Safety tips for surviving in a hostage situation.

  

Date Posted: 4/25/2012 1:13:53 PM

Posted By: SimonMburu  Membership Level: Silver  Total Points: 838

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Hostages are people held captive in exchange for certain demands by the captor and they include bystanders, customers perhaps in a retail shop during robbery or passengers in a hijacked aircraft.
Most common hostage takers use captives as bargaining chips in exchange for their demands. A hostage captor may at times be mentally unbalanced and may force the captives to start killing each other especially where some of the members in captivity go astray of the rules set by the master.

The captors always have an objective at hand examples include terrorists with political goals or criminals in robbery gone unsuccessful.

Being in a hostage situation is like gambling with life and it is therefore advisable to abide by the following tips:

Be calm:
Hostage rescuers in this case the police rely mostly on the calm of the hostage in order to calm down the captor thus delivering a harmless surrender.

Befriend the captor:
If the chances of making a successful escape are minimal, it is advisable to befriend your captor and reduce the probability of him harming or depersonalizing you.

Be aware of the "Stockholm Syndrome":
Extended sympathies sometimes leads the hostages to become the allies of the captor which might land both of you to jail. To sabotage their plans, fake an alliance instead but look for survival strategies that are to your advantage.

Sit or stay away from doors and windows:
When the police shoot, the aim at the openings of the building and in this case it will be the doors and windows. The captors may also think you have a plan to escape therefore harming you severely to limit your movement.

Lie on the floor during fire exchange:
Police might storm in and they may start to exchange fire with the captors, in a situation like this, the hostage is advised to lie down instead of

trying to help the police bring down the captors since the police are unsure who the captor is and who is the hostage.

Most hostage takers threaten of suicide and it is therefore advisable to avoid trading your chances with someone who has got nothing to loose and abide by these tips.

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