search & rescue

training & operations

Search and rescue operations can be classified into four - swift water, still water, low angle, and high angle. Survival instincts provides these services in all terrains including subterranean cave rescue, marine rescues, underwater rescues, wilderness rescues and urban search & rescues. Survival Instincts professionals are specifically trained for these operations based on US National Search and Rescue Association (NASAR) and Civil Air Patrol, the search and rescue auxiliary of the US Air Force. Our operatives will hold, at a minimum, SARTECH II level certification from NASAR, Emergency Responder Certification from the American Red Cross, and a 2nd Lieutenant Rank in the Civil Air Patrol.

military and special forces

warfare tactics & doctrines

Survival Instincts offers six (6) different training programs for military and paramilitary organizations. Classroom settings can be used to train smaller infantry or marine groups like fire teams, squads, platoons, upto larger groups like companies. Optimally battlefield formations like Battallions, Brigades and Regiments must be trained in smaller groups for delivery effectiveness. Combat shooting and tactics (CSAT) involves basic battlefield insertion, operations, recon, extrication maneuvers with two or three weapon configurations for the combatant - assault rifle or carbine, handgun, and the combat knife or bayonet. Search and rescue (SAR) involve operations, victim management, advanced rope rappelling, structural collapse, confined space, trench excavation rescue, vehicle and machinery rescue, and K9 (canine) operations. Advanced operations and tactics (AOT) involve advanced weaponry, armor, explosives handling, 1000+ metre sniper operations, cyber counter operations, armored vehicles, advanced breach, HALO/HAHO jumps, hostage negotiations, and microsurgical battles. Survival evasion resistance and escape (SERE) trainings involves sustaining life and gear in hostile environments, camouflaging and covering from capture, resistance and maintenance of sensitive invasion under extreme interrogation procedures, and tactics that can be employed to escape from captivity. Close quarter combat (CQC) training enables operators to counter assailants in short-range spaces (like in urban buildings). Choice of non-penetrative (hollow point cartridges) ammunition, diversionary devices, covert communications, weapon priority, weapon retention, weapon transition, and threat subduing (as opposed to threat neutralization) are the focus of these operations, that are otherwise called Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) operations. Combat casualty care (CCC) trainings focuses on how a non-medical operator can sustain life (of self or a team member) under hostility in a battlefield. Most common combat injuries are all addresses through specialized primary medical intervention, medevac, and definitive care phases.

Self Defense

trainings & simulations

Can a 4'11" 40 Kg woman escape from a violent aggressive 6'4" 120 Kg criminal? That is the focus of EVADE (Extreme Violence & Aggression - Defense & Escape™) self-defense program for women. Take a class and find out for yourself, how you can gain the skills and confidence to deal with violent crimes and aggressive criminals. There are primarily three steps to be safe from crime - Disengage, Counter-act, Escape. These three steps can be learned in our self-defense class within 8 hours. Sounds too good to be true? Read on and judge for yourself. Many ladies consider self-defense a complicated training process. This misconception comes from confusion between 'self defense' and 'martial arts'. Self-defense is about ensuring your safety quickly. Martial arts is about applying combat techniques to dominate your opponent. Many martial art instructors claim to be teaching self-defense, when in fact they are teaching combat. This confuses discourages someone who wants to join a genuine self-defense program. To ensure your safety, do you have to dominate your opponent? Or can you merely distract or disable him, so you have the chance to escape? Learning to distract or disable someone takes just a few hours. Learning to dominate someone takes years. Our self-defense classes wont teach you to win a fight. It won’t teach you fancy kicks, violent punches and complicated maneuvers. It will only teach you, when attacked, to create an escape route to safety - thus protecting your mind, body and self-respect.

Police

law enforcement trainings

In many ways, law enforcement operations have less room for error than military operations. In a battlefield, if a military operator encounters an armed combatant (who is not identified as friendly), very few post operational scrutinies will be conducted in the even that the operator preemptively escalated a force response that results in fatal or non-fatal injuries to the combatant. The legal standards for Geneva convention is very lax to be applied stringently on this conduct. However, law enforcement operators who operate on stateside streets, are held to the standards of local, state and national laws that afford much higher protection to civilians. A law enforcement officer who escalates force, without justified and proveable danger to self or others, will go through several scrutinies including internal affairs, civic governmental agencies and human rights NGOs. Law enforcement training focuses on these circumstances, than merely on force escalation. A few years ago the focus of law enforcement SWAT teams was to achieve dynamic entry - and the tactical axiom was surprise, swift & violence of action. However, the fury over the unjustified killing of EMT Breonna Tayler forced all law enforcement operations to reevaluate this axiom. Speed while helpful can be extremely dangerous. There is very little room for error due to the short span in which things can go wrong. The focus of SWAT operations have now moved from dynamic entry to deliberate movement to avoid dangers of speedy actions that result in deaths of bystanders, operators, first responders and suspects. In this mode, the axiom is the OODA loop - Observe, Orient, Decision & Action. If speed compromises the OODA loop of the operator, then speed as a tactic is dangerous. Survival Instincts law enforcement focuses on sharpening the OODA loop of the operator and there by achieving the right balance between force and precautions - maximizing the safety of civilians and officers, and minimizing the possibility of operational outcomes that result in the unfortunate and deeply saddening outcomes as in the case of Ms.Taylor at the hands of Louisville police officers.

wilderness survival

adventures, trekking & camping

Survival Instincts holds trekking expeditions on a monthly basis and wilderness camps every quarter. Each of these experiences are meant to hone leadership skills in young students and professionals, in the context of wilderness survival. Participants go through standard psychological priorities of survival such as positive mental attitudes, perseverance, decision making, and judgment. Simulated exercises are held in areas of first aid, shelter building, fire craft, hydration, nutrition, hazard / unplanned / weather events, radio communications, map reading & terrain awareness, signaling, and navigation. Participants of our expeditions have gone on to successful positions in UPSC, Corporate Enterprises, National and International Sporting events, and the movie industry.

medical emergencies

life support training

Survival instincts provides medical training programs at 4 levels. At the initial level we provide American Red Cross certified First Aid and CPR. At the next level we provide American Red Cross certified Emergency Medical Responder training meant to first responders, law enforcement, fire & rescue services. At the advanced level we provide Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) trainings that enables the students to successfully execute Basic Life Support (BLS) interventions such as nasal / oropharyngeal airways, Positive Pressure Ventilation (PPV) using bag valve masks (BVM), oxygen augmentation, SPO2 assessment using pulse oximeters, capnography using portable respiratory monitors, circulation and blood pressure monitoring, CPR monitoring optimal defibrillation, pacing, electrode placements for common defibrillators, ambulatory temperature management, automatic portable ventilators, automated CPR using Auto pulse, bleeding management, non-invasive intrathoracic pressure regulation devices, perfusion enhancing devices, and active compression decompression CPR devices (ACD-CPR). The most advanced level is paramedic and nurse practitioner trainings. The training at this level is very rigorous as it involves advanced life support (ALS) – the procedures involve invasive interventions like medications, advanced intubation, IV administrations. The training will also have leadership component in the curriculum and stress management under crisis.

social issues

awareness, advocacy & action

Right of expression, right to assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, democracy, human rights, dignity and respect for life, and transparent fair judicial systems – are corner stones of a human society. Unfortunately, not all countries, regimes, and political systems are conducive to these liberties. Authoritarian regimes, war lords, and extremist groups around the world engage in crimes against women, genocide, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. Article 2 of the 1948 Convention defines genocide as any act committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines , ‘crime against humanity’ as any act when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack: Murder; Extermination; Enslavement; Deportation or forcible transfer of population; Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law; Torture; Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity; Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court; Enforced disappearance of persons; The crime of apartheid; Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health. ‘Attack directed against any civilian population’ means a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack; A United Nations Commission of Experts mandated to look into violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia defined ethnic cleansing in its interim report S/25274 as "… rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area." In its final report S/1994/674, the same Commission described ethnic cleansing as “… a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.” Survival Instincts has many campaigns, conventions and rallies to raise awareness of these issues and to crowdsource support to protest against programs.