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Topic: Triangle of Life (Read 201 times)

Pau
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Triangle of Life
« on: Oct 11^th, 2004, 8:34pm »

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Last Friday, the Philippines being within the "Ring of Fire" in the Pacific region, has encountered a strong quake. 6.4 in the Richter scale with it center deep in the South China Sea 150 km south of Manila... well I felt that quake last Friday where we in Manila felt intensity 4 and fortunately no major damage or injury was caused... so I just thought of sharing this, in case another quake occurs... Cheesy

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My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the American Rescue Team International (ARTI). 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 (UNX051 -UNIENET) 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 their 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) 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.

TIPS DOUG COPP PROVIDES:

1) Everyone who simply "ducks and covers" WHEN BUILDINGS COLLAPSE is crushed to death -- Every time, without exception. People who get under objects, like desks or cars, are always crushed.

2) Cats, dogs and babies all naturally often 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.
The reason is simple: the 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 while you are watching television 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) Everybody 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. They are 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 screaming, fleeing people. They should always be checked for safety, even when the rest of the building is not damaged.

Cool

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, says the author. 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.

In 1996 we filmed (with the Turkish Federal Government, City of Istanbul, University of Istanbul, Case Productions and ARTI cooperated) a practical scientific test. We collapsed a school and a home with 20 mannequins inside. Ten mannequins did "duck and cover," and ten mannequins used "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 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. 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. They are everywhere. I trained the Fire Department of Trujillo (population 750,000) in how to survive, take care of their families, and to rescue others in earthquakes. The chief of rescue in the Trujillo Fire Department is a professor at Trujillo University. He accompanied me everywhere. He gave personal testimony:

"My name is Roberto Rosales. I am Chief of Rescue in Trujillo. When I was 11 years old, I was trapped inside of a collapsed building. My entrapment occurred during the earthquake of 1972 that killed 70,000 people. I survived in the "triangle of life" that existed next to my brother's motorcycle. My friends who got under the bed and under desks were crushed to death [he gives more details, names, addresses etc.]...I am the living example of the "triangle of life". My dead friends are the example of "duck and cover".

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JP
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Re: Triangle of Life
« Reply #1 on: Oct 15^th, 2004, 4:58pm »

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I got this from my email yesterday.

http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/triangle.asp

Origins: We can't say that every single point mentioned in the above article about earthquake safety by controversial "rescue expert" Doug Copp is wrong or bad advice, but there are some pretty substantial reasons why readers might want to take the article (particularly its advice that everyone who uses the "duck and cover" technique in an earthquake ends up crushed to death) with some very large grains of salt:
Disaster preparedness experts with the American Red Cross dispute that findings based on earthquake experiences in other countries (e.g., Turkey) are applicable to the U.S., where building codes are substantially different.

The scientific validity of the conclusions expressed in the article has been questioned by others.

Doug Copp's claim that he performed rescue work at the World Trade Center (for which he was paid $650,000 in compensation for injuries he supposedly sustained there) has been challenged in a series of articles published in the Albuquerque Journal which describe him as a self-serving opportunist rather than a true rescue expert:
Self-proclaimed rescue guru Doug Copp's mission to ground zero was considered so important that he had clearance to be flown to New York even though all civilian air traffic in the United States had been grounded. Once there, he says he assumed a pivotal role and sustained devastating injuries while wading through the "toxic soup" in search of survivors and victims, and was awarded nearly $650,000 for his injuries. But there is little evidence Copp performed real rescue work, and it is doubtful that he deserves compensation.

Doug Copp was awarded $649,000, tax free, from the fund set up to compensate victims of 9/11. He says it's not enough. But it's doubtful he deserves anything. A Journal investigation found little evidence that Copp did real rescue work in New York. His forays into the rubble were to shoot video, some of which he tried to sell. His claim of seeking medical care within the time frame appears false. All typical of Copp's years as a self-proclaimed rescue guru.
Other articles have relayed complaints from numerous people who have dealt with Mr. Copp.

Mr. Copp is under investigation by a U.S. Department of Justice fraud unit.
We'd recommend sticking with safety information prepared by established earthquake safety experts, such as the American Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Last updated: 15 September 2004

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Rhune
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Re: Triangle of Life
« Reply #2 on: Oct 15^th, 2004, 7:43pm »

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Interesting stuff, both articles...

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Pocket
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Re: Triangle of Life
« Reply #3 on: Oct 16^th, 2004, 10:15am »

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I read them both. It takes a little common sense, IMO. Don't shelter under something that isn't strong enough to stay intact. If that's your only choice then possibly the triangle theory would work. There's a lot of debris that falls in a bad earthquake, and even lightweight debris could harm or kill. We've all seen the films of earthquakes, where bottles, light fixtures, anything on shelves falls--gets actually THROWN-- with a little shake. What about being in one of those large warehouses or warehouse stores with high shelving holding all manner of heavy items? What method would save you? I've felt small quakes, and I hope I never have to experience a bad quake.

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Pau
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Re: Triangle of Life
« Reply #4 on: Oct 18^th, 2004, 6:30pm »

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me too.. I haven't felt a very bad quake in my entire life except maybe in 1988 when an intensity 4 quake occurred here in Manila and that quake a few weeks back...

... what I'm sad not to have felt was the strongest quake felt here in contemporary times.. last July 16, 2000, the Philppines felt one of its strongest quake.. a intensity 7.2 quake shook and toppled buildings on Baguio City, a mountain city north of Manila... it was so strong according to most that classes was halted for a week to beware of aftershock... well.. during that time I was asleep...I took a nap 15 minutes before the quake... boy am I too lazy that day I didn't feel a shake even though I was bouncing on my bed.... Undecided

and woke up 3 hours after it.... Grin

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JP
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Re: Triangle of Life
« Reply #5 on: Oct 19^th, 2004, 9:59am »

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Pau! You lucky *&%$. Grin

We were in school that time, and our school was on a hill, so imagine the terror of my classmates when the earth shook. Not me though. I was too young (naive?) to worry about earthquakes.

I don't remember the 1988 earthquake.

I think some of the methods in Triangle of Life make sense, like lying beside/infront the sofa in case of an earthquake, but that would only work if a solid, flat wall will fall, not pieces of bricks or broken cement.

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Rhune
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Re: Triangle of Life
« Reply #6 on: Oct 19^th, 2004, 2:07pm »

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Nod, some of what he's saying is pretty logical, even if he's a self serving jerk.

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lakelady
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Re: Triangle of Life
« Reply #7 on: Oct 19^th, 2004, 2:26pm »

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Yes, good reads. I was in a 5.8 in San Francisco in 1980. But thankfully here in the south we RARELY have them.

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Pau
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Re: Triangle of Life
« Reply #8 on: Oct 19^th, 2004, 7:36pm »

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LL you're in a very safe place... away from San Andreas fault and far from California... hehehe....

I remember that strong quake in San Francisco that part of Bay Bridge (am I right) collapsed... that's terrible...

well.. I guess.. he posed good points by staying near fixtures and furnitures... just pray that the wooden furniture you lie beside won't crack and won't stab you.... Grin

and I think that staying near paper stacks is also good just as long as the paper won't bury you... Grin

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Rhune
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Re: Triangle of Life
« Reply #9 on: Oct 19^th, 2004, 7:38pm »

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Speaking of utilities, here's a fun little thing that I used to have on my desktop. It's a desktop image of the earth and you can adjust to your specific coordinates and each time there is an earthquake it updates on the map telling you where and how strong, etc.

http://www.hewgill.com/xearth/

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