Reach safety primarily, and survive (5)
I believe the answer is:
scope
'reach' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'safety primarily and survive' is the wordplay.
'primarily' says to take the initial letters.
'and' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'survive' becomes 'cope' (I've seen this before).
The first letter of 'safety' is 's'.
's'+'cope'='SCOPE'
(Other definitions for scope that I've seen before include "Range; opportunity" , "Ambit, compass" , "Copes with range" , "Field" , "Extent or reach" .)