a discussion of HOW the towers came down, As a retired Civil Engineer I’ll only address the ability of heat to deform structural steel. Additionally, those who care to know should research the difference between HEAT and TEMPERATURE, Structural steel is sprayed with an insulation layer to resist structural deformity due to fire. Jet fuel WILL generate the required HEAT and TEMPERATURE to cause critical failure through deformation of the steel structure.

  • Thanks for being a voice of reason here Michael…….

    • Does that mean the earth isn’t flat?

  • Don’t forget 4-10% of any given population are latent sociopaths and given a high stress environment, they will prey on the weak. For further reading look for Drs Martha Stout, Robert Hare and Karl Jung about sociopaths and psychopaths hiding in our population.

  • After reading everything proffered here, I have come to the conclusion that our greatest sin is a lack of integrity. We no longer trust our government and its representatives. That is rightfully so because they are “lifers” whose priority is always to retain a seat of power. That’s what politics is, the battle for power position. The problem is, they want this in perpetuity. Consequently, the business of the people never gets done. This is hardly what the founders intended. Why is it that perpetual career in politics and the self-aggrandizing modus operandi of all politicians accepted as the constant normal by all of us. My statements and question are for a reason. Our fearless leaders have engendered a consummate mistrust of their motives and actions. We all see how nefarious they are, and yet we accept it as normal. We have been indoctrinated to believe that this is how human life is supposed to be by that group of trash purveyors in Hollywood. They write a story, not based in reality, and we accept it as the reality of how life should be lived. That situation precipitates all of the hyperbole and lunacy of conspiratorial theories, whether they are valid or invalid. Unfortunately, we will never know because for every argument, there is an alternate argument. Until we learn to abandon subterfuge and live with integrity, no system will work and we will always be victims one way or the other.

  • I must have missed the advertisement for tin foil on sale at a really great price around this article. There are so many people who ordered it and made themselves some tinfoil hats, it must have been a terrific price. SHEESH! ! !

  • Then you have been very fortunate and are ignoring the future possibility that would place you and your loved ones is danger.
    We take survival seriously.
    If you do not ?
    I hope everything stays well for you and you find a suitable place for information. I have learned a lot here, lifetime lessons that have been of actual real use and I will never be unprepared.
    Besides a tin foil hat would stand out in a crowd and make you a potential target Gray man “out”.

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