How would you survive a kidnap? Olav Ofstad's Book Tells You how

Problems

1How do I keep myself and my family safer?

2 Anything useful to read on holiday?

Answers

Answers to both questions.

 Read the book Surviving Kidnappers by Olav Ofstad'. His book covers avoiding, enduring or escaping kidnap. As you might have guessed from his name, he's Norwegian.

I love books on survival. I'm almost finished reading it. I am going to read it again. Who can advise you? The police have been telling parents to give their children a whistle, anything to make a loud noise and get attention.

Wallets
I always hear about how to avoid pickpockets. Keep two wallets. Great idea. Yes, but who does?

Bullet Proof Vest
It's like wearing a bullet proof vest. Everybody knows about them, but few people will bother. It costs too much to buy. It looks wrong over your bikini when you go swimming.

Seriously, even the police get killed because they left their bulletproof vest at home. JFK apparently got killed because he didn't heed the advice to drive in a bulletproof car and not to put his head out of the roof and above the car.

Phones
One of the useful tips is to have two phones. One is to surrender. The other is to keep hidden. Where? A lot of palaver if you are an ordinary person. Vital if you know you are a target.

I wrote and asked Olav a lot of questions. He writes to me:

• Check out the place you are going to. Use your own Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a diplomatic mission of the destination country or organisations/companies established in the area. 

Find out where it is safe and where not.

• Get yourself an anchor, meaning a person you stay in touch with. Report your plans and movements on the phone.
• That person should be able to trace your phone and raise an alarm if needed,
• Bring two phones, one you can give to a kidnapper and one you hide on your person.
• If you are going to meet people you are not sure about, do it on neutral ground (hotel lobby or similar).
• Take pictures of cars/taxies/plates you don’t feel absolutely safe about. Include the driver if he accepts it.( If not, you should be suspicious.)

Tell him that your spouse or boss demands such pictures and let him see that you are sending them.

• Do the same with all strangers you are not sure about.
• Heed your gut feeling. I you feel uneasy, pull out of the situation.
• Without getting paranoid you should keep track of what is happening around you and remember that some situations demand immediate response.

There is of course another comprehensive set of advice for the situation that you get kidnapped.

 One two or thee pieces of vital equipment.

• A small rubber wedge that you place near your hotel room door.
• A small super strong torch, that may blind an attacker temporarily.
• Pepper spray if legal in the actual country.
• A tiny hack-saw, well hidden in your toilet purse.

Call To Action
The trick is to get the advice and then act on it. Most of us suffer from the illusion that if we have read the book, the advice alone will help. Maybe it will, if the advice comes back to us at a vital moment.

Anyway, well done to the writer for compiling this book. If it saves one life, by preventing worse - maybe we'll never know. But meanwhile, a good read.

Surviving Kidnappers
by Olav Ofstad

ISBN 978 17880 32797

http://www.troubador.co.uk

The book is available from Amazon as a physical printed book or as a Kindle edition.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Surviving-Kidnappers-Precautions-Influence-Strategic/dp/1788032799
I saw it at £19.99 for the paperback, and £9.99 for the Kindle edition. Amazon has some interesting reviews.

Take a look at this book. Then a second look. As the popular English saying goes: Forewarned is forearmed.

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.