What do you carry for First Aid?

[BlackHatGuy]

"Which reminds me: a condom. It makes a handy one-fingered glove to remove an impacted stool."

David, you are one party animal…..

One question, did you get all three legs up there?

[Travis Leanna]

Douglas….

you're amazing.

[Max Dilthey]

Papaya enzyme! My people! I carry that. Nice idea with the contact lens case; stealing it.

As for the condom, I feel like bringing more than one is setting myself up for a cold, depressing reality check miles down the trail.

[Jake D]

Simon you should switch to a small bottle of Saline instead of Hydrogen peroxide. HO is not tissue friendly.

side benefit saline is multiuse for eye drops and contact solution. And it hurts a hell of a lot less.

"esearchers have found that hydrogen peroxide has little ability to reduce bacteria in wounds and can actually inflame healthy skin cells that surround a cut or a scrape, increasing the amount of time wounds take to heal."

[Nelson Sherry]

>"I was trekking in Nepal, and I was up around 14,000 feet when I sustained a painful muscle injury in my diaphragm. Fortunately, I had some prescription-strength painkillers, and that got me through the next day or two."

"My wife broke her arm in Nepal, at 16,000 feet and hiked out in 2 days on OTC Ibuprofen. But then, she's tougher than I am."

When my uncle was trekking in Nepal at about 16,000 ft, and he was the MD on the trek, he had a heart attack. After writing a good bye letter to his family, he took some altitude sickness medicine, knowing it might have some useful off-label efficacy. Apparently it did. Although, he was relieved of his backpack for the hike over the 19,000 ft pass, he still had to walk over it and down the other side to get to where they picked him up to airlift him to a hospital in Kathmandu.

In the end, no permanent damage, probably because of the meds . . . knowledge can be a good thing.

[Simon Wurster]

Yeah, I should have mentioned my benzalkonium chloride hand sanitizer: won't sting eyes when used with contact lenses. This is also may be used directly in cuts and scrapes. H2O2 is in the toiletries kit, but the BC is in my pocket and used more for first aid.

The H2O2 squirts, the BC foams; sometimes the H2O2 is better for cleaning. Old habits die hard…

[Rusty Beaver]

My solo kit contains duct tape, safety pin, scalpel blade, Q-tips (ever had an ant in your ear?), and moleskin.

[Bean]

As luck or misfortune (depending on your viewpoint) would have it, my girlfriend cut her thumb last night digging into a pile of random utensils. To her displeasure, this seemed like a great time for me test Leukotape on something with a good flow of blood. After taping a little gauze square on her injury, blood came leaking through almost immediately. Although it was really kind of cool to watch, it blew some holes in my notions about how well it might work.

What ended up working really well was the rubbery Active-Flex bandage from Band-Aid. Which I then wrapped in some Leukotape, because I didn't want to admit my first attempt was a complete failure.

[David Thomas]

>>"My wife broke her arm in Nepal, at 16,000 feet and hiked out in 2 days on OTC Ibuprofen. But then, she's tougher than I am."

>When my uncle was trekking in Nepal at about 16,000 ft, and he was the MD on the trek, he had a heart attack."

Nelson,

When my wife broke her arm in Nepal, she was 9 months away from her MD.

Her experience with the MD on the trip: She did 3 summers of para-medicine in Ecuador during medical school (UCSF). An older, wiser, very experienced MD supervised each trip. Until, on her third trip, the MD died on route. The local beliefs were strongly in favor of local burial. But the medical students knew his family would want his body to get back to the States.

They basically smuggled his body out of Ecuador (but told some white lies) so that the locals and the Stateside relatives could each be okay with the tragedy.

I've smuggled carabiners and climbing ropes across international borders, but I've never had the balls (while my wife did) to smuggle a human body in my checked bags.

[David Thomas]

Brandon:

Take it from someone twice your age:

You'll get further with women by admitting your failures than by arguing for your successes.

[Justin Baker]

Any opinions on quikclot?
The situation I'm thinking of is someone putting an axe into their foot or glancing a hatchet off a log and striking their upper leg. More for others than myself. I have seen people do some extremely stupid things with edged tools.
If someone cut an artery way out in the backcountry and there was no way to get help in a hurry, is there anything you could do to help or are they going to die? Could quikclot help that? I'm really squeamish about blood and just typing this is making me light headed…

[Max Dilthey]

The best band-aids I've found by far are the cloth ones with the quilted face:

These have a kung-fu grip, and the quilted face actually works quite well. I've had deep, small-diameter wounds dry up while covered and protected from infection. One of these lasted 3 days wrapped around a big toe while hiking and changing socks all day.

[spelt with a t]

Coverlets, from the picture on the first page in the thread. My aunt's a pharmacist; they're what the hospitals use.

[Max Dilthey]

I don't know about those justifications. I've used coverlets and I prefer the new Band-Aid quilts. I mean this inoffensively, but just because your aunt is a pharmacist doesn't mean she has experience with bandaging a high-wear area like a foot blister over 50+ miles of intensive hiking. And just because the hospital uses it doesn't make it a better bandage; hospitals probably get the cheapest useable fabric bandage, rather than the best, because they use thousands.

Just my 2¢ anyways, everyone's gonna have preferences.

[Jeremy and Angela]

Justin: the guidance from my WFA course was essentially 1) pressure, and 2) tourniquet if needed. My impression was that the instructors were not familiar with the current generation of products available, and were (rightly) leery of the older forms. (See my earlier reply for details.)

[Andrew U]

I don't know if quikclot is truly worth bringing. I have glanced a hatchet off a log and struck myself in the shin, not causing a cut but rather a 2 inch long by .5 inch wide split in the skin because of the force the blade put against my skin down to the bone. I sterilized the wound, wrapped it with a gauze pad and butterfly bandages and athletic tape, and then wrapped the whole thing with an ACE bandage. I then walked on it for 2 days before getting home (changing the bandages every 4 hours or so). Healed up just fine without stitches, even though they probably would have been helpful. Just goes to show what proper pressure treatment can do for a pretty significant backcountry boo boo.

[Max Dilthey]

That settles it: as part of a responsible first-aid kit I am never buying a hatchet.

[Andrew U]

In all fairness I was drinking when this happened. So really the lesson is never hike in with whiskey in your first aid kit, start drinking, and then try to use sharp tools in violent chopping motions.

[Max Dilthey]

What's the scar look like?

[Oh Fool]

Hey everyone! Great thread, really cool to see how everyone approaches their FA kits. I have been working as a W-Paramedic for about 5 years now. For personal trips (5+ days) I usually only bring whatever can not be easily improvised in the backcountry.

-Manufactured Tournique
-Irrigation Syringe
-Bag Balm
-Iodine
-Benzoin
-Triple AntiBac Ointment
-Sterile 4×4
-Variety of Tapes for Blisters
-Basic OTC and Rx Drugs

Some cool products that I have come across that work well in the backcountry are: 3M Medipore and Micropore tapes (breathable), Leuko Tape (super strong adhesive, so strong in fact it might cause irritation/rash so watch out!), J+J Inadine (basically a Iodine impregnated wound dressing), J+J Multiday Pad (a dressing that breathes so it doesn't need to be changed…really only useful if your 5+ days away from definitive medical care)

[Max Dilthey]

[Diane Pinkers]

The answer about Quik Clot is that yes, it will help to slow arterial flow; that's what it's designed to do. Research study cut the femoral artery on 20 anesthestized pigs; 10 got the quik clot bandage, 10 did not, just a regular bandage, as the control group. 9/10 pigs with quik clot survived; 2/10 without the pad survived in the control group. Small numbers, but fairly telling.

I believe it was designed to help reduce casualty death numbers in Iraq or Afghanistan. Get the bleeding stopped quick and get them to medical help.

[John Donewar]

Max,

"That settles it: as part of a responsible first-aid kit I am never buying a hatchet."

Good move!

Watch this 5 year old 29 second video and you'll see how to process fire wood without a hatchet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-pC-RxIb1E

All you really need is a 3 1/2" to 4" "sturdy" fixed blade knife and a little practice.

A Mora will work but among my collection of knives my $16.95, full tang, fixed blade Remington would be my go to.

It's ultralight heresy I know but it is what it is. ;-)

Party On,

Newton

[Jake D]

I use Coverlets because that is what I've always had at places I work.. ie free. I don't think they are anything special and if I have time I usually throw a layer of stretch tape over it. They definitely don't like to stick when someone is sweaty. Football and other "get them back on the field" cuts i'm doing a piece of gauze and stretch tape and in 20 seconds they are on the field. More time I do bandaid and white or stretchy over it.

steri strips are definitely worth having to close up cuts that are suture worthy. If you get good at it, you can close up the edges and it will heal without stitches.

my not so light FAK ;)

[Nick Gatel]

– Brain encased in thick skull
– 1st Aid Ointment in foil pouch
– 1st Aid Towelettes
– 2" X 2" gauze
– 5 Advil in 'pill pouch'
– Leuko Tape
– Medium Band-Aids (4 ea)
– Ziploc baggie

I don't consider water purification tablets or DEET first aid. But I bring them as the trip dictates.

I could do minor stitches if necessary with a needle and floss. I did this a few times when I was a mechanic, since I was paid by how much work I produced and it cost me too much in lost wages to go to the ER.

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