Survival of the Fittest

During the Vietnam era, much was expected from the men and women that served in the United States Air Force. Each member of the force was taught how to deal with the experiences of war, and the gruesome techniques they would need for survival in the worst circumstances. One tale recently shared with me by my Vietnam veteran room-mate, struck my fancy enough to express this story in my own fashion. The story examines the terrible fate of two unfortunate airmen who were shot down over enemy territory, and how the pilot struggles to keep himself and his navigator alive. Air Force survival training prepared these men for the difficult tasks they faced after being injured, left with little food, and only a small first-aid kit. The contents of the first-aid kit included antiseptic, gauze, medical tape, flare gun, two lighters, and a few items that seemed to have no practical use in an emergency such as a large safety pin.

The pilot must perform a few painful procedures to attend to his compound fracture. Upon closer examination, the pilot finds that both his tibia and fibula have broken through the skin. The first thing he does is use the antiseptic from the survival kit to cleanse the open wound of any present bacteria and other foreign objects. Next, the pilot focuses his mind on positive things to help him shield his mind from the intense pain of resetting his own bones and holding them straight while wrapping his leg with the gauze supplied in the survival kit. He removes his torn shirt and cuts his pants above his knee to try to remain cool in the humid forest. After the intense pain of sterilizing and bandaging his wounds, the pilot is met with the challenge of using his battered body to help his fallen navigator.

The pilot checks the man’s pulse and breathing habits. The pilot is unsure of his partner’s condition, but he suspects a broken back. Utilizing the information he learned in his survival training, the pilot drives stakes into the ground and binds the navigator’s wrists and ankles to them. The purpose of this action is to protect the body from any additional injuries should the victim begin to experience convulsions. Next, the pilot uses the large safety pin in the survival kit by piercing it through the navigator’s tongue and chin to prevent his tongue from rolling into the back of the throat and causing suffocation. The pilot then sterilizes the few minor open wounds of his befallen partner, and wraps them in gauze. He is now out of gauze and antiseptic. Only two rations remain.

After stabilizing the navigator and himself, the pilot sits in agonizing pain and surveys their present surroundings. For the first time the pilot takes the time to see a clear image of the place they had been unfortunate enough to enter. Due to rough terrain and chances of the enemy being all around them, the pilot realizes that their chances of mobility are nonexistent and there is no way of knowing how long it may take for them to be rescued. With little hopes of survival, the pilot sluggishly gathers leaves from the forest floor to make him a mattress and eventually gives in to the pounding of his migraine.

Because of the severity of the injuries sustained by the pilot, he remains asleep for three days never awakening to eat, drink, or move himself out of his own bodily wastes. When he finally awakens he is greeted by sharp pains coming from his leg, and a horrible odor that clearly indicates that gangrene had set in. Mosquitoes and other insects are feeding madly from his exposed skin.

He swipes away the insects and proceeds to slowly begin unwrapping his leg and realizes that conditions have taken a turn for the worse. The wound is now a dark grayish green, swollen red, and is covered with infectious puss. Having no antiseptic left the pilot is forced to use his own manure to cover the entire wound. Also, any nearby bugs are crushed and spread into the infectious, excrement covered injury. By doing this, he intends to invite flies to feed from his leg and lay their eggs in the open wound. When the larvae have hatched, they will begin to eat away the dead flesh within the wound. The pilot is hopeful that the fly maggots will stop the gangrene from spreading any further by consuming the dead flesh surrounding the wound.

The pilot, exhausted of all rations, remains severely weakened from lack of nutrition, and crippled by his infected leg. He struggles to his partner’s side and observes his physical condition. He concludes that the navigator’s health has remained unchanged since he was stabilized three days ago. He then searches the nearby ground for choice bugs that will supply him with enough protein and calories to prolong his body from feeding on its own fat supply. The pilot spends the next hot and blurry hours reflecting on his survival training and mentally prepares for conditions to become worse. He is forced to use his own urine to hydrate himself. He takes the time to look over his fallen partner one last time before he again falls unconscious.

The pilot awakens after two days of uninterrupted rest, and again is met with the most god awful stench coming from his infectious leg and his own wastes. The larvae have been consistently eating away the dead flesh of his wound. However, they have not prevented the infection from spreading. The gangrene has now spread to his entire leg below the knee. The pilot knows that the only way to survive this injury is to amputate the leg four inches above his right patella. To perform this procedure he first uses his own urine to cleanse the wound of the larvae and his own feces. Using the leather shoe laces from his combat boots and a strong stick found in the nearby area, he ties the lace around his thigh and twists the stick until he can no longer bare to increase the pressure of the lace cutting into his skin. He then slips the stick in between the string and his leg to ensure that the knot will not become loosened. The pilot then eats the maggots knowing they are a food source high in protein. He painfully drags himself to his partner.

The navigator’s health is rapidly failing and he has now become like a vegetable. His skin has become pale and cold, while his breathing has fallen into a pattern similar to that seen in a coma. The pilot knows from these signs that there is nothing he can do to help, and his navigator will be dead within hours. He gathers leaves from the nearby area and covers his navigator’s body, and bids him farewell. Grief stricken and alone, the pilot crawls to a nearby tree and thinks about his current predicament. He listens to the sound of his own voice as his mind drifts away in pain, but he becomes totally sane long enough to mutter a quiet prayer before slipping off into a troubled world of dreams.

The next afternoon, the pilot is greeted by the sounds of cracking wood and the feel of raindrops. Nearly dehydrated and covered with dirt and waste, the pilot eagerly drinks and bathes in the rain until he realizes that the rain has put out his only source of heat. He struggles to build a new fire and is sets off to feed himself. With all nearby bugs and rations exhausted, the pilot unwillingly accepts that he will soon have to rely on his navigator’s body for nourishment. The pilot uses his limited energy to strip the clothing off of his deceased navigator, and tries to construct a type of shelter from the bad weather. He decides to that he can not mentally handle eating his own species, and does not receive any nutrition that day. As he sits and watches the rainfall alone, he continuously tightens the lace around his leg cutting into the skin and restricting the blood from getting below the knot.

Over the course of the next several days, the pilot continues to tighten the lace on his leg until the nerve endings and the blood vessels have closed off from below the knee and the leg has become separated from the body. The pilot resorts to consuming the navigator’s body as his only source of food. He begins eating the eyes of the deceased because they are high in sodium and the trapezoid muscle because it is the most tender and is an abundant source of protein. After filling himself with the remains of his deceased navigator, the pilot selectively cuts off other body parts containing vital nourishment and wraps the pieces in the navigator’s clothing and buries them to postpone the decaying process. Well fed and legless, the pilot relaxes and daydreams about being rescued. Many times, nearby birds fly down and pick at his companion. The pilot was too depressed to sustain consciousness for more than a few hours.

Several days later, the pilot awakens to an unfamiliar sound. Startled and curious, the pilot thrashes around trying to detect the source of the sound. As if by a miracle, the pilot finally looks into the sky just in time to see a helicopter searching the nearby area. The frantic pilot digs into his bag of belongings and produces a flare gun. He fires off his only flare and alerts the rescue team to his position. The team sees the flare and quickly responds to the distress. Within minutes, the helicopter locates the pilot and begins the procedures necessary to recover him. Overcome with joy, the pilot breathes in a great sigh of relief as the harness is lowered to him from the hovering helicopter.

However, as fate would have it, upon entering the harness and being hoisted into the air, the helicopter is shot out of the sky by unseen enemies, and the pilot again finds himself being hurled to the ground followed by the burning debris of his would be rescuers. The pilot lands roughly on the ground and is in such a state of shock and disbelief, that he immediately suffers a heart attack and collapses onto the forest floor. For the final brief moments of his life, the pilot looks into the sky and curses his creator.