Events in Paris provide an excuse for med kit upgrade

[D5CAV]

Any suggestions on blood clotting bandages?

People besides Quik-Clot make those?

There's Celox as well, and Hemcon, two other hemostatic agents. The best one out there in my opinion is QuikClot Combat Gauze, or the civvie counterpart. ....

There's probably more qualified people out there that will tell me how my kits suck, but I'll take pictures if there's interest.

Thanks! You just increased my medic knowledge by 1000%.

Yes, pictures will help. Also recommendations on follow-up reading. There is a lot out there and a quick guide to separate the wheat from the chaff would be helpful.

[Rumpshot]

Somebody get Doc Russia into this fray. He has designed a commercial kit along these lines. AND he is an ER Doc!

[randy]

(Note that current CPR protocol does not include rescue breaths, I think)

That is correct as of my last re-cert a couple of years ago. My CERT team is supposed to have refresher coming up and I will confirm.

Somebody get Doc Russia into this fray. He has designed a commercial kit along these lines. AND he is an ER Doc!

Here's a link to that discussion thread

And, if you haven't already read them, or haven't reviewed the info for a while, don't forget Aesop's magnum opus Twenty Lessons On First Aid Preparedness

The are in the February 2013 section of his blog's archive

[rightisright]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/111399893196

Good little addition to your FAK.

Supply List:

Bandage Materials
1 Bandage, Conforming Gauze, 3"
1 Dressing, Gauze, Sterile, 2" x 2", Pkg./2
1 Dressing, Gauze, Sterile, 4" x 4", Pkg./2

Bleeding
1 Gloves, Nitrile (Pair), Hand Wipe
1 QuikClot Sport 25g
1 Trauma Pad, 5" x 9"

Duct Tape
1 Duct Tape, 2" x 26"

Fracture / Sprain
1 Bandage, Triangular

Wound Care
4 After Cuts & Scrapes Anethestic/Antiseptic Wipe

[Aesop]

1) Build your own kit. (The middleman markup on med gear qualifies as legal assrapery. Seriously. Like to the point I'm seriously considering a side business to undercut the assraping SOBs out there.)

2) Previous advice to Baby Brother, for reference:http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/201 ... l-kit.html
Note that's a hardcore kit, and around a grand, give or take.
You can make a blow-out kit for far less - and far less than what pre-made kit retailers ask - and the suppliers/websites listed in that post are still the way to go.

3) Having shit is virtually worthless unless you know - not sort of, but from a cold slap-in-the-face start, at 3AM on a dark and stormy night - how to use all of it, and more importantly, when, why, and in what order.
You can buy a kit.
You cannot by dehydrated freeze-dried Medical School Knowledge Pills.
The minimum training that isn't a joke is EMT-Basic (100+ hrs, give or take), and/or a serious Wilderness Medic course (i.e. not a 2-day class), because knowing how to take care of your buddy who got clocked falling into rocks while kayaking or tumbled down a steep pitch while climbing in the Rockies or whatnot, 3 days' hike from cell service or evac, is remarkably similar to SHTF medical care in any third world Trashcanistan 24/7/forever, or five seconds after civilization melts down locally due to disaster, or globally, due to everyone in charge screwing the global pooch. At that point, medical knowledge is literally priceless.
You only get that by pounding it into your head when times were nice and happy.
Cracking a book on the moment is a piss-poor second option, unless you want to skip to the chapter on "Bagging And Tagging Human Remains".
(Or, as Miracle Max noted in Princess Bride, "Go through his pockets and look for loose change.")

4) The best way to do things is get the knowledge first, then put together the kit that your knowledge supports. Doing it the other way around usually gets you the medical equivalent of a Lear jet, at Lear jet prices, and no knowledge of how to actually fly a plane. (And more often than not, you find out that lacking the info to evaluate what you bought, they forgot to tell you the jet's engine is in a crate, unassembled, and needs to be put together and installed. In-flight is a bad place to find that out for the first time.)

[Kommander]

EMT-Basic (100+ hrs) or GTFO? That's great an all, but I don't think you need 100 hours of training to plug up a gunshot wound until either the paramedics arrive or you can get the person to a hospital. I am sure the EMT stuff is very useful, and would be even more useful in a SHTF situation, but I don't think you need it for a situation like in Paris where all your trying to do is prevent blood loss until the professionals arrive.

[Cybrludite]

(Note that current CPR protocol does not include rescue breaths, I think)

That is correct as of my last re-cert a couple of years ago. My CERT team is supposed to have refresher coming up and I will confirm.

The one I took still taught it, as it may be a while before the paramedics get there. Circulating blood via chest compressions doesn't do much good if there's no more oxygen left in the blood.

[Aesop]

EMT-Basic (100+ hrs) or GTFO? That's great an all, but I don't think you need 100 hours of training to plug up a gunshot wound until either the paramedics arrive or you can get the person to a hospital. I am sure the EMT stuff is very useful, and would be even more useful in a SHTF situation, but I don't think you need it for a situation like in Paris where all your trying to do is prevent blood loss until the professionals arrive.

Planning to deliver the first 3 minutes of care is better than nothing. For 3 minutes.
After that, it tends to go to various degrees of shit.
But if getting someone more effed up than that to more definitive care is likely to be delayed (like by having two guys with AKs shooting up an office building), you're talking about doing the medical equivalent of making a 72 hr bug out kit.
Which is tailor-made to have you in a FEMA camp on Day Four, when shit still isn't back to normal.
Or if your Golden Hour was eaten up by the two-day hike to cell phone reception.
Or the hurricane has knocked out the cell towers.
Or something worse has made the folks at the other end unable/delayed in responding.

If all you want to do is plug bullet holes, jam a hemocon bandage in the hole. In a pinch, you could use a 30-cent tampon.
Spend the extra time learning things like last rites, or the Prayer For The Dead, or whatever religious faith feels most comfortable for you and the patient.
You'll use them at about a 1:1 ratio if the mechanism of injury was a rifle bullet to the torso, about 7:10 for buckshot, and 3-6:10 for pistol wounds.

So the answer you select is best determined by whether you want to administer First Aid, or Last Aid.
As I'm likely not related to the victims by blood or marriage, it's a matter of complete personal indifference to me.
Those you're liable to be caring for (or more pointedly, those who may end up caring for you in the worst case), may elect to take a different perspective on things.

I've only been doing this about a quarter century, but purely anecdotally, I've never met anyone who said afterwards "If only I'd been less prepared, and saved all that money on needless medical gear purchases and training, and spent it on hookers and blow instead."
YMMV.

[Kommander]

Ehh, I have actually been overprepared before, carrying too much crap I did not need that there was only the remotest chance of me using. It's all about balancing. Anyway regarding the treatment of gun shot wounds and the like. What you seem to be saying that that we either need a ton of training or we are better off just watching them bleed to death. Not everyone has the time or the resources to get hundreds of hours of medical training. We have to do what we can with what we have. Pima County Sheriff officers successfully used TQs and the like to save a number of lives. These things work and don't require allot of training. I am not going to pretend that it's as good had a fully trained medic and their bags of tricks, but it's allot better than nothing.

[Jericho941]

Another great thing about classes is that the tips and tricks experienced medics can teach you could be invaluable for when life decides it's not going to even slow down screwing with you. Like being able to apply direct pressure for extended periods of time. "You know what would've made that ambulance ride easier for the both of us? If I'd just used my knee instead." Stuff like that.

Ehh, I have actually been overprepared before, carrying too much crap I did not need that there was only the remotest chance of me using. It's all about balancing. Anyway regarding the treatment of gun shot wounds and the like. What you seem to be saying that that we either need a ton of training or we are better off just watching them bleed to death. Not everyone has the time or the resources to get hundreds of hours of medical training. We have to do what we can with what we have. Pima County Sheriff officers successfully used TQs and the like to save a number of lives. These things work and don't require allot of training. I am not going to pretend that it's as good had a fully trained medic and their bags of tricks, but it's allot better than nothing.

Knowledge is only heavy in the metaphorical sense.

I'm leery of going straight to tourniquets, even the "so easy a caveman could do it" ones they've got on the market these days. Even with those, I wouldn't trust anyone who hasn't at least practiced with them first. And if the victim is wounded anywhere that isn't a limb, hand or foot, they're completely useless.