Spiritual Forum

The following message by Ronald D Smith (ron.smith@lacity.org) which includes an extract from Doug Copp's article 'Triangle of Life', was copied verbatim from a friend's forwarded email message. I posted this one to 'Spirituality in General' so that everyone will notice it, read it, and, in the event of an earthquake, wisely follow the advice given.

Where  to be during an earthquake - New  Information

Remember that stuff about hiding  under a table or standing in a
doorway??  Well,  this guy has a completely reverse opinion. This  is very interesting, and different from what we have been taught.

Please read this and pass the info along to your family members and friends; it could save their lives someday!

EXTRACT FROM DOUG COPP'S ARTICLE ON THE 'TRIANGLE OF LIFE'

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 many 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.

The first building  I ever crawled inside of was a school in Mexico City during the 1985 earthquake. Every child was  under its desk. Every child was 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.  They are everywhere. It is the most common shape, you  will see, in a collapsed building.

TIPS FOR  EARTHQUAKE SAFETY

1) Most everyone who simply  'ducks and covers' WHEN BUILDINGS COLLAPSE  are 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 less 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 stairs are not collapsed by the  earthquake, 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 Of 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 of their vehicles  are crushed when the road above falls in an earthquake and crushes their vehicles; which is exactly  what happened with the slabs between the decks of the Nimitz Freeway. The victims of the San Francisco  earthquake all stayed inside of their vehicles.. They  were all killed. They could have easily survived by  getting out and sitting or lying next to their  vehicles. Everyone killed would have survived if they  had been able to get out of their cars and sit or lie  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 of 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..... The Entire World is
experiencing  natural calamities so be prepared!

'We are but  angels with one wing, it takes two to fly'

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 ten mannequins I used in 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.'  This film has been seen by millions of viewers on  television in Turkey and the rest of Europe, and it was  seen in the USA, Canada and Latin America on the TV  program Real TV.


Ronald D  Smith
ron.smith@lacity. org

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