Neil Strauss will save your life. At least according to his latest book, "Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life," in which the esteemed author of "The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists" and the groupies-and-drugs opus "The Dirt" moved off-shore, learned how to survive in the wilderness and, well, killed a goat. He gave us his tips on how to survive any situation from nuclear war to a zombie attack.

What to do in the case of ...

Chemical Attack
Strauss: "Clear the area, and follow the rule of thumb: Get far enough upwind and uphill of the scene so that when you squint at your thumb, it covers the area. Cut off any contaminated clothing; don't pull it over your head. And rinse any body part under cool water for 20 minutes while cleaning, for most agents, with soap and bleach. Avoid hot water, which will open your pores. If you can get your hands on DuoDote pens, injecting these will stop the symptoms of what are called cholinergic agents like sarin gas."

Click to find out how to survive a zombie attack or going backstage with Motley Crüe.

Amazing Feats of Survival

    Mountain biker Petra Davis, 16, recently survived a bear attack in Alaska. She suffered a punctured lung, broken ribs, gashes on her legs and a rupture of her carotid artery. Miraculously, the quick work of EMTs and surgeons was able to save her life.

    msnbc.com

    Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed into the side of the Andes mountains carrying 45 people on their way to a rugby match. This is well-known story because the survivors were forced to resort to the extreme measure of cannibalism. All told, 16 people lasted the 72-day ordeal.

    Mario Cavalli, Wikipedia

    Hiking alone in the remote Utah mountains, Aron Ralston's right forearm was pinned under a boulder. After five days of trying to shake himself free and drinking his own urine as sustenance, Ralston realized he had to amputate or die. He performed the harrowing feat with a small utility knife.

    Gretel Daugherty, Getty Images

    Roy Sullivan, a U.S. park ranger, was struck by lightning on seven different occasions and lived to tell about them all. The odds of an individual suffering seven lighting strikes is about one in sixteen-septillion (24 zeros.)

    AP

    In 1823, frontiersman Hugh Glass was mauled by a grizzly bear he managed to kill. Thinking he had died, and fearful of Indian attacks, Glass's companions left him. But Glass woke up, let maggots eat the flesh of his busted leg and spent the next six weeks crawling 200 miles to the nearest settlement.

    Alexander Nemenova, AFP / Getty Images

    Anyone can claim they were struck by lightning, but William Hall can prove it. He was pumping gas in front of an upstate New York convenience store when a bolt of lightning knocked him out cold for five minutes. The whole scene was caught on a security camera.

    youtube.com

    The sole survivor of an airplane explosion at 33,333 feet (6.3 miles), Vesna Vulovic holds the world record for the highest fall without a parachute. While she was initially paralyzed from the waist down from her injuries, she regained her ability to walk in less than a year.

    AP

    Joe Simpson and Simon Yates were the first to scale the west peak of the Siula Grande. Disaster struck on the way down, and Yates was forced to let a badly wounded Simpson drop 100 feet into an ice crevasse. Simpson survived the fall and spent three days crawling back to base camp.

    Getty Images

    Railroad switchman Truman Duncan fell off the front of a moving train car. He was swept underneath and cut in two. Despite losing both legs and a kidney, Duncan called the paramedics on his cell phone, survived a 45-minute wait, and then persevered through 23 surgeries.

    youtube.com

    French Trekkers Loic Pillois and Guilhem Nayral spent 72 days lost in the Amazon. They subsisted on spiders and bugs -- which they attracted with their own excrement. Nayral eventually fell ill after eating a tarantula, but luckily, Pillois broke through to civilization the next day.

    Jody Amieta, AFP / Getty Images

A Shooting
"If it happens suddenly and you don't have time to clear the area, you want to drop to the ground on your stomach with your feet pointed at the shooter. If you get shot, you don't want to be hit anywhere vital. This was determined because police would see people who survived drive-by shootings and the innocent victims always seemed to die whereas the experienced gangbangers survived."

Nuclear War
"The key is survival distance, shielding and timing. Basically you want to be as far away as possible; insulated either underground or near the top of the tallest building you can find; and exposed to the radiation for as little time as possible. Some survivalists stock up on potassium iodate, which lessens your chance of developing thyroid cancer afterward."

Economic Collapse
"The best way to survive an economic collapse is to stay out of debt, find ways to preserve the money you do have and to become as self-sufficient as possible. You want to diversify your assets by, for example, putting some of it into gold and some into more stable currencies. And if you own your own home, can grow your own food, raise livestock and set up rainwater catchments, you have that much less to worry about when the chips are down."

Zombie Attack
"Zombies aren't very good climbers and not as smart or coordinated as when they were living, so a house on stilts is a good idea. Or you can hole up in a sealed container, like a submarine."

Plane Crash
"With a serious plane crash, there are things you can do to minimize your risk -- like sitting near the back of the plane, being as close to the emergency exit as possible, having your seat belt on tight, being in a crash position and exiting upwind as soon as the plane hits -- but the fact is, you're probably gonna die."

Party Backstage With Motley Crüe Circa 1987
"Be a male, don't have drugs and don't bring your girlfriend."

Amazing Rescues

    Mexican railroad engineer Jesús García Corona drove a train at top speed out of the town of Nacozari de García in Sonora, Mexico on November 7, 1907, sparing the mining town and its residents from certain destruction.

    lajornada

    On October 4, 1980, the Dutch cruise ship Prinsendam caught fire and needed to be abandoned off the coast of Alaska, 130 miles from the nearest airstrip. U.S. Coast Guard and Canadian helicopters responded in a perfectly coordinated effort that rescued all 520 passengers without a single death.

    AP

    On the morning of January 2, 2007, Wesley Autrey was waiting for a subway train with his two daughters. He noticed Cameron Hollopeter, a stranger, begin to convulse and fall on the tracks. Autrey rushed to help, pulled Hollopeter into a drainage trench, and covered him as five train cars rolled overhead.

    NBC / AP

    The Coast Guard's Hurricane Katrina effort is believed to have saved as many as 24,135 lives. Over 5,000 guardsmen served in Katrina operations, which involved 76 aircraft flying 1,817 sorties with a total flight time of 4,291 hours.

    Eric Gay, AP

    On January 2, 1909, the liner Republic collided with the Italian ship Florida in the frigid waters off Nantucket. Jack Binns, a wireless operator on the Republic manned his station for the next 36 hours, sending signal after signal from his icy, water-logged cabin. Another liner eventually received his calls and came to the rescue.

    hamradio.arc.nasa.gov

    In June 2006, Lincoln Hall, 50, had been left on the side of Mount Everest by his own guides, who believed he was dead. A day later, Daniel Mazur (pictured here) discovered Hall still alive, but wearing no gloves or hat. Mazur left his own climbing group and spent the next four hours carrying Hall down to base camp.

    Binod Joshi, AP

    In June 1944, "Flying Fortress" bombers made numerous flights over Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. Over the next two months, the U.S. airmen who were shot down were sheltered and moved by peasants and resistance fighters. Eventually 253 American airmen were airlifted thanks to these efforts.

    AP

    The Colombian military pulled off an incredible rescue that was also incredibly clever earlier this year, when they had troops pose as members of humanitarian NGO in order to dupe FARC rebels into handing over 15 hostages, including three Americans and politician Ingrid Betancourt.

    Colombian Army / AP

    In March 2003, Niagara Falls-area firefighters successfully stopped a man from committing suicide. Some rescues need to be seen to be believed, and thanks to a thrilling YouTube video, this one is available for viewing.

    youtube.com

    Not every amazing rescue involves humans. Earlier this year, altruistic dolphins saved a sperm whale and her calf. The disoriented whales were beached on a sandbar off the New Zealand coast and were nearly euthanized by local authorities, when a dolphin arrived and appeared to lead them through a 200-yard channel out to sea.

    WSPA / AP