Blockbuster heroes manage to survive in any situation. Here are the 13 most common on-screen survival tips that don’t work in real life. More than that, they can do you a lot of harm!

We all want to be like superherous, and we believe using their survival lessons could help us, too. Don’t try to reproduce them on your own — the characters only stayed alive thanks to the director’s imagination.

TIMESTAMPS
Wearing cotton clothes 0:55
Throwing away your phone if it doesn’t pick up a signal 1:40
Getting down on the ground during a thunderstorm 2:35
Jumping from a speeding car 3:38
Finding directions using moss on trees 4:24
Eating snow to quench the thirst 5:19
Outrunning a wild animal 6:19
Raw meat can treat a black eye 8:05
Starting a fire in a cave 8:45
You can’t let someone with a head injury fall asleep 9:19
If you are lost, you should get moving immediately 9:56
You can outrun a tornado 10:31
Warning signs are negligible 11:16

SUMMARY
- Cotton clothes might look good at happy on-screen campers. In real life, cotton is not the best material for clothes to keep you safe and warm out in the wild.
- Your phone is not useless: even if you can’t call, it still pings nearby phone network towers and makes a digital map of your route so that rescuers can trace your location. To save battery, turn your phone off every half an hour.
- The energy of a lightning flash heats the air to above 50,000°F in a few millionths of a second! Wet soil is an excellent electricity conductor, so you’ll only increase the chances of the lightning hitting you. To stay alive, you should minimize your contact with the ground.
- Even if the offenders placed you next to an unlocked door, you’d wring your neck trying to impress them with this feat. This might lead to your death (or you’ll be paralyzed), and the kidnappers will take you to their destination without any hassle.
- Hold your watch up in front of you, and let the hour hand point at the sun. Cut the angle between the hour hand and 12 o’clock in half. That way is south, and the opposite direction is north.
- You should not use snow to quench your thirst. Snow has a low density. You’ll have to eat several buckets of it to get a glass of water.
- If you don’t have weapons, the beast will most likely win. It is a good idea to study the habits of animals that live in the area you are visiting.
- Raw meat is not to be applied to your eyes because it can cause an infection. This can prove fatal if you are out in the wilderness with no disinfectants or antibiotics at hand.
- If you start a fire in a cave, warmth will cause the rock to expand, which can lead to the cave falling in. Start fires outdoors unless you want to be buried in the collapsed cave.
- Light concussions pass by soon enough, and sleep will only help the patient to bounce back. If there are more concerning symptoms, such as an increasing headache, nausea, or loss of orientation, the injured person should be taken to the hospital as soon as possible.
- If you move along an unknown route, there is a risk of you getting even more lost and never being found. So, don’t stray away. Wait for a search party.
- If you know a tornado is coming, close all the doors, windows, and ventilation holes. Take the most necessary things (water, a flashlight, medicines, documents), and take shelter in the basement or an interior room on the first floor with as many walls between you and the outside as possible.
- If you see a warning sign in the woods, there are serious reasons for it, and you don’t want to find out what they are. After all, there must be a reason why most horror films begin with someone violating a prohibitive sign.