With the ever present threat of terrorist attacks, this applies to almost any emergency. Not just to earthquakes. Please read this and forward it to your children's teachers if nothing else.

EXTRACT FROM DOUG COPP'S  ARTICLE  ON THE "TRIANGLE OF  LIFE", Edited by Larry Linn for MAA Safety Committee brief on 4/13/04. My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the American Rescue Team International (ARTI), the world's most experienced rescue team. 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. In 1996 we made a film which proved my survival methodology to be correct. The Turkish Federal Government, City of Istanbul, University of Istanbul, Case Productions and ARTI cooperated to  film this practical, scientific test. We collapsed a school and a home with 20 mannequins inside.   Ten mannequins did "duck and cover," and ten mannequins I used in my "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 100percent survivability for people using my method of 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 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 inside crushes these objects, leaving a space or void next to them. This space is what I call the triangle of life". The larger the subject, 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. 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". 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 doesnt 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. 8) 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.

My heavens, this is the most logical thing I've ever heard.  My whole childhood was one long duck and cover.  

Quoted: My heavens, this is the most logical thing I've ever heard.  My whole childhood was one long duck and cover.

Arfcom strikes again.......

This is pretty cool info. Next to stop drop and roll, and look both ways before crossing the street, this is pretty high up there on the list of safety tips people should know.
Excellent read.

Guys this guy, Copp, has been outed as a major fraud.  Everything he says is a lie.

He actually bilked the 9/11 Fund out of 5 or 600,000 dollars.

He also claims to have invented a machine to detect dead bodies.


Alb. Journal 4 Part Investigation

Quoted: Guys this guy, Copp, has been outed as a major fraud.  Everything he says is a lie. He actually bilked the 9/11 Fund out of 5 or 600,000 dollars. He also claims to have invented a machine to detect dead bodies. Alb. Journal 4 Part Investigation

Interesting read.  I'm surprised he doesn't also claim to be ex-SF.

I wonder if any of what he is saying is true.

Quoted: Quoted: Guys this guy, Copp, has been outed as a major fraud.  Everything he says is a lie. He actually bilked the 9/11 Fund out of 5 or 600,000 dollars. He also claims to have invented a machine to detect dead bodies. Alb. Journal 4 Part Investigation Interesting read.  I'm surprised he doesn't also claim to be ex-SF. I wonder if any of what he is saying is true.

I severely doubt it.

He should be beaten to death by real rescue personnel.

Hmm interesting.  I started seeing a some red flags in his article there but wasn't sure what to think of it... it does seem logical to take cover next to sturdy objects.

Quoted: Alb. Journal 4 Part Investigation

Posing as one of the true heros.  Damn.

I think he posts here as LotBoy.

What he’s saying does make sense, though his assertion of a 100% survival rate is a tip-off that something’s amiss.

Like any con artist, he’s woven in enough factual or reasonable sounding info to make himself appear credible.

From the link posted by mcgrubbs:

… Copp spent only a few hours at the World Trade Center …, each time Copp … ventured to ground zero, Copp obtained videotape, which he sold to a television news show….

It was a pretty convincing read but how sleazy is this guy?

- BG

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Guys this guy, Copp, has been outed as a major fraud.  Everything he says is a lie. He actually bilked the 9/11 Fund out of 5 or 600,000 dollars. He also claims to have invented a machine to detect dead bodies. Alb. Journal 4 Part Investigation Interesting read.  I'm surprised he doesn't also claim to be ex-SF. I wonder if any of what he is saying is true. I severely doubt it. He should be beaten to death by real rescue personnel.

What a total fucking scumbag!!  

Ther was never an earthquake in Mexico, or anywhere else, where 70,000 people died.

I'll have to run this by some of my state firefighting instructors and see what is BS and what actually makes sense. I will say some of his info sounds sensible.

I will say his 100% guarantee claims are BS though, no doubt about that. Nothing is 100% always. Never. For instance, you might die while lying beside a sturdy table when a single block or brick comes falling down on your noggin, whereas that same piece of debris would not get you if you were UNDERNEATH that sturdy table. In earthquakes (in fact most) where complete collapse occurs is far less likely than just some random object falling over on you. Think of light fixtures, book shelves, entertainment centers, etc.

Think of some of the recent quakes we've seen in California. In those quakes, which situation did you see most often? A complete collapse of a building? Or was it mainly just various loose objects that tipped over during the shaking? In Pakistan or Iran where buildings are just cobbled together out of the local mud, such advice may be sound. But in well made American buildings, such complete collapses are far less likely. Your biggest danger here is simply some random falling debris, not whole buildings. Therefore getting underneath something sturdy and away from objects that are likely to tip over is sound advice.

If you are in a building (especially a large one) and that sumbitch comes down (think WTC), then you are at the mercy of that building. It's not going to make a whole helluva lot of difference where you get. I'm sure it would have made no difference in that particular example where you had gone...under a desk, beside the desk, whatever. When that came down, survival wasn't likely for anyone unlucky enough to remain inside.