Written by

Craig Caudill

Knife Safety Considerations

Having a knife and knowing how to use it properly and safely, is of utmost importance in a survival situation as well as when practicing survival skills.  Due to this we thought it would be wise to offer some basic knife safety tips.

For most knives there are two main pieces that you need to be aware of at all times.  For simplicity sake and for a little humor lets call those two pieces the sharp-side and the pointy side. Keep both of those pointed away from all portions of your body (and other people) at all times and you should be just fine.

With that said, there are some tasks that will seem easier to do if you ignore those basic safety rules.   Please don’t make that mistake.  Having an open bleeding or puncture wound is a real problem in any situation, put particularly so in a survival situation.

With that said take the time to watch our youtube video on the subject to see some of these basics in play.  Please note how some of these mistakes are made and how we demonstrate a better method for each so that you can remain safe.

Also, please note that in a group setting it is best to come up with some way to notify other that you are about to use an edged weapon. In our day-one safety brief for our survival classes at Nature Reliance School we always tell our students that they must announce, “Tool in the air” and those around them will repeat “Tool in the air” at anytime that you utilize a knife.  While some may consider this overkill, we feel it is a necessary function when we have so many people working in close proximity with edged tools.

Craig Caudill, Director

Nature Reliance School