Writers love to torture their characters, but sometimes the most terrifying dangers are the ones we forget exist. In this episode, we’re diving into five real‑world failures even seasoned pros fall victim to, the kind of overlooked dangers that can turn your fictional scenes from predictable to pulse‑pounding. From rapid rehydration that triggers deadly hyponatremia, to wet rocks that explode like grenades, to parasites hiding in slugs and snails, to toxic animal organs, mad cow disease, rabies‑carrying wildlife, and even poisonous wood smoke — these are the hazards your characters should fear… because real survivors do. If you want your fiction to feel authentic, dangerous, and unforgettable, you’re in the right place. Learn about all of this and more in today’s episode.
Welcome to Writing Rural With Alley, your inspiration station for vivid rural worldbuilding; with practical tips on settings, tools, animals, plants, and even the characters who live in those worlds, from historical to post‑apocalyptic. Helping bring your stories to life! This is episode #122, 5 Survival Failures Even the Pros Fall Victim to That Every Writer Should Know. Every word was written by Alley, but because of my vocal cord issues, this episode is currently voiced by AI. Stick around to the end to find out all the ways things could possibly go wrong in your story.
One quick disclaimer: I am in no way, shape, form, or fashion a medical anything. This is not medical advice, survival advice, or anything for real life. This is intended for fiction stories and nothing else. Now, let’s get into this.
We all know there are plethoras of ways things can go wrong in a survival situation, but what about for those who are experienced, or at least should be experienced in survival situations and survival tactics. Perhaps a survival instructor, or someone who has lived in survival situations before. Let’s go over some of the advanced survival things that could happen to even the most experienced survivalist.
1) Death From Rapid Rehydration
Ok, this one sounds silly, but it’s actually a very serious one, with potentially fatal consequences. If a character is dehydrated, they will feel extremely thirsty, and when they get water, they are tempted to drink as much as they can, as quickly as they can. However, drinking too much water can cause a condition called hyponatremia, a type of electrolyte imbalance. (AKA, not enough salt in the body for the amount of water they just drank.) Hyponatremia (also called water intoxication) causes cells to swell and expand, even in the brain. This condition can escalate quickly!
Signs and symptoms include:
(Mild to moderate)
* nausea
* vomiting
* headache
* fatigue
* drowsiness
* low energy
* muscle cramps
* muscle weakness
* muscle pain
* dizziness when standing
* bloated stomach
* swelling in the hands, feet, or abdomen
(severe to life-threatening)
* confusion
* hallucination
* irritability
* altered metal state
* seizures
* coma
* respiratory arrest
An important note about this is that characters can “seem” fine and then suddenly collapse. This is perfect for some tension, suspense, and drama.
Let’s go over how much water is too much. Since the kidneys need to filter the water, this will depend on how much water the kidneys can filter. Now, let me be clear: this technically depends on the character’s age, size, and weight. A 50-year-old, 180-pound man will not have the same needs as a 19-year-old, 100-pound female. So, the following is just a rough guide for the average person.
The kidneys of adults can only filter approximately 1 liter of water per hour. This means your character should have no more than one liter of water per hour. For my fellow American’s that’s 33 ounces. This might not be easy if they are dehydrated. The mental fight against the body’s desire to get water can be hard to fight against.
On to the treatments. In modern times, your character will immediately need to stop drinking more water and restrict future water intake. If possible, they will go to the hospital, where they will get IV fluids (3% saline) to raise the salt levels in the body, but they will not add it too fast, because that can make things worse too. Sometimes diuretics are given to help get water out of the body. Plus, if the cause of dehydration was vomiting or diarrhea, they will treat that too.
Historically, and likely to be used in modern survival or post-apocalyptic stories, they too would stop water and restrict it so they didn’t drink too much. They would make salted broths, or brines to drink, and get salt in that way. Herbal diuretics were used to get rid of excess water. This could be hurtful if they were already dehydrated. The question is, do they need water out to live or water in to live? In the 1830s, IV saline started use as a treatment for things like dysentery or cholera.
An important note: newborn babies must never be given water!! Water will kill them. Breast milk and formula are all they should have until 6 months, and even then it needs to be in small amounts. Killing child characters is a huge no-no for readers. Consider this your warning.
2) Exploding Rocks
This one sounds like a joke, but it’s not. You see, when rocks that have water trapped inside of them are heated, the water will turn into steam inside the rock. What is the problem with that? Simply put, steam takes up more than 1000 times more space than the equivalent water. The rapid heating will cause uneven stress points in the rock. As steam is made, pressure builds inside the rock until the rock breaks in an explosion.
With the uneven stress points, this means there is a very high chance of hot rock shrapnel. This can cause a ton of issues, including burns, cuts, foreign bodies inside the body, and soft tissue injuries such as destruction of the eye. (AKA, it’s all fun and games until your character loses an eye.) These can lead to infection since rocks are not sterile items. Also, when the steam is released from the rock, it can burn the character if they are close enough to the rock.
There are some rocks that are more likely to explode than others. River rocks, or rocks found in water, whether in a river, pond, or puddle that holds water. Any rock left in water for an extended period is at risk of this. Sandstone, limestone, and lava rock all have large pores in them that make it easy for water to get into and become trapped.
This would be an unexpected moment for people. It could make warriors feel as if they are in battle. It could scare children. It is a perfect moment of distraction. Some people might think your survivalist should have known, and now they question how competent they are. An enemy could have snuck some in or a troublemaker kid. Get creative with this one. They are all kinds of fun options for this.
3) Parasites in Slimy Critters & Bugs; Plus Disease
Now we get to the creepy crawlies. The most common parasite that both snails and slugs can carry has a fancy name I can’t pronounce, but is commonly known as the lungworm. Which, as you’re about to see, is a stupidly deceptive name! These are transmitted to people when they eat raw or undercooked snails or slugs. We all know some cultures eat them raw, and people love to challenge others to eat them raw.
Let me state it super simply because I don’t want to hear the long answer twice. When humans eat the larvae (or eggs that will hatch into larvae) the larvae will go through the intestinal walls and into the bloodstream. Now, in animals, they go to the lungs. In people, they get lost because we are weirdos. I mean, they are not smart. Do larvae have brains? This could take a few days to weeks, and during this time the character might experience nausea or stomach discomfort. They could also have no signs whatsoever.
They will migrate up the spinal cord and cross from the bloodstream into the brain. They can’t turn mature here so they wiggle around in the brain, causing inflammation. This triggers the body to flood the area with white blood cells to fight what it thinks is an infection. All the white blood cells and inflammation add pressure on the brain, and that is never good! This is called eosinophilic meningitis.
Eosinophilic meningitis signs and symptoms are agonizing headaches (think worse than your worst migraine, and that is from someone with chronic migraines), extremely stiff neck, highly sensitive skin, tingling, or even facial paralysis.
The larvae can’t mature inside the human brain and will eventually die. This causes more white blood cells to be sent and more inflammation. At this point, it turns even more serious with localized brain damage, nerve paralysis (like a drooping face or double vision), coma, or death.
Now I was going to do a survival rate, but this is more a quality of life rate. In modern times, it’s about a 99% survival chance, but if the infection was high, there is a very high chance of permanent neurological issues such as chronic phantom nerve pain, a permanent facial droop, blindness, or cognitive issues. Mild cases likely will have no long-term issues whatsoever.
With no treatment, there is still about a 98% survival rate. However mild causes likely involve weeks or months of an agonising migraine before they get better. If they have a high infection the massive wave of worms dying at the same(ish) time can cause coma, permanent paralysis, or an agonizing death from brainstem encephalitis.
Now, historical treatment before about the 1960s, when we developed modern treatments, is about a 90% survival rate and was mostly the same treatment as the “no treatment” with only a few exceptions. Some doctors did understand they had worms in the brain, and sometimes gave them high doses of antiparasitic meds, which could kill the character themselves at the high rate they gave it.
If you didn’t guess, the doctors or healers often accidentally killed the person while trying to save them. There are lots of ways this could have happened. Bloodletting is the first one I think of. In some places, they gave them diuretics to try to flush them out. Others induced vomiting. I heard of one that had them eat dangerous amounts of salt.
This is the most likely one, but there are others they can carry. For slugs, this includes flatworms and French heartworm, sometimes called canine and feline lungworms. Snails carry intestinal flukes, common liver fluke, and blood flukes.
Another thing commonly eaten by those in survival situations, and something I have also eaten, is crickets. The most common one is called the horsehair worm, or the zombie worm. They are called this because they take control of the cricket. Now, in humans they just die, but in a sci-fi or horror, this would make a great beast to take over the humans.
Other types they can carry are pinworms, cryptosporidium, tapeworms, flukes, and thorny head worms. Thay also like to eat poo and this means they can also carry e-coli which is a food born illness. While it’s normally something that passes with modern meds, it can be dangerous or even deadly in a survival situation.
Another thing to think about is undercooked meat. If your character is in a survival situation, it’s highly unlikely they will have a meat thermometer to check the internal temperature of the meat. While there are ways to guesstimate, and I would rather have it overdone than not cooked, accidents happen, and no one is perfect.
Some of the issues with undercooked meat are that it can also carry parasites, including pinworms, tapeworms, roundworms, and Toxoplasma gondii. They can also carry food-borne illnesses such as E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Listeria. Sometimes in survival situations, people will eat what is referred to as aged meat. This is when the meat has been left out longer than is recommended by the FDA. Such as overnight. When meat is aged and not fully cooked, your character can contract botulism. Botulism can be deadly.
Another thing that will happen to most people in a survival situation is that they will be bitten by mosquitos or ticks. While most of the time it’s not a big deal, there are many diseases that they can carry. Mosquitoes can carry West Nile virus, dengue fever, Zika virus, chikungunya, yellow fever, and malaria. Ticks can carry Rocky Mountain tick fever, Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, Powassan virus, babesiosis, and alpha-gal syndrome.
4) Toxicity or Disease from Animal Meat
There are some animals that your characters need to know the internal organs of, or they will poison themselves. Do you know which animals? Not everyone does, and if I were dropped into a foreign country, I likely wouldn’t know either.
First up is polar bear and seal liver. These are high in vitamin A. So high that if your character ate them, they would have vitamin A toxicity. This can be a deadly condition, and if your character is in a survival situation, they will not be getting medical help anytime soon.
In fact, most wild game livers are not safe to eat. This is where the animals filter out heavy metals and other toxins. If our character puts that into their body, they are contaminating themselves with heavy metals and toxins.
Mammal brains and spinal cords can carry diseases that can pass to your character. Some types include Mad Cow Disease, or Chronic Wasting Disease.
Another thing to remember is that some animals carry diseases, but don’t look like they do. This includes armadillos that can carry leprosy. Another, and far more scary one, is that raccoons and bats can carry rabies. Rabies is incurable, and your character risks giving it to other characters when they start showing signs of the disease. If you would like to learn more about rabies, I have a full episode about it.
5) Toxic Wood Smoke
You would think any wood found in the forest would be safe to burn, but that’s not true. There are several types of wood that is toxic, and your characters need to stay away from.
First up is oleander. Oleander wood has cardiac glycosides, and the smoke will have these too. Rhododendrons also contain toxins, although different sources say different types. What they do agree on is that it is not safe. Yew and black locust both release toxins when burned. Does your character know this? Do they know how to identify these trees? I might be able to identify one. Might.
Other important wood types here are green or unseasoned wood. This is wood that has been freshly cut off the tree, and has not had time to dry out. If your character can burn this wood (it’s a pain in the backside, I know because I have done it) it creates a lot of smoke and can fill a whole clearing with smoke. Talk about a way to give your position away. If this is used in a wood stove or fireplace, it can cause dangerous build-up in the chimney.
Pines, fir, and other softwoods with resin (that’s basically the stick sap) will also cause large amounts of buildup in a fireplace or woodstove. Driftwood with salt content, when burned, creates chlorine gas and carcinogenic dioxins.
Lastly, moldy wood that is burned can and will release spores into the air. We all know what black mold would do, but if your character is allergic to mold in general, any mold could cause an allergic reaction.
Interesting fact: Burning poison ivy, poison oak, or poison sumac releases the toxic parts into the air and can cause severe respiratory reactions. This can easily turn anaphylactic and is a medical emergency.
What could possibly go wrong in your story?
Likely to go wrong: Your character is suffering from hyponatremia and has a bloated stomach. They do not realize that the bloating is caused by this condition. They could turn out okay if they stop drinking water until they are better, or it could turn deadly. This really depends on how you write your story.
Likely to go wrong: Your character ate undercooked meat and got intestinal parasites. More commonly called worms.
Possible to go wrong: Your post-apocalyptic character burns old wood from a rotting home, not knowing that the wood was treated. The toxins are released in the smoke. This could be deadly.
Possible to go wrong: Your character eats a raw snail, and it had lung worms. A few weeks later, the larva has made it to the brain, and your character dies.
Unlikely to go wrong: Your character is suffering from a severe case of hyponatremia. They are confused and have hallucinations. It will take someone else to realize the symptoms, or this could turn deadly.
Unlikely to go wrong: Your historical character has hyponatremia, and the healer decides the best treatment is bloodletting. This will likely be fatal.
Improbable but still technically in the realm of possibilities: Your character uses rocks found by the river to make a fire ring. When the rocks get hot, the water inside them evaporates, causing the pressure to build until the rock explodes and takes out your character’s eye.
Improbable but still technically in the realm of possibilities: Your character knows that wet rocks explode and slips some into an enemy’s fire ring. They use the explosion as a distraction to slip into the camp. Maybe to steal, or maybe to save someone. Get creative, because this one has some serious possibilities!
Thanks for listening! Until next time, happy wordsmithing.
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