Retired Navy SEAL Explains How to Prepare for Dangerous Situations | Tradecraft | WIRED

the last thing you want to do is make a decision in crisis but if you're paying attention to the environment you're in in a very methodical way you are undoubtedly ready to react in the way that you should and that you're trained your brain to that is the distinguishing difference between just observation and true situational awareness [Music] I'm Chloe Emerson retired Navy SEAL 21 years combat experience all over the globe and now at crisis management professional my years of service consisted of both SEAL Teams at the theater level and the national level I had the opportunity of working in Iraq Afghanistan in other parts of the globe I like to sometimes compare things to the jet birds of World War two where guys would go in small coalition forces if you will is an American a Brit and usually a Frenchman and they go in behind enemy lines and do sabotage and other things to try and defeat the Nazis so a modern-day version of that is probably a good explanation without actually telling you what's going on our brains rely on being challenged the benefits of just being situational where besides observing and making decisions based on what you're presented with is one way to exercise your mind and learn how to be more attentive how to pay attention to the small things you'll find that your memory starts to get a little bit better because you're doing it more often not just with the things you're paying attention to but remembering your grocery list all of a sudden becomes a little easier and you start noticing the little things about people and their mannerisms our pattern of life is really small it's home it's work into our favorite restaurant if you take the time to evaluate the routes in between and those establishments you've just reduced the number of things you have to pay attention to when something bad occurs let's look at situational awareness presented in the movie Bourne Identity I'm not making this up these are real no operative would store all his passports together in one big pile missus that's a little out there I can tell you the license-plate numbers of all six cars outside I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs 215 pounds and knows how to handle himself yeah I mean I would I would factor this more on the side of hyper-vigilance also pry in some aspects a little extraordinary most people aren't capable of that you know just from my observations there was four cars in the parking lot there wasn't a truck in the guy at the bar was not in that greatest shape but I think this clip is a great representation for situational awareness and kind of defining it it shows the capability of maybe a couple of people I know but good an average person trained to memorize and take in that much information and actually analyze it interpret it to a limited degree the more you do it the better you'll get at it just like with anything all right so imagine this is your house we're gonna go ahead and take a look at it from a safety and security point of view ideally in every home or every place you go or you spend time you designate a safe area for the families to consolidate in a time of an emergency and in this home for example the stairs are a great place it's centrally located the walls do not share any outside walls you could even put water food and other forms of communication in that spot you have windows all right as we know a natural disaster windows are bad but identifying your windows now you're seeing kind of a common thread of exit strategies we've got the main door here and then you've got really nothing down below that stands out if you need to exit we're gonna go out these windows and once we get done doing this we're gonna see pretty much where the homes dead ends are so if there's an emergency going to the back side back here this is probably no-go because there's no other way out into this master bedroom suite it looks like there's nothing there so you kind of get the point once you really start constant trading on your points of entry and then all of your windows now you know parts of your home that are kind of like off-limits when a crisis occurs the OODA loop or oo da is a tool you can use to help sift through the environments or in observation orientate yourself decide and then act one thing that happens in a crisis is your fine motor skills go out the window you have no time and you have high stress that is why it's so important to make your decisions a more clinical setting where I have plenty of time and you're running those scenarios and the more you do that the more you train your brain to come up with really good decisions because you're doing it while you're calm now if something happens all you're gonna do is act it out so let's say this is where I go to work every day so this is part of a multi-level building and we are not on the first floor we've got several elevator banks right here here here these elevator banks basically become useless and time of disaster they usually shut down immediately and you're forced to use stairs in an emergency we know that we're gonna probably concentrate our efforts of exit to these stairs especially if it's a fire most people don't know but most of your stairwells have their own HVAC and positive pressure systems so once you're in there it actually protects you from the bad air that may be going on here a secondary option we've got so many windows and in times of disaster you want to stay away from glass but if there was a fire you could probably get away with drilling a chair through the window and escaping that way if you're a reasonable distance up so I'd say safely if you're in reasonable shape could jump from three storeys and be okay heck you might break a leg but that's better than whatever the consequences are up here in this space it's also important to keep in mind that as it relates to fires a lot of trucks ladders only extend 120 feet max just good information to know in extreme situations I break down awareness and what I call total awareness into four big pieces and that's personal awareness cultural awareness third party awareness and then situational awareness the first one is personal awareness when we talk about threat reduction you have to know what you look like to others so the next piece is cultural awareness and that's really knowing the do's and don'ts of the geographical area that you're gonna be visiting so third party awareness is really just knowing that we have people all around us that can look at us judge us and potentially gonna find your vulnerabilities and exploit them in some varying form the last one is the big ones situational awareness cataloging the environment sifting through it and then confirming what's good and what's bad so now we're in a restaurant alright so we know that there are one two three four exit and entry points here I'm probably gonna come inside probably step to the left or step to the right but stay out of the way of that doorway the doorways are known as fatal funnels when I look at a crowd of people I wonder to myself all right if everyone was to get up right now and run out of here because of a natural disaster or whatever where would they all go the doorway that I'm standing there then as I get seated they walk us over and this is where we're gonna end up see immediately I'm gonna go ahead and go to the restroom mainly so that now I can identify is this a good route out is there any doors down here and then of course there's always the exit in the kitchen that you never see but it's always there as you come back out sit down I can cover at least here field of view and then here with the doors active shooters unfortunately our reality one of the things I promote the most as far as what you can kind of run through to keep it really simple it's run hide fight the run if you increase distance from the shooter then you increase survivability when you run ideally you want to run from cover to cover never follow the herd take a moment and see if you can truly identify the shooter so trust your eyes question your ears when it comes to gunshots now looking at exit strategies a majority of the people may run to the door that they came in that's gonna be natural instinct some are probably gonna head over to this fire raise it door and some are probably gonna go towards that patio door if it's a big slider and very few people are probably gonna go to the kitchen I'll be able to see what's coming at me and then be able to react accordingly using the kitchen door hi what would I hide behind it stops bullets ohh structural pillars a big planter that's out in front of my office vehicles you'll hear about people hiding in a closet or hiding in a bathroom if you're gonna hide in a dead end and make sure it's a room that has furniture and you can stack in front of that door and the proper way to barricade when you're hiding is to stack in front of the door all the way to the opposing wall now you're using the wall is the brace against the door and no one's gonna open it right off the bat I know that this bar is probably built pretty well so if you need to take cover you can cover back behind here and then if you roll into fight mode the utensils on your table salt and pepper burns the eyes you've got loose chairs everywhere that you could potentially throw at the guy anything you need to do to create pain or create distraction so that you can escape so then when we talk about the fight or the defend you've got to be far more aggressive than the person coming at you if you want to win so here we have a collection of objects that can be readily found around the globe so all of these can be used as self-defense tools and let's start with the roll of quarters roll of quarters and just by gripping it alone increases the density of your fist making it a little bit harder if you add it to a sock just by dropping it in there you've just created an improvised SAP a fist typically flies at roughly 25 miles an hour by adding your quarters to a SAP now you're increasing upwards to about 40 to 50 miles an hour eight ounce fishing weights we're putting in a handkerchief let gravity keep it in place and once again it's an improvised sap this one because it's got more weight than a roll of quarters you're increasing its velocity upwards to 55 60 miles an hour and that's just the average person books a couple of them will by themselves will stop most handgun rounds by adding ceramic tiles but ceramic does and what's unique to it is that it displaces the energy of the round as soon as it hits if you wanted to make some improvised body armor you could take two books and you can either throw in your tiles on the inside like so or you could throw them in between the two books like so all right the two books and adding ceramic tiles will stop most rounds regardless of whether it's handgun or rifle impact it'll displace it and very rarely will it penetrate through the second book if you've got that many tiles in place okay so that's improvised body armor so steel barrel pens are awesome a steel barrel pin acts as a great puncture tool alright so salt and pepper alright first and foremost this certainly is everywhere around the world salt and pepper both burned the eyes don't think for a second that you can't take a moment pull some out put it in your hands and use it to your advantage a newspaper nailed back so if you've got a newspaper that's you know it's a ten pages or more you spread it out just as I did as you can see it's a square and then the idea is to roll it as tight as possible then you fold it back on itself your best friend duct tape so the fold becomes hard as a rock up here at the end once again all of this is used to either defend yourself or create pain so that you can then escape and get away I believe awareness is 100% teachable if you're walking or driving that same route every day if you're sitting in the same office or cubicle every day then identifying these things really isn't a big deal applying the the situational awareness starts to fine-tune more of the human interaction it helps work the brain and give it something new to do and learn increase your cognitive levels your ability to retain information and then to be able to pull that information when you need it your gamifying it and while you're doing it you're actually you know increasing your safety and security you

Channel: WIRED

Views: 1,679,959

Rating: 4.9162188 out of 5

Keywords: spy, navy seal, retired navy seal, wired navy seal, how to prepare, situation, situational awareness, awareness, situational awareness wired, wired situational awareness, navy seal wired, clint emerson, clint emerson wired, situational awareness help, how to be aware, how to be aware of surroundings, being aware of surroundings, preparedness, being aware, preparedness wired, being aware of situations, navy seal explains, navy seal training, training navy seal, wired

Id: PO0IePSZW_s

Length: 13min 11sec (791 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 10 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/NSFWormholes]

I have a friend who's married to a SEAL and consequently friends with a number of them and their families. She says they're great at what they do, but fairly neurotic and hard to be with/around in real life. The psychological conditioning they go through takes its toll on "normal life", according to her.

[u/Cooknbikes]

Dope.

[u/Cooknbikes]

Hey buddy just chill out. Being dope is a good thing. Sheesh!

[u/defragon]

These seem like great steps to increase anxiety. If you want safety, you may want to consider moving to a country where you have a lower chance of getting shot.

[u/kalven]

Big hands.