First, a disclaimer – I’m not a doctor, I’m not a lawyer, and I’m making these recommendations from my own training and experience. My opinions are my own.
That said, I know a thing or two about this stuff, and I’m going to do my best to cite well documented, authoritative sources as my rationale for the recommendations I make. I’m embarking on this journey to benefit you, dear reader, so please let me know if you have questions or concerns about this content.
Now that that’s out of the way, let me lead with another less-than-sexy concept: you need this gear like a hole in the head if you lack training and mindset, so the first half of this increasingly long post will be on mindset and training before we even get in to gear – don’t skip ahead, this stuff is important.
What does that mean? I’m glad you asked, hypothetical reader! Let me tell you what I mean. First, mindset: if you have all the whiz-bang gear in the world and know how to use each and every piece conceptually, but lack mindset, when the feces impacts the rotary air mover, you’re going to fall victim to one of the classic blunders (no, not a land war in Asia) – you’ll have an adrenaline dump and you’ll react in one of three ways: fight or flight being the standard two, or the third option that’s less often discussed, freeze (literature here).
In my experience turning up to scenes where non-professionals are confronted with unusually stressful situations, it seems like the most common reaction is the third option, freeze. The simplest of these scenarios is just when we come up behind someone with our lights going:
I wish he were joking, but sadly, people do stop dead in the middle of the road, all too often in fact. All of this is to say, the simple fact of the matter is if you haven’t trained yourself (or at a minimum, learned about and then rehearsed scenarios in your head, which there’s good evidence for), you’re setting yourself up for failure.
As we like to say in the emergency services:
We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.
Attributed to Archilochus, 650 BCE
Clearly, this is not a new phenomenon. In short, it fundamentally doesn’t matter what gear you have if you have no idea how to use it properly, or you’re simply not mentally prepared for what using it entails.
Have I beaten this particular horse far enough to death? Please, for the love of Pete, go get training.
OK I’m done. For now. Get training. OK, done, sorry.
Now, on to equipment!
As you can see from the video you just watched (you did watch it right?), there are probably 3 bare minimum items you’ll want for an Individual First Aid Kit or IFAK – a term borrowed from the military, in which each individual carries basic supplies on their person to be used on them in the event they’re injured, with a medic carrying additional and more advanced supplies in an aid bag.
These items are:
- Nitrile Gloves (Because other people are yucky, and blood is sticky. If it’s wet, sticky and not yours, don’t touch it)
- Tourniquet (High quality, CoTCCC recommended – the two most common are the CAT and the SOFTT-W. The SAM-XT, TMT and TX2/3 are recent additions that I have little hands-on experience with and as such cannot recommend or disparage)
- Gauze (Plain gauze is good, hemostatic gauze is better. Celox is my preference, but QuikClot is another good option. Note I said gauze and not powder, don’t bother with the hemostatic powders)
Now, note I said bare minimum – these are absolutely just that, and there are more items I personally keep in my emergency kit that I’ll get in to, but this is an easy and relatively inexpensive place to start, especially if all you’re going to do is watch that video I embedded up above.
On that topic, let me rant briefly – all this stuff costs money, and I understand wanting to get the best deal possible. However, there is a rocking market for counterfeit tourniquets in particular, but counterfeit medical items in general. I’ll be linking some reputable vendors in this post (and have done so above in the training notes), but the safest bet is always to buy directly from the manufacturers – CATs are made by North American Rescue, SOFTT-W is by Tactical Medical Solutions, and Celox by the same name, and QuikClot by Z-Medica.
If you see a $15 tourniquet on Amazon or eBay, you can safely assume it’s either counterfeit or a knockoff. Do not buy one, no matter how tempting its price may be. There are strict QC rules and regulations in place for tourniquets because they can literally be the only thing between you and bleeding to death – do you really want to bleed out over $15? Me neither.
Now, as you get more training and correspondingly more gear, it’ll be important to remember the Dunning-Kruger Curve:
Brand new EMTs are notorious for their frequent perch upon Mount Stupid in the first few months to a year of their new career. See also: Ricky Rescue (an overeager EMT who just simply must have a full trauma bag complete with suture kit and intubation set in his/her trunk at all times). Don’t be that guy.
I’ll also endorse Dark Angel Medical, who I linked to for training above – they also sell a full line of medical kits for everyone from the most basic ouchie kit to a fully stocked paramedic level trauma kit. I’m a big fan of their stuff, and while it’s probably more expensive than putting your own kit together by a little bit, their nylon pouches are high quality and the vacuum sealing really keeps things from getting out of hand.
From Dark Angel, their Emergency Bleeding Control: Slim is a great entry option, especially at the price. It does have a couple additional items as compared to my suggestions above – chest seals and a pressure bandage, which we’ll discuss in the next post in this series.
I think that will have to be all for now, but keep an eye out for more content like this – I know there’s a need out there, and I’d like to do my part to fill it.
Until next time.
-T
(Special thanks to M.R. for suggesting this topic)