What's In Your First Aid Kit?

[rlown]

doubtful that you would puke until you die. It's called water. drink it. Even with diarrhea, drink water. Imodium does work. We do need water.

[AlmostThere]

It's funny, when I've had Tylenol-3 in the past I found it to be pretty much useless.

Perhaps 10% of us have a defect in a liver enzyme which would convert the codeine (and similar components in Tylenol-3, Vicodin, Percoset & etc.) into morphine. The enzyme, CYP2D6, is important for a number of drugs, it would be nice if there was a way to figure out if you are a "poor metabolizer." There are also a few (1 or 2%) ultra metabolizers, for whom normal dose of codeine could be toxic.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK100662/
-mort

This would be me. Opiates make me violently, horribly ill in unpredictable ways. Marijuana, the one solitary time I bothered to try, made me black out for nine hours. There are particular meds that I will never take again, and in the wilderness I would never take anything for the first time ever.

Know how you react to things before you take them on a trip and assume they will help you. Anaphylactic episodes in the wilderness are a MAJOR survival situation. As in, not likely to, without a helicopter NOW. So if there is weather or darkness -- you are done. No one packs an infinite supply of epinephrine.

[rlown]

Don't watch if you're squeamish.

ok, beyond drug choice, but as mentioned:

[youtube_vid]<iframe width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e1jThI5wbVw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/youtube_vid]

Doubtful one can do this on themselves. I'd administer a heck of a lot of 151 before trying this on a person in the wilderness.

[SSSdave]

Never had one of those all in one kit box products. The most important medical item I have is a 3 inch width of black Gorrila tape wrapped around a tripod leg. As a base camper often out on day trips, other than that, Kleenex tissues and sunscreen the only medical items always with me. Of course also very useful in other ways. Back at camp will be some mole skin, ibuprofen, antiseptic, lip balm, tweezers, and various small bandages.

In the early 90s up in Granite Park with another photographer, I slipped ball bearing style on some crumbling grainy granite, landing on an elbow, that created an immediate very bloody mess. After jamming some tissues against the wound, we went over to a near snow melt stream to wash it off, then quickly pressed a fresh pile of tissues against the wound, dried off my arm with t-shirt, and wrapped it with construction grade duct tape. Back at camp, a mile or so away, rigged up a shoulder sling with some cord and more duct tape to keep it immobile the next few days. We were out for 9 days with most of the trip ahead of us so worked my tripod mounted 35mm SLR camera one handed. The last day dropping down to Pine Creek trailhead on the way out, took off the tape and it was looking nicely healed though had to remove embedded tissue in the mess later.

David

[jakeyjohn1]

Hi! I'm new here, my only (and first!) backpacking experience was a single night in Redwood Canyon Loop in Kings Canyon and I think this thread is very interesting and helpful, thanks for sharing everyone!

While I can't really share insight into the outdoors I did earn an OSHA advanced health and safety certificate which covers the basics of risk assessment. Also an urban SAR instructor in SoCal taught some of the courses in topics with overlap in rescue and he kept his first aid kit advice 'tactically' short, to increase the chance people would follow the advice:
1. No rummaging or digging through the first-aid kit. The first aid kit/bag itself needs to open all the way (think like a bi-fold wallet) and have no hidden or obstructed compartments, ideally all pockets would be mesh or that transparent plastic stuff so you can identify all items in the first aid kit without getting anything out. This is hard to find and its worth buying a pre-made med-kit just for the pouch even if its full of junk you'll replace. Making one yourself would probably be lighter weight and better...
2. The [amazon={B00WBR88HW}]{Leatherman Raptor Shears}[/amazon] are highly recommended
Those two tid-bits are the entirety of his advice.

Beyond that my 2cents would be to focus on items you can't improvise in the wilderness. So for me with my experience level that means
1. Antiseptic (there is a 1 fl oz 2% iodine tincture on amazon, I also packed a Neosporin travel spray and most people will have hand sanitizer outside their first aid kit I think),
2. Drugs (Very unlikely to need anti-diarrheal pills, 20% benzocaine topical angelic crush tubes, or smelling salts, but none of these pill sized items, even multiple of them, register a single gram on my scale, nor do they have expiration dates coming up fast, so why not? also things that are more useful like anti-histamines) Any advice on an altitude sickness cure/remedy?
3. Tweezers (lancets are smaller/lighter but I guess not good for ticks, what do I know...)
4. Shears (I followed the urban SAR guy's advice and have the Leatherman Raptor, its 160g on my scale without its holster)
5. Ducktape
6. Jet lighter (the only way to heat metal hot enough to cauterize a wound is with super hot embers or a blue flame, think about trying to sear a room temp steak... I don't know the current advice on the efficacy of the whole cauterizing procedure, last I heard its a last line of resort if you can't stop the bleeding)
7. Eye cup (they make small eye shaped cup-like things to help rinse out your eyes, try searching 'eye cup first aid' on amazon. carrying just one I think its small, lightweight, and you might not have a lot of water to throw in your face at that pivotal moment something horrible gets in your eye.)

The professionals, the military even more so, use risk assessment tools in the form of templates and work sheets often called Job Site Analyses (JSA) or hazard assessments.

I hope I linked the image right, if not google image search 'risk assessment matrix'.

The basic idea is to relate the likelihood of an event with its severity and then plan for it accordingly. The pros start at the beginning and go through the whole job chronologically through time and space and brainstorm everything that could happen. If you're interested in being able to do this well I would suggest looking for a 1-day risk assessment class at a local community college or something. 20-min of good monkey-see-monkey-do exposure with professionals working on examples will quickly instill in you the level of attention and detail required in this hypothetical based work; combine that with all your outdoors experience and you'll be a pro too.
In terms of preparing for the dangers its not really kosher to consider the cost of equipment or other safety measures in private industry health and safety circles. Throw in volume and weight of safety equipment on top of cost and you might as well work for the pentagon if you're good.

In general while backpacking it seems bad accidents are rare though. So with everyone's' experience I think it would be interesting to hear what you think the most likely and severe events would be, and how likely and severe they are.

With my naiveté I think the most severe yet likely accident would be tripping, falling, and tumbling with your pack off a trail down a steep incline and incurring open fractures of the legs, arms, or even ribs. Referring to the hazard matrix I tried to post, I think tripping and getting open fractures would classify as critical to catastrophic in severity with a remote chance of happening. This matrix rates that medium to serious in risk (1D-2D). So I chose to pack two large (50g) quick clot sponges, a packet of quick clot gauze (2x 3in by 24in strips), a triangle bandage (36"x36"x51") and replace the alcohol wipes and other antiseptics with the iodine vile. Add in some steri-strips, moleskin, small oddly shaped band-aids, and the 7 items I mention above and that's everything in my first-aid kit.

[maverick]

Hi JakeyJohn1,

Welcome to HST! Thank you for contributing to this thread, with this great information!