My
name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the American
Rescue Team International (ARTI), the world's most experienced rescue team. The
Information in this article will save lives in an earthquake.
I
have crawled inside 875 collapsed buildings, worked with rescue teams from 60
countries, founded rescue teams in several countries, and I am a member of
rescue teams from many countries. I was the United Nations expert in Disaster
Mitigation for two years. I have worked at every major disaster in the world
since 1985, except for simultaneous disasters.
In
1996 we made a film, which proved my survival methodology to be correct. The
Turkish Federal Government, City of Istanbul, University of Istanbul Case
Productions and ARTI cooperated to film this practical, scientific test. We
collapsed a school and a home with 20 mannequins inside. Ten mannequins did
“duck and cover,” and for ten mannequins I used my “triangle of life” survival
method. After the simulated earthquake collapse we crawled through the rubble
and entered the building to film and document the results. The film, in which I
practiced my survival techniques under directly observable, scientific
conditions, relevant to building collapse, showed there would have been zero
percent survival for those doing duck and cover. There would likely have been
100 percent survivability for people using my method of the “triangle of life.”
Millions of viewers on television in Turkey and the rest of Europe have seen
this film. It was seen in the USA, Canada and Latin America on the TV program
Real TV.
The
first building I ever crawled inside of was a school in Mexico City during the
1985 earthquake. Children were under their desks. Children were crushed to the
thickness of their bones. They could have survived by lying down next to their
desks in the aisles. It was obscene, unnecessary and I wondered why the
children were not in the aisles. I didn't at the time know that the children
were told to hide under something. Simply stated, when buildings collapse, the
weight of the ceilings falling upon the objects or furniture inside crushes
these objects, leaving a space or void next to them. This space is what I call
the “triangle of life”. The larger the object, the stronger, the less it will
compact. The less the object compacts, the larger the void, the greater the
probability that the person who is using this void for safety will not be
injured. The next time you watch collapsed buildings, on television, count the
“triangles” you see formed. It is the most common shape, you will see, in a
collapsed building. They are everywhere.
1)
Most everyone who simply “ducks and covers” is crushed to death. People who get
under objects, like desks or cars, are crushed.
2)
Cats, dogs and babies often naturally curl up in the fetal position. You should
too in an earthquake. It is a natural safety/survival instinct. You can survive
in a smaller void. Get next to an object, next to a sofa, next to a large bulky
object that will compress slightly but leave a void next to it.
3)
Wooden buildings are the safest type of construction to be in during an
earthquake. Wood is flexible and moves with the force of the earthquake. If the
wooden building does collapse, large survival voids are created. Also, the
wooden building has less concentrated, crushing weight. Brick buildings will
break into individual bricks. Bricks will cause many injuries but fewer
squashed bodies than concrete slabs.
4) If
you are in bed during the night and an earthquake occurs, simply roll off the
bed. A safe void will exist around the bed. Hotels can achieve a much greater
survival rate in earthquakes, simply by posting a sign on the back of the door
of every room telling occupants to lie down on the floor, next to the bottom of
the bed during an earthquake.
5) If
an earthquake happens and you cannot easily escape by getting out the door or
window, then lie down and curl up in the fetal position next to a sofa, or
large chair.
6)
Most everyone who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is killed. How?
If you stand under a doorway and the doorjamb falls forward or backward you
will be crushed by the ceiling above. If the door jam falls sideways you will
be cut in half by the doorway. In either case, you will be killed!
7)
Never go to the stairs. The stairs have a different “moment of frequency” (they
swing separately from the main part of the building). The stairs and remainder
of the building continuously bump into each other until structural failure of
the stairs takes place. The people who get on stairs before they fail are
chopped up by the stair treads -horribly mutilated. Even if the building
doesn't collapse, stay away from the stairs. The stairs are a likely part of
the building to be damaged. Even if the earthquake does not collapse the
stairs, they may collapse later when overloaded by fleeing people. They should
always be checked for safety, even when the rest of the building is not
damaged.
8)
Get near the outer walls of buildings or outside them if possible - It is much
better to be near the outside of the building rather than the interior. The
farther inside you are from the outside perimeter of the building the greater
the probability that your escape route will be blocked;
9) People inside their vehicles are
crushed if there is a road above that falls in an earthquake and crushes their
vehicles; this is exactly what happened with the slabs between the decks of the
Nimitz Freeway. The victims of the San Francisco earthquake all stayed inside
their vehicles. Everyone killed would have survived if they had only exited
their cars and sat or lain next to them. All the crushed cars had voids 3 feet
high next to them, except for the cars that had columns fall directly across
them.
10) I
discovered, while crawling inside collapsed newspaper offices and other offices
with a lot of paper, that paper does not compact. Large voids are found
surrounding stacks of paper.
Spread
the word and save someone’s’ life. Go to http://www.amerrescue.org/ for
more articles and information.