Offroad/Outdoors Trauma Kit

Hey TW,

I get a lot of questions about the trauma kit I keep in the truck pretty much any time people see it, which is usually during classes or at camp, where it always gets hung up in a visible location.

This sometimes leads to a show and tell session, which usually is pretty well received. I'm currently switching bags and checking inventory for expiration, so I thought I'd take some photos and do a show and tell for anyone who might be interested but not necessarily know where to start.

This is a fairly basic kit, and doesn't include a lot of things that it could. The reason for this is simple: if I go down, I don't want anything in the bag that a well-meaning bystander is going to end up, at best, wasting time trying to use without training.

NOTE: Please, don't run out and buy stuff just to have it. If you don't have real training (YouTube doesn't count) on how to use something, you're very often better off not having it, since using it incorrectly in a critical situation is at best a waste of time.



Here's the kit and the bag. The bag is a "personal" size duffle from FireForce USA. (Unsponsored, happy customer plug: FF USA is the best source of quality nylon gear I've found in 15 years of looking. I have a lot of their products. Their ruck straps are top notch.)

The kit is organized into a GSW/large trauma tray, and several smaller clear zipper bags for easy identification/sorting. The zipper bags were from Amazon, they were the highest rated "travel cosmetic pouches" or something like that at the time.



The core of the kit is here:

1 ea. SAM splint
1 ea. CAT tourniquet (DON'T BUY CHEAP CHINESE TOURNIQUETS!)
1 ea. HyFin chest seal
1 ea. nasopharyngeal airway, size L (sorry little guys, a sore face is better than dying)
1 ea. QuickClot sponge
2 ea. Israeli bandage
1 ea. space blanket
1 ea. Vetwrap
1 ea. electrical tape
1 ea. trauma shears
1 ea. baggie of nitrile gloves

• The SAM splint is an absolute must-have for wilderness/offroad first aid. The ability to splint/immobilize just about anything very quickly and securely is supremely valuable for a range of the most common injuries. The SAM splint can also be used in an improvised fashion for enhanced pressure application with a dressing/bandage combo.

• The chest seal is something I'm borderline on including - it's really there specifically for gunshot wounds, and while most people are not trained on its use, this style is probably the easiest to use and easiest to explain how to use if I'm down with a sucking chest wound. This style and packaging style are fairly resistant to long-term storage in a kit that will be moved/used/munched up a bit. It's still important to check the packaging for splits and tears during kit inspections, and never crease or fold it to make it fit somewhere.

• The QuickClot sponge is an older style, but is something I'm comfortable with using. If you have a kit with the old-style loose powder hemostatic agents, get rid of the ASAP and replace them with an impregnated gauze or sponge. I've personally seen folks take a bit of hemostatic powder in the eyes, where the products to an excellent job of clotting up the eye socket and cornea.
  
  
• Israeli bandages are pretty fool-proof and even if you use them wrong, they still make an OK dressing over which you can throw some Vetwrap or tape. They're also cheap enough to buy a couple extra to use as trainers. OLAES or other newer, high-speed styles are more or less the same thing. Use what you prefer/budget permits/other requirements dictate. More people are familiar with izzies so I carry them, but personally prefer the OLAES.
  
  
• Vetwrap and electrical tape - the two best bandage materials ever invented. Seriously, Vetwrap is the bomb, and it's cheap. I pick it up for about two bucks per individually wrapped roll at the farm supply store. It's tough, stretchy, and sticks to itself but not flesh or hair.
  
  
• Space blanket - shock kills. Basic treatment for shock is something everyone should know. A decent space blanket is an excellent component for shock treatment.

These are the booboo, small burn, and medication modules. Nothing super special here, but some highlights are:

• Large (trimmable) Tegaderm patches. Not always appropriate for field use, since they close off the wound completely thus trapping any crud that may be in there. EXCELLENT for friction blisters on feet and to protect minor burns.
• Stacks of 3" and 4" gauze squares with a second roll of Vetwrap - you can pretty much do anything with these if you need to.
• Extra long, cloth band-aids. Perfect for fingers, especially with a little zip of electrical tape over the top.
• Random assortment of heavier duty band-aids and a small strip of butterfly closures to partially close deeper wounds on a short-term basis
• Burn dressings (essentially non-stick pads pre-saturated with Burn-Jel)
• Aloe vera for sunburns

Medication module:

• Glucose tablets
• BC headache powder
• OTC pseudoephedrine antihistamine tablets
• Aspirin, naproxen sodium, Ibuprofen in single serving foil packets (from Chinook medical)
• Pedialyte packets (these are intensely useful and almost universally overlooked - nothing better than these for re-hydrating heat casualties and curing hangovers)

Again, this is a pretty basic kit that is intentionally limited in scope. It's easy (if expensive) to pack a seriously comprehensive kit, but at the cost of space, ease of transport and use, as well as presenting a lay person with a ton of distractions in a situation where speed is more important than a magic gadget.

I'm happy to field questions, take suggestions, and foster discussion on the topic. That being said, the most important thing you can buy is training. As someone with pretty extensive training and experience in wilderness medicine and trauma response, it is my opinion that Red Cross first aid training is both inexpensive and extremely valuable. You can find a class near you at

https://www.redcross.org/take-a-class/first-aid/first-aid-training

It's not "ditch medicine" or combat trauma response, but if it's more than you have, it's worth your time.

 

Nice write-up.....some good info!

 

This is great! I was just looking for first aid kits the last couple of days. Training is the thing I am most interested in. I realized i dont know much/anything at all actually when my brother in law dislocated his ankle/foot the other week. I felt so useless. I will be looking into the red cross training.

 

Awesome! (Not that you feel useless, that you're channeling it into action.)

The overwhelming majority of "first aid kits" are really just incredibly overpackaged band-aids. The common lure is "850 piece First Aid Kit!" or similar, listing the number of individual objects of any sort contained inside the kit. There will be a couple of cruddy triangular bandages, maybe some gauze squares, a couple of iodine packets, and then 842 of the cheapest band-aids possible to produce. If you know what you're doing these kits can work in a big pinch, but what usually happens is they end up rattling around in the car/pack/cupboard, slowly being depleted of band-aids until it's just a couple of dusty cravats and random cloudy plastic bags full of remnants of stuff.

Training means that you won't flounder when you don't have the exact specific specialty item on hand. In other words, you'll be able to go beyond bluffing reality and reading packages and get things done with what you have available, and you'll also understand what would be best to have available when you're building your own kit. In the long run, it's way cheaper than buying crappy pre-assembled kits!

When I'm packing for the real backcountry, or solo/family trips to really remote places, I do include another module in this kit. It sounds grandiose, but technically speaking, it is a surgery kit - two pairs of hemostats, a pair of really good tweezers, two disposable #10 scalpels, an irrigation syringe, and a bottle of sterile water. This is primarily for foreign object impalement (lol, splinters mostly) removal in an environment where primary care may be days away. I don't ever pack sutures/staples, an open wound is MUCH easier to care for and getting a wound that actually requires closures clean enough to risk the massive downsides (infection!) is dicey in the kind of conditions we're talking about.

 

REI has courses too, although they don't seem as extensive as the ones I've taken. The REI WFA (wilderness first aid) looks like it's ~8 hours. M WFA's were 16.

https://www.rei.com/events/a/wilder...EDa8Q1xErxr2T-74RoB632F2ajmCOT1waAkFMEALw_wcB

I wholeheartedly agree that just *having* an extensive 1st aid kid does nothing. Training is key. In fact, with the training I took, we learned to make do with less when needed. I never needed, nor wanted a full trauma kit with me.

It's been a while since I've been WFA, since I don't guide anymore, but I keep up with basic 1st aid thru my work.

 

It looks like there are a couple WFA classes at the REI here next year. I may take one just to see if they're worth recommending to people. Thanks for the heads up!

 

I believe they are put on by NOLS so the information is going to be good. Something is better than nothing.

I just noticed they seem to be 8 hour, single day courses.

First day of my 16 hour WFAs were mostly classroom sessions. The 2nd day was practical real world stuff and scenarios (they had a lot of fun with makeup, etc...).

The REI courses look like 1 day, 8hr courses. Half what my WFA courses were, but something is better than nothing. I remember thinking how pointless those 4 hrs CPR courses I take for work are. I guess it takes about 4 hours to train people to call 911...

If there's TWO things to take away from any wilderness oriented first aid class, it's:

#1 Don't make more victims (scene safety), and
#2 If direct pressure isn't working to stop bleeding, you're doing it wrong.