If You Spend Time Outdoors, You Should Carry a Whistle
Morgan Rogue 06.29.23
You either love whistles or hate them. When it comes to preppers, they don’t like anything that can make noise so they’ll usually tell you that whistles aren’t in their preps or plans at all.
However, we’re not talking about an end-of-the-world scenario here, we’re talking about the use of whistles in everyday life and emergencies.
An emergency whistle is one of the best ways to signal for help. It can be heard for long distances and you don’t exert a lot of energy to blow a whistle.
For adults and kids, carrying a whistle is one more way to signal for help. Yelling is always an option, but why yell when you can simply blow? Save your lungs! Not to mention, yelling may not travel as far as a whistle.
No matter how long your adventure is in the great outdoors, you should always have your whistle nearby. A whistle should be easily accessible on the outside of your pack, around your neck, strapped to your belt or even around your wrist. Wherever you have it, the key is to keep it easily accessible. If you happen to get hurt and need to use the whistle, it can quickly and easily be grabbed without having to dig into your pack or open up anything else in order to retrieve the whistle.
Teach yourself and your kids how to signal for help using the three-blast SOS.
Blow loud for 3 seconds
Pause for 4 seconds
Blow loud for 3 seconds
Pause for 4 seconds
Blow loud for 3 seconds
Pause for 30 seconds
Repeat as necessary.
This is a standard SOS signal for whistles, though I’m sure there are others, but this is universally recognized for the most part. So start teaching this method to everyone in your household/adventure group.
I have seen a lot of whistles (and gear in general) that are black, silver, green, etc. Green is my favorite color so I would always get everything in green. However, some things need to be in super bright neon colors so they can be seen better.
Let’s say you’re hiking by yourself, you trip and fall and hurt yourself, you can’t continue on. Your whistle was attached to your bag but it somehow flew off when you fell. It’ll be a lot easier to find in the dirt if it’s bright orange than if it was any other color. Even a reflective metal whistle can be difficult to see if there’s nothing to reflect off of it (shady forest floor, for instance).
Another reason to avoid metal would be in cold weather, the metal can be difficult to use in cold weather and in extreme cold would not be recommended as your skin (lips) can get stuck to the metal.
The biggest consideration when it comes to carrying a whistle is understanding that it should really only be used if you need to be rescued. Trying to use a whistle as a deterrent against animals is usually ineffective and not a good strategy.
I recommend the Titan Survival Emergency Whistle which gives you a two-pack for $21!
