There are really only five disaster scenarios. Prepare for these, and you will be ready for anything.

The long drag
In some mountaineering clubs, it is considered rude to address senior climbers until you have crawled back to base camp on two broken legs with only a Sherpa’s collarbone for an ice axe. Also known as “doing a Joe Simpson”.
Example: Amy Racina was hiking in Kings Canyon National Park, California, in 2003, when the ground collapsed and she plummeted 60ft. She survived, but with her legs broken and her hip smashed. For four days she dragged herself through the wilderness, refusing to give up, before hikers heard her shouts.

Penknife surgery
When Pen Hadow packs a Biro, he isn’t thinking of postcards. He’s preparing for a tracheotomy. Whatever the operation — removal of limbs, restarting hearts, or perhaps just widening a recalcitrant urethra — there’s always a suitable backpack implement.
Example: As an anaesthetist, William Jeracki was used to operations. But he didn’t expect to apply his experience on a fishing trip. Sitting by a Colorado creek in 1993, he dislodged a boulder — and it fell, crushing his leg. Trapped, and knowing a snowstorm was coming, he made a fishing-line tourniquet and whipped out his penknife — for a quick wilderness amputation that probably saved his life.

Bush platter
“When in a survival situation,” as a suspiciously well-fed Ray Mears would say, never underestimate the importance of decapitating small local mammals and eating their raw intestines.
Example: The Marathon des Sables is a six-day, 243km (151-mile) race across the Sahara. It tests the hardiest of athletes. So when, in 1994, Mauro Prosperi got lost in a sand storm, he was already dehydrated. After three more days without water, he found two bats hiding in a deserted building. A quick twist of the neck, a deep glug of blood and he was able to last another five days — before being rescued by tribesmen.

Benevolent wildlife
The deus ex machina of survival stories. Seven years old and lost in the jungle? Fear not: monkeys will bring you up. Drowning in the Indian Ocean, with the Jaws theme tune stuck in your head? Hitch a lift on a nearby dolphin. Stuck down an abandoned well? It’s Lassie time.
Example: In December 2007, Russian villagers found a boy — who they believed to be aged around 10 — living with a pack of wolves. He was intelligent, but unable to speak any language. He also snarled, bit and ran around on bent legs. Doctors surmised that he had been abandoned by his parents, and saved by the wolves, who raised him as their own.

Urine
Experienced explorers swear by it — Sir Ranulph Fiennes likes it with his morning coffee — and no survivalist should leave home without it. Thankfully, urine is a lot easier to remember than a compass. The bladder is nature’s waterbottle.
Example: Paul Beck’s hip was badly dislocated after a 1,000ft fall in the Picos de Europa in 2006. Scared of falling farther, the British hiker, above, decided to wait for rescue in a hollow in the cliff. He did not feel hungry, but it was sunny and he soon felt dehydrated. “I had to drink my own urine,” he said of his six-day ordeal. “It was salty and not nice.”