Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why Paperback – October 17, 2004

You talk about somebody being on top of his game. You have probably had the feeling before like this reader that you go through a book and say to yourself, this author has poured himself into the book. That is what we have here. Gonzalez has had a life-time to think about the different types of survival situations he is covering in this narrative, and each one is a story of courage, sacrifice, and living against the odds. He has somehow managed to figure out highly plausible explanations as to why some survive catastrophic circumstances while others fold, and die. Oddly enough most of the time it is not about who is the strongest physically, but rather who has what it takes INSIDE. Those who display bravado, they die the quickest.This reader simply loved this book, having read it when it first came out and then more recently once again on a trip out west, I would find myself sitting with pens underlining key statements, writing in margins, transposing sentences onto blank sheets in the front and back of the book. Who does this kind of thing? What kind of book can have that kind of effect on a reader? DEEP SURVIVAL is that kind of book.This is truly usable information we are dealing with. Other reviewers have done an excellent job of pointing out the assets and difficulties the book has. It is perhaps at this point more appropriate to point out some of the concepts you will learn by spending a few hours going through this book. It will dramatically change the way you look at your world around you, and perhaps if you discuss it with someone close to you, just might just save a life.The HIGHLIGHTS:* Gonzales talks about flying across the Pacific on vacation, stepping off a plane in Hawaii, and a few hours later putting on his bathing suit and going down to the beach for a swim whereupon he encounters a lifeguard and casually queries him, "Where do you think I should go for a swim today."Expecting a quick one or two sentence reply, he is astounded when the life guard gets down off his viewing post, and quietly spends several minutes looking at the water before replying. The guard then describes to the new vacationer in detail exactly the dangers that waiting for him in different sections of the visible water.To Gonzales it is obvious had he just gone casually into the water, he would have very easily wound him drowning. This leads us to the much bigger issue of how many people throughout the world would have just entered those waters with no awareness of the danger and then found themselves in trouble when it was too late to extricate themselves from danger. This whole concept is explored on page 130 of the book.* The dangers of mountain climbing and skiing are explored in detail. The author teaches you to have a new mindset when you enter the domain of the mountains. An amazing story is conveyed to the reader how people are trapped on a mountain, lifesavers from the ski patrol go up the trails, and successfully save those trapped. After it is all over, the lifesavers themselves then proceed to spirit their snowmobiles up and down the mountain to have a little fun after having been forewarned about the possibility of avalanches in this area, and then find themselves creating the very avalanche they were warned about.Several are killed instantly. How can this be? How can professionals totally aware of risk, trained to analyze and attempt to keep the odds on their side wind up killing themselves in the very environment that they are experts in? The answers are astounding, and there are lessons for each of us, if our minds are open to learning.* It is every parent's nightmare that their child gets lost, and Gonzales thoroughly covers this topic beginning on page 170. Years ago, I spent a week at the Squaw Valley Ski Resort. While traveling up the mountain with my daughter and a very experienced ski instructor, we met a young fellow about 8 years old traveling up the mountain alone. He was a member of a group that lives in the valley and has been trained in the ways of the mountain by professionals at Squaw that teach local children just this sort of activity. The ski instructor was completely comfortable with that boy going up alone. Now having been caught on two different mountains in a blizzard at Lake Tahoe over a ten year period, I simply could not believe it.Gonzalez explains in the book that people think because they are ensconced in a 50 million dollar set of buildings at the foot of a 21st century ski resort that somehow mother nature has been tamed. Man now rules the mountain - SURE. In this book you will learn why children 6 years and under have a much greater chance of survival and being found alive in a wilderness setting, than children 7 to 12 years of age. The evidence is in, the theories of why this is so are now known, and the information is available for our use in protecting our families. The author continues to both impress us, and educate us on topics that we really know nothing about, but think we know everything.* There is a direct correlation between the number of visitors to areas of danger such as the beaches in Hawaii, and mountain visitors and the number who disappear and die. The more visitors the more problems. This led the author to conclude that death in environments like this is a natural occurrence simply subject to ratios of the number of people involved. He also points out that these events like shark attacks are under-reported. As an example the number of people getting killed or bitten by sharks in Australia is much greater than what you read in newspapers. If you want to discourage tourism, just keep reporting high incidences of shark attacks. It makes sense, doesn't it?* For years we have all watched movies and television shows where actors do all kinds of stupid things that we say, no one would do that in real life. An example would be in a shootout, instead of protecting your body by shielding it behind something, you step out with your gun completely exposing your body and shoot from an exposed position. Sounds ludicrous, doesn't it? The author explains that people really do incredibly stupid things in survival situations, like take off their backpack and leaving it, or their jacket because they are feeling warm for the moment.There is an entire psychology and branch of survival thinking that explains this kind of behavior. Perhaps the best defense against acting this way is to understand deeply, the intuitive reflexes that guide this kind of behavior. The author is a master at conveying to us what we need to know to prevent falling into these cognitive traps.CONCLUSION:This book is fantastic and this reader does not expect to ever read anything as good as this book on this topic again. Very shortly after its publication, the author wrote another book on this very same topic. The first half of the sequel was once again excellent. The second half however meandered completely off topic, which leads this reader to believe that sometimes an author has just one great book in him. Once it gets written, the author seeks to capitalize on the success of his earlier works by writing another book.One last thought. You will remember a number of years back, a group of pros getting caught in a blizzard climbing Mount Everest. Several of them died on the mountain during that event. It is one of the worst catastrophes to hit Everest in years. Prior to climbing the mountain one of the guides with an international reputation who was killed during the storm told one of the group that was going to climb with him, "Don't worry about Everest, we have been climbing this mountain for so long, we have it WIRED." It's that type of thinking which is illustrated throughout this book that gets you into trouble very quickly in a hostile natural environment. If there is one book you want to read on survival and give to members of your family, then Deep Survival is it. Go for it, and thank you for reading this review.Richard Stoyeck

I know it's a cliche to say a book changed my life, but... this book changed my life.

We all know, even in relatively calm times, that many big life decisions - an investment choice, a major purchase, a love interest - are often emotionally made and later (maybe) intellectually justified.But it's when life is on the line that emotions can truly trump intellect: the amygdala detects danger; the adrenal glands kick in; catecholamines constrict blood vessels and affect the firing of nerve cells; the adrenal cortex releases cortisol, invading the hippocampus, amping up fear and affecting the memory system; heart rate rises; breathing speeds up; sugar is dumped into the metabolic system; the oxygen and nutrients distribution shifts for immediate strength. You're on afterburner and all this occurs before you can even "think." In fact, the hormonal stress release interferes with the functioning of the neo-cortex itself.So a threshold question is why it is that evolution developed a system that seems to work against us at the time of our greatest need. The answer is that evolution e.g. freeze-fight--flight, is all about the propagation of the species over the many millennia. In comparison, we've been landing jet fighters on aircraft decks for a relative blink of the eye. We must accommodate to evolution, not the other way around.Otherwise, you die. It's not personal. The given analogy is that of the relationship between the jockey - the rational, logical, controlling part that is the brain - and the thoroughbred horse - the powerful, wild, and barely containable emotional energy that resides within us all. The two are precisely aligned in the case of the blissful horse run. Deep Survival is all about what can happen to us when they are not.It can start even with the decision to undertake the risk in the first place. A snowmobiler takes a run up a slope that any rational analysis would conclude is an invitation to an avalanche. The risk is overshadowed by an emotional "book-marking" that recalls some previous wonderful experience. The results of such somatic markers can range from the mildly embarrassing (oh, so that's what drives the middle-aged man with a bad comb-over to hit on the Hotties) to the fatal, as in this case.So many accidents, so little time: rafting; flying; climbing; adrift at sea; even a walk in the woods. The very term adventure, almost by definition, suggests danger, voluntarily faced. The activities cited in the book range in risk from the barely foreseeable to the patently suicidal.We undoubtedly have our own stories. My own story involved an advertised CMC-sponsored intermediate, non-technical climb up Pyramid Peak (Maroon Bells, Aspen) many years ago. A dense fog, a lost leader, and a forced climb to the summit turned the expedition - then becoming one of unassisted rock chimney assaults; facial injuries from falling stones - into what seemed to be the Bataan Death March. Almost everything described in Deep Survival was on display that day.Supplementing our own experiences and those depicted in the book is an optional non-fiction River of Doubt, describing Teddy Roosevelt's 1914 post-Presidency exploration of an undiscovered tributary of the Amazon. The number and the magnitude of the perils faced by that party defies description here but try this on for a "taste": provisions were gone; the starving men were reduced to dynamiting the river to stun piranha; one man collecting fish held another in his mouth; stunned fish comes to and bites off man's tongue.When, then, if ever, is the beam-me-up moment? Deep Survival invokes the words of Joseph Conrad in Lord Jim, "these elementary furies . . coming at him with a purpose of malice . . . which means to sweep the whole precious world utterly away from his sight by the simple and appalling fact of taking his life." We know, of course, that on a long enough time line the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. And, the case is made, one can evaluate a well-lived life only in the context of the death. You will bear witness in both Deep Survival and River of Doubt to an astounding resolve to keep zero-hour at bay. Of course, we have the accounts only of the survivors.Another fascinating discussion angle might address the extrapolation of the deep survival phenomenon from that of the individual to something greater, to a nation even. The entire puzzle of how Germany - the land of deep thinkers and poets - could have been seduced into the madness that was to become The Third Reich might be answered by viewing the aggregate population from a fear-based perspective. Even the armchair historian knows of the rampant inflation, crime, and post-Versailles shame that preceded this parade-of-horribles. Maybe the whole story is simply one of collectively-fired amygdalae.

Gonzales, L. (2017). Deep survival: Who lives, who dies, and why: true stories of miraculous endurance and sudden death. W.W. Norton & Company.Laurence Gonzales is the author of numerous books.Gonzales explored a number of "accidents" from flying, boats, diving, climbing, hiking, etc. to learn what distinguished those who survived versus those who died. Through storytelling connected to interdisciplinary research (e.g., brain science, psychology), Gonzales creatively tells stories to identify actions survivors do in advance of an activity and after an accident. In advance, survivors: (1) Perceive, believe, then act. As the environment changes, what you need is versatility, the ability to perceive what's really happening and adapt to it (2) STOP thinking: Stop, Think, Observe, Plan; (3) Avoid impulsive behavior; (4) Know their stuff; (5) Ask questions; (6) Listen, observe from accidents; (7) Adopt humility and maintenance of a positive attitude. These qualities in general, support a person's calibration once an accident occurs where survivors: (a) Perceive, believe (look, see, believe); (b) Stay calm - use humor; (c) Think/Analyze/Plan (get organize; set up small, manageable tasks); (d) Take correct, decisive action; (e) Take joy in completing tasks; (f) Count blessings; (g) Play - sing, play mind games, recite poetry, count anything, do mathematical problems in their head; (h) See beauty; (i) Believe that they will succeed; (j) Let go of the fear of dying; (k) Do whatever is necessary; (l) Never give up.This would be a super book for those interested in organizational change, why things fail, and leadership.