It’s impossible to know exactly how many disasters we have helped people survive since we first published the original Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook back in 1999. But eleven handbooks later, we’re confident that we’ve made people a little more prepared, and we know we’ve made the world at least a little safer.
The principle behind The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbooks remains a simple one: You just never know. You don’t know what curves life will throw at you, what is lurking around the corner, what is hovering above, or what is swimming beneath the surface. You never know when you will be thrust into a dangerous situation and need to act fast, either to save yourself or save someone you’re with.
When the time comes, we want you to know what to do, and that’s why we’ve written these books. We want you to know what to do when the pilot passes out and you have to land the plane, when a stampede of elephants is bearing down on you, when the piranhas are restless, and when the shark fin starts heading your way. We want you to know how to deliver a baby in a taxi, how to dislodge a tongue that’s been frozen to a lamppost, and how to extract your necktie from the document feeder. We want you to know how to get out of the blazing high-rise hotel and how to respond when you’ve woken up next to someone whose name you can’t remember. We want you to know what to do in these and hundreds of other threatening situations.
And so, after years of research and writing, after consulting with experts in scores of disciplines, we’ve compiled all our scenarios into this fat volume and accompanying CD. It’s more instructive than a first-aid handbook, more comprehensive than a military field manual, and more practical than a self-help book. The Complete Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook is the ultimate survival tool. So even though you still “just never know” what’s coming around the bend, with this handy resource, at least you’ll be prepared.
This printed volume includes selected scenarios from all eleven of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbooks, and the CD-ROM (that’s both Mac and PC compatible) includes all the scenarios from all the books. You’ll be prepared for things you never knew you had to worry about.
Because you just never know . . .
—The Authors