The course also included training on earthquake phenomena, risk prevention and survival techniques.

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Mr Grylls has featured in a number of TV programmes using extreme survival techniques which include killing alligators and sleeping in a camel.

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Many regard it as strictly a boys' book, since Crusoe's survival techniques and construction projects play out like merit exercises for budding Eagle Scouts.

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Sue Graves, a safety coordinator for the Lincoln County School District, told lawmakers that high school students in her district take semester-long classes that teach CPR and other survival techniques in the wake of a giant earthquake.

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Over the years, survival rates have improved as a result of more accurate imaging studies and better anaesthetic and operative techniques.

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Professor Vaskar Saha, an expert on childhood cancer from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, told BBC News Online that survival rates could be improved in the developing world by relatively simply measures, such as training medical staff in diagnostic techniques.

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