How to react if you are in danger?

Question

In case I am ever kidnapped or my life is at risk, I'd like to know the best way to react to these things.

Please let me know how I can increase the likeliness of surviving if these things happened to me.

These are all hypothetical.

But what should you do in each of these situations?

1. Somebody ties you up and shoves you into the trunk of their car.

You don't have a cell phone or any device to contact other people.

2. Somebody breaks into your house and doesn't know you're in the house.

However, you cannot get out of the house without them noticing.

3. You've been taken captive and are stowed away at an unfamiliar place.

How do you contact police, and what do you tell them?

4. A man grabs you (a younger woman) and drags you into the forest to try to rape you.

Do you kick him between the knees and book it away from there?

Or will he be able to trace you down?

5. A violent gang surrounds you and says "Your money or your life!"

But you have no money.

Answer 1

Normal Human Response to Danger

When a person is exposed to severe stress, the body experiences a normal process referred to as Body Alarm Reaction, also called "Fight or Flight response".

The ONLY thing that can help overcome and improve this response is proper self defense training.

Common reactions are:

• Reduced hand-eye coordination

• Loss of manual dexterity and fine motor skills

• Loss of fine finger movements

• Panic and indecisive

• Complex training starts to breakdown

• Unreliable mental track - How many attackers?

• Tunnel vision - swivel head to compensate

• Auditory exclusion - unable to hear loud noises, shouts, etc...

• Muscle tightening - epinephrine (adrenaline) flooding

• Time and space distortion - slow motion

• Memory disturbance - out of sequence... black outs, size distortion

• How you will react depends on several things, the most important is proper training, and the second is practice.

Many self defense products are available to aid with your protection.

Lots of useful info. below (see link)

Answer 2

Honestly, I can't imagine who would do such things to people, but my best advise is - get a boyfriend. And spend time with him more than you do alone, by yourself.

I think 911 has gps tracker of somekind, I mean they can tell where the person is after receiving a call. So if you do call 911, and can't talk, just let the phone be on. If they disconnect, call again, the number will register and they'll send a patrol car... maybe I'm just into movies too much. =)

Let's see...if you are at home... I think one of the best things to do is to blast your stereo as loud as you can into the direction of someone who broke into your house. Neighbors will check what's going on, and call police because of loud music. You can also get attention by doing whatever is abnormal by the society rules. Just begin throwing glass outside of your window so people would react and again, they would call 911.

In general, if you are outside, try being in public places or near major roads. Cause if you walk onto a road full of cars, they'll all stop and you'll ask for help.

And be proactive - if you don't feel save somewhere, get your cellphone out, call someone who you know will answer and tell them where you are. You can also begin talking very loud to get attention of other people or scare the offender, say something like "Yeah, DAD, I'm coming, you know where I am, you can pick me up right now."

What I said about a boyfriend thing earlier, you can disregard it- just bring a male friend with you. Make sure you trust him and make sure he wouldn't run away, cause of being scared of his own shadow. Good luck and be safe.

Answer 3

Wow... interesting things to think about!

1. Not much you can do... Scream and kick or hit the the trunk door--- Maybe someone will hear you before he drives away, and they can call the police or something.

2. Call 911. Then grab something to use as a weapon for protection. Call a nearby friend/neighbor if you can, and they can maybe come ring your doorbell or something, to scare the burglar off. Stay out of sight, but not where you can be cornered. You probably shouldn't show too much bravado and try and capture the guy--- you never know what kind of weapon they might have, etc. (Or you could pull a "Home Alone" stunt and roll a threatening movie clip. ;) Or maybe not...)

3. Stay calm, play it cool. If you have a cellphone, call the police and tell them as much as you can, ie. where you were kidnapped, the approximate time it took place, how you were transported, kind of vehicle. Just as many details as you can. Then do your best to stay on the good side of your captors and hang tight for either the police, or an opportunity to escape.

6. Yeah. What you said. And scream. Loud. The main thing is to get away. If you have to relocate, get a security system, hang out in a different area, you can probably work it out somehow. Let the police know. Although they probably can't do anything because nothing actually happened, you can give them a description and they will have that on file in case the same person bothers you or somebody else. Maybe the guy is already a public offender. And you could tell a neighbor to let you know if they see the creep hanging around your home.

5. Not sure about this one... There's nothing to prevent them from harming you even if you did have money and gave it to them... Try buying yourself out with your jewlery?

Most of these you'd have to play by ear; it depends on where it takes place, the kind of person you're dealing with, your physical abilities, etc. That's my 2 cents, anyway. :)

Maybe you could buy one of those "Worst Case Scenario" survival books for more tips.