Looking to step up my first aid kit. Any suggestions?

[Lawnboi]

You don't carry a TQ?

I don't, i can see it being worth carrying. A makeshift tourniquet is a lot harder to make than you would think, and if I'm putting it on myself while I'm bleeding out I want simple. I'm sure there is an ultra lite tq out there and if there is not someone should make one.


In a pinch though I think I could take a ladder lock and some webbing off my pack and maybe get the job done. Hard to say, depends how much time I had. I haven't played with improvising a tq since class.

Like I said I know what I could be carrying, I'm trained to know how and when to use it, but I just choose not to, it's just not worth it to lug around. If I sustain a wound in the backcountry that is going to cause me to bleed out in a minute. It may just be my time.

If I was to pick one extra thing for oh shit circumstances though it would be a tourniquet, BUT it would be in my pocket or on my belt.

 

[luke moffat]

I

I guess if I was hunting in Afghanistan I'd rethink my first aid kit a little bit. Otherwise I'm, sticking to some simple basics.

In the end, stuff happens. I'll deal with that when I come to it. I'd need a truckload to take stuff that I'd need for every possibility out there.

Exactly!! Training is much more important than carrying a lot of stuff you don't even know how to use. Becca could pack all sorts of stuff she uses at work in our first aid kit but I reality if I had to use much of it on her I wouldn't know what to do. That said I do have my basic first aid and CPR certs and working towards an ett and maybe emt 1.

Yes stuff happens in the woods and there is always an inherent amount of risk folks are willing to accept. That acceptable risk varies person to person. I mean heart attacks happen every year but I will just go with simple CPR if that were to happen and continue to leave the AED out of my pack. If someone else feels they need to pack that more power to them.

 

[striker3]

I think you guys are missing the point. Nobody is saying take a lot of medical equipment. We have been saying to take a tourniquet. I also include a chest seal and decompression needle. In total, this amounts to about 6 or 7 ounces. Put it into perspective. Luke, you would rather pack around the excess material of an EMR2 in daypack mode over a nomad because of the convenience of strap management. The weight of a tourniquet is a third of what you pack for convenience sake, but could be the difference between life or death.

I did risk management for many years, I understand the trade offs that you have to make. My thought process is asking, what can kill me that I can mitigate for 24-36 hours before help can arrive in the back country? Massive hemorraging from limbs and a thoracic puncture are about it. A heart attack? If it is mild I may make it without major intervention. If it is massive, even having an AED will not help as I would never make it to the hospital in time even with the AED. The timeline usually ends after the first hour. So I don't worry about that. Major head trauma? Same thing, either it will be mild enough for me to wait or it will be massive and I will be too far from medical help. Really no in between for that either. Internal bleeding? Probably not going to make it if the medivac goes past a couple hours.

So I focus on what I can mitigate for life threatening injuries. Think that you only have to worry about clipping an artery or puncturing the thoracic cavity in combat? Far from the truth. A bad spill down a wooded or rocky hillside can accomplish either. Heck, a bad broken limb can nick an artery as well, especially a femoral break because of the tension of the muscles in the legs.

Becca takes a very extensive medkit, so why not add a tourniquet? Improvising one is not as simple in the moment as it seems. Manual pressure is effective if you are able to do it. In training We tested to see how effective it can be. Arms were fairly easy. Legs though? I was 180 lb, had my full weight on the guys inner thigh on one knee. He still had a pulse in his foot. Not to mention that it was painful as hell and he couldn't stay still. Tourniquets are so much better. As far as training, the OP said training was a part, so I thought it went without saying.

I guess what it comes down to is, would you be ok dieing, or worse, watching some else die, because of 6 ounces?

 

[5MilesBack]

My thought process is asking, what can kill me that I can mitigate for 24-36 hours before help can arrive in the back country?

For me, it would probably be several days before anyone even knew something was wrong. I disappear for days at a time with no definitive return dates. So that 24-36 hours could be more like 5+ days. I don't sit around and dwell on the "what if's". If some Quickclot and compression can't save me.......I guess I'm doomed. I can live with that. Pun intended.

 

[luke moffat]

I think you guys are missing the point. Nobody is saying take a lot of medical equipment. We have been saying to take a tourniquet. I also include a chest seal and decompression needle. In total, this amounts to about 6 or 7 ounces. Put it into perspective. Luke, you would rather pack around the excess material of an EMR2 in daypack mode over a nomad because of the convenience of strap management. The weight of a tourniquet is a third of what you pack for convenience sake, but could be the difference between life or death.

I did risk management for many years, I understand the trade offs that you have to make. My thought process is asking, what can kill me that I can mitigate for 24-36 hours before help can arrive in the back country? Massive hemorraging from limbs and a thoracic puncture are about it. A heart attack? If it is mild I may make it without major intervention. If it is massive, even having an AED will not help as I would never make it to the hospital in time even with the AED. The timeline usually ends after the first hour. So I don't worry about that. Major head trauma? Same thing, either it will be mild enough for me to wait or it will be massive and I will be too far from medical help. Really no in between for that either. Internal bleeding? Probably not going to make it if the medivac goes past a couple hours.

So I focus on what I can mitigate for life threatening injuries. Think that you only have to worry about clipping an artery or puncturing the thoracic cavity in combat? Far from the truth. A bad spill down a wooded or rocky hillside can accomplish either. Heck, a bad broken limb can nick an artery as well, especially a femoral break because of the tension of the muscles in the legs.

Becca takes a very extensive medkit, so why not add a tourniquet? Improvising one is not as simple in the moment as it seems. Manual pressure is effective if you are able to do it. In training We tested to see how effective it can be. Arms were fairly easy. Legs though? I was 180 lb, had my full weight on the guys inner thigh on one knee. He still had a pulse in his foot. Not to mention that it was painful as hell and he couldn't stay still. Tourniquets are so much better. As far as training, the OP said training was a part, so I thought it went without saying.

I guess what it comes down to is, would you be ok dieing, or worse, watching some else die, because of 6 ounces?

Like I said we all find what is acceptable risk. In the end that's all it comes down to. If some guy wants to carry X and amount of gear and another doesn't that on them. Doesn't make one wrong or right, just ones choices. Like I foolishly carry the heavy EMR 2. I don't dwell on what's if too much but try to be reasonably prepared. Kinda like guys I camp and hunt with lose sleep at night worrying about bears coming by the tent while I dont give that much thought and go straight to sleep.

 

[Old_Navy]

Base kit starts here,http://www.narescue.com/Individual_Patrol_Officer_Kit_%28IPOK-CG%29-CN1C91835F6180.html

it and suplementals fit in a Med. Kifaru belt pouch.

 

[Mike7]

Interesting discussion, and it is always good to reasses one's thinking regarding what we decide to bring with us on various backcountry adventures. But if using Risk Management only to guide your decision, then (said partially tongue in cheek) you might be better off statistically to wear a helmet and life jacket on all of your hunts and to never hike in dark, as opposed to bringing a tourniquet. Tourniquets certainly work and have their place in some prehospital medicine, but like Becca said above I think, your brain is your best piece of medical kit and you also have to make some judgements about what supplies to take/carry and what really might be used to extend your trip/hunt or save your life for the particular situation you are in. I think having supplies to take care of severe extremity bleeding or a tension pneumothorax might be more critical to some loggers' first aid kits, than a backcountry hunters...or even more suitable for a kit left in your automobile possibly? But if the item is small, light, and effective, then maybe it could be justified even though the chances of you ever needing it as a backcountry hunter are very minimal. I believe the risk tables; however, show that most people die or are severely injured from falls resulting in head and internal injuries, avalanches, drowning, hypothermia/exposure, heart disease, and accidents on the road in the car on the way to and from the trailhead.

 

[Mike7]

These tables/statitics seem to fit right along with what I have witnessed in rural ER's, with a good medical kit being secondary in importance to sound judgement and a way to call for help, when snowmobiling, rafting, hiking, hunting , etc.

 

[Floorguy]

Red yarn, I was advised to keep that on me by a village health aide in Alakanuk.

 

[_Nick_]

For what it's worth, my CAT tourniquet weighs 2.40 ounces without it's packaging. When I am backpacking on trail it does not ride along. When I am hunting (working with knives, broadheads, guns, and scrambling off trail) it joins me. A simple trip with a knocked arrow can end pretty nastily.