Surviving Disaster

The Disaster Diaries by Sham Sheridan explores how he learned to stop worrying and love the apocalypse.  Sam Sheridan has traveled the world as an amateur boxer and mixed martial arts fighter; he has worked as an EMT, a wilderness firefighter, a sailor, a cowboy at the largest ranch in Montana, and in construction under brutal conditions at the South Pole.  If he isn’t ready for the apocalypse and the fractured world that will ensue, we are all in a lot of trouble.  And yet, despite an arsenal of skills that puts many to shame, when Sam became a father he was beset with nightmares about being unable to protect this son.

With disaster images from movies, books, and the nightly news filling his head, he was slowly driven to distraction:  If an earthquake hit tomorrow and the power grid went down, how much food and water would you need for your family?  If you’re forced outside the city limits, what would it take to survive in the wilderness?  And let’s not even talk about plagues, zombie hordes, and attacking aliens.  Unable to quiet his mind, Sam sets on a quest to learn the things that just might come in handy if our world takes a turn for the worse.

The problem is that each possible doomsday requires a different skill set.  Trying to navigate a clogged highway when everyone has the same bright idea to leave town?  Better prepare by attending the best stunt driving school in the country.  Need to protect your family but have run out of ammunition?  Better learn how to handle a knife.  Is your kid hurt or showing signs of serious mental stain?  Better brush up on emergency medicine and study the psychological effects of trauma.  From training with an Olympic weightlifter to a down-and-dirty apprenticeship in stealing cars with an ex-gang member, from an intense three-week-long gun course in the hundred-degree heat of Alabama to agonizing lessons in wilderness survival, Sam leaves no stone unturned.  Would it be enough if a meteor rocked the earth? Who’s to say?  But as Sam points out, it would be a shame to survive the initial impact only to die a few days later because you didn’t know how to build a fire.