Grabber Outdoors The Original Space Brand Emergency Tactical-Survival Blanket- Olive-Drab/Silver (Pack of 3)

At first when I received the emergency blanket I was a little surprised and disappointed as I wasn't expecting the Mylar type material. One reviewer said that this is more of a one use type blanket which is typically true. But I wanted to do a little torture test just to see how bad it is.So I took a decent size piece and crumpled the heck out of it expecting to have green flakes all over the place and a bunch of holes in the blanket. I was quite wrong about that. There was light shining through tiny looking holes but it was just because of the very small places where the olive drab color came off. It came off but very little. The light holes weren't actually physical holes for air or water to come through though. So already it is very impressive.I also tried stretching and tearing the material. It is typically pretty hard to stretch and eventually does give. As for the tearing, it is also hard to tear but once it's torn, the tear runs very easily.With this blankets compact size folded and enormous size when unfolded, this is the perfect emergency blanket to keep wherever you think you may needed. Cheap enough for one use, durable enough for a couple uses. A recommended buy for anyone who likes to be prepared.Edit: I wanted to note one more thing for those who haven't had much experience with mylar type materials. It is a bit noisy with all its rustling. The olive drab color is nice for a sort of camouflage in the wilderness but the noise can render that useless. Not a huge deal but I thought it was worth the mention.

You know, I wasn't really a believer in these things until I used them to prevent shock as a paramedic. They work incredibly well if you wrap yourself in them very tightly. I've seen them save lives, and I thought I'd stick a couple in my car for emergencies.I set up a little, limited scientific experiment to test their value. Here it is:DO NOT TRY THIS YOURSELF!First, I took my temperature with a medical-grade thermometer. 98.6 deg F, right on the money. I walked out on my back porch in Chicago on a 20 degree night, wearing jeans and a tee shirt. I wrapped myself in one of these blankets, very tightly with my head covered, then sat in a lawn chair for the next two hours. Don't worry, I wasn't too bored, I had an audiobook. I walked inside and took my temperature again. 98.3 deg F. Not too shabby, not at all.I repeated the experiment the next night, at 22 deg F, with almost identical results. The next night, it was 26 degrees. I sat out on my porch WITHOUT the blanket, as a control, as long as I could bear it, which was about an hour and a half. My temperature without the blanket after 1.5 hours was 96.4 deg F. A very big difference.As a medical profesional, I am very impressed with the lifesaving potential of this product. I've worked with kids and the elderly who became hypothermic after being exposed for just a half hour in 50 degree weather.Now, I won't say I was wonderfully comfortable with just this product and a tee shirt. It was not pleasant. And my temperature did drop some. If you were exposed with just this blanket, dressed as I was, for more than 5 or 6 hours, you'd probably have a problem. Especially if the temperatures were below those at which I tested it. As your core temp drops, your body will focus heat in vital organs, away from the skin. Therefore, there is less heat for this blanket to reflect back, and the rate of temperature decline will accelerate.But if you're stranded in a car with a coat, or inside a dugout shelter, this is pretty valuable. In a survival situation, I highly recommend putting this INSIDE your warmer clothes against your skin. It will exponentially increase the effectiveness of the product, in my experience. In any case, make this an inner, not an outer layer, or your blankets and layering for sleep.I don't consider myself a "prepper" really, but I do keep emergency gear in my car in case I need to walk, and a little bug-out-bag at home just in case. Why not? It's not expensive, and a little entertaining if nothing else. Plus if things ever do go downhill quickly, you're a little better off having options.Anyhow, the problem with normal mylar survival blankets is they're quite bright if you're trying NOT to be found. They're either orange or mirror silver - made specifically to be visible. That's why I chose these blankets. If you don't want people to see you, olive green is pretty much the way to go. Moreover, this material Is VERY tough. I'm a big, strong dude and I had trouble ripping it. That's impressive.EDIT 7/26/13:After a helpful comment from another user, I did a little more research and found that these blankets work best with a little space between the skin and the blanket. They are designed to produce a thin layer of warm air, shielding the body from conductive heat loss. One site I read said that a quarter inch to a half inch of space is optimal. If you can pull that off, definitely do so. Overall, though, still make this an inner layer of heat loss protection.

For the price, this is a good buy. There are two sides to the material--one side highly metalic, one side OD green. The green side does not ever flake off from the metal. We purchased these blankets to provide an outer rain cover over our tent, and this item does that nicely. We added grommets also, but the material does tear after modest use (several days on the tent). This material is extremely light weight and yet less than paper thin. My son wrapped it around himself to see if it would work also as a blanket, and reported that it really did have a modest warming effect. You would have to get use to the metalic "crinkle" sound every time you move, however. For what it's for and it's price, I think this item is a very reasonable buy. I will say we used this material through a number of very substantial and motivated Alaskan rain downpours and the material is the only thing that saved us from being soaked inside the tent. For our use, the box of material lasted a little over a week as a tent cover.

I was drunk one night on leave while riding my bike about 10 miles or so home from an old beer drinking buddy's house when the front fork shattered on my old mountain bike at a speed of about 35mph. As a result, my bicycle slammed to the ground and threw me off of a hillside fracturing my femur leaving me unable to get back up to the road. It was cold, rainy and then it started to snow on me. I must have been on the side of that hill all night but thankfully I had my old space blanket with me so I hunkered down, covered up and made it through the night until the morning when someone walking a dog heard me yelling up to them for help. Now, I'm going to go out and buy at least a few more of these because they saved my life. As a rule, I always pack my bicycling backpack with one of these blankets, a few cans of Schlitz, some sausages, pretzels, water and yogurt when I go out on a 10 mile bike ride. As for the color, I kinda wished it would have been red or at least had a flashing emergency light build into it but hey what do you want for a few bucks. Btw, this happened about 4 years ago but it never hurts to buy a few more blankets for emergencies when you need to stay warm at night. I always buy Grabber products!