OK and Howdy Partners!
An essay late but only fifty cents short, I will now cover the topic of emergency medical care.
First, I�d like to make it clear that I am not a medical specialist in any sense of the word. My training covers only the classes I have taken from the Red Cross First Aid and CPR courses and a four year old Wilderness First Aid certification.
You can take my words here as far as you like, but take the above information into account.
Second, in the comments of Part Five, there was some questioning of the treating of wounded after a natural disaster of a terrorist attack being part of individual survival.
I see the treating of wounded in an emergency as an extension of the protection of my fellow citizen, which is why I carry a sidearm for protection. Individual survival is all well and good, but I see being a Good Samaritan is being a good citizen. Your mileage may vary
I�m sure that most folks would want a Samaratin on their side if things were reversed.
So, without further ado…..
We�re gonna cover first aid kits/supplies for the vehicle first and then move back to supplies for your home.
First of all, I would recommend that you take one or both of the classes I linked to above. They�re usually free or low cost and you never know when you�re going to need those skills, even for yourself (think: car accident).
Once again, I will remind everyone that the vast majority of kits you can buy online or at the surplus stores aren�t worth half their price. Buying one (like this one) as a base isn�t a bad idea, as long as you go through it and know what is inside. You do not want to wait until you have to use it to find out that you have wasted precious space with useless junk like biohazard disposal bags, pickup powder, aprons and floor scoops.
Take that crap out and supplement it with things you will need.
Moving on…..
Travel Kits:
In your vehicle you will want the minimum of what follows:
(6pr) Disposable latex gloves (rubber if you are allergic to latex)
(12) 4×4 Sterile Gauze Pads
(2) 20ft rolls of adhesive tape
(6) 20ft rolls of gauze
(4) Non-Stick Wound Dressings
(2) Elastic roller bandages
(2) Triangular Bandages
(24) Adhesive bandages of various shapes and sizes (yes, they can have cartoon characters on them)
(24) Antiseptic towelettes
(4) Sterile eye pads
(1) 4oz bottle of sterile eye wash solution
(12) Squeeze packs of anti bacterial ointment
(6) Squeeze packs of burn cream
(6) Anti-Microbial hand wipes
(2) Disposable mouth covers
(2) Cold Packs
(1) Pair of small scissors
(1) Pair of tweezers
(2) CPR breathing barriers
(1) Magnet
(1) Blanket
(1) box or bag to hold all of this in, preferably something water tight/proof
Now, I am sure that some of you are saying �Jeez Kid, I ain�t gonna be doing surgery, fer crissakes!�
No, you won�t be doing surgery, but you will most likely be treating shrapnel wounds and the cuts that follow them, as well as burns and bone breaks.
That is the kit you will need to do that for just six victims.
And remember, I recommended a 10 person kit minimum (a 20 person kit would be better).
The reason I recommend something like this is that you cannot guarantee fast response of the EMT�s. If it is a natural disaster, they aren�t going to be able to travel any better than you are and the father away you are, the longer it is going to take them to get there.
In the case of a terrorist attack like the one in Part Five, the EMT�s are not going to even enter the building until the police clear it and that could take upwards of thirty minutes for a small mall. If it is a large mall or a super-sized toy store, you�re talking an hour.
People die in minutes and seconds.
If Ma Nature or terrorists aren�t going to fuck around, why should you?
For your home, take the above list and double it if you have four people in your household. If you have more than four, basically think about three treatments for each person and you should have a 30 day supply of medical equipment.
Then, add this list to it:
(1) Pair forceps
(2) Scalpels
(1) Big ass bottle of aspirin (or equivalent)
(1) Big ass bottle of sterilizing alcohol
(1) Self contained burn kit
(1) 20ft roll of sterile surgical sewing thread
(4) Sterile surgical sewing needles
You may be doing actual surgery at your home during a hunkering down. If someone gets shot or stabbed during an attack on your shelter, the fairy queen isn�t going to come around and wave her magic wand and close that hole up. That is now your job, bubba.
You did take sewing class in secondary school, right?
You can click on any of the links provided in this post and look around at the folks who sell kits and miscellaneous supplies. You can also hook up with the Red Cross and take their classes and/or Google a Wilderness First Aid course in your state.
More links to medical supply houses are here:
The Preparedness Center (they also have cool disaster readiness items)
This is a hard comment to write. I’m a product of a five-generation medical family and even though I didn’t follow that path (I am the only one not to), I was brought up on medecine, and have a good grounding in emergency medical procedures.
As a flight surgeon, my father patched up many shot-up sailors and avaitors on his WW2 carriers. My daughter is 2/3 of the way to becoming an emergency room doctor. I know this stuff.
Knowing it, I can’t follow this advice, because it’s backwards: you don’t buy the gear and then learn about doctoring. You learn about doctoring then buy the gear.
My only advice for readers here is to take training, which is hard to find at the level of medical service provision that you want to provide. The Red Cross provides excellent training up through Advanced First Aid. You have to go to Community College beyond that, for Basic EMT (used to be called first Responder), then the advanced levels of EMT through EMT4 or EMT-Advanced Cardio Life Support.
Medical education beyond that is provided, on the civilian side, in medical schools. It’s also available in the military.
There are survival emergency medical manuals written explaining various serious medical procedures like emergency surgery. One can buy these and assimilate the knowledge, and perhaps one might be prepared for the mass-casualty scenarios suggested here. That will depend on the individual who provides that medical service.
I HAVE had Basic EMT training, and one thing I am sure of is that I couldn’t come up on someone with an actual, by-God sucking chest wound and do anything to save their life. Prolong that life a few hours or days with proper first aid, yes, but to do open-chest surgery and save them, no. Same with avulsions (torn off limbs) or serious gunshot injuries that require orthopaedic intervention, or any other injury requiring more than a simple shallow suture or butterfly to close.
Looking medically, dispassionately at the injuries suffered by combatants and bystanders in the Middle East, I would have to say that I am not competent to be of significant assistance in those scenes.
Crash injury management without resort to responding Advanced Life Support is equally futile.
The point here is that without the support system of major medical facilities, and Advanced Life Support transportation, the sort of care being contemplated here is palliative at best, and possibly more threatening to injured individuals than lack of treatment. For example, an open wound has the healing provision of oxygen. When closed by suture, if that wound isn’t completely aseptic, infection WILL set in and eventually consume not only the wounded area, but probably the life of the wounded individual, in short order.
The Civil War was our first, well-documented war, medically. That War is best known, medically, for it’s huge death rate from woundings. Anyone wounded by gunfire had only small chances of survival in that war. Armed conflict resulting from a breakdown of civil order will resemble the battlefields of the Civil War, with something approaching those death rates.
No, the best thing we, as individuals, can do is to shorten the conflict that has interrupted the medical system, and restore that system to it’s capacity. That means being able to survive the initial terrors, to effectively combat the forces of disruption and evil that have as their goal the destruction of the life we love.
By all means, assemble a First Aid kit. Make it a good one. Prepare yourself with First Aid courses to be able to provide first aid, but don’t forget your carbine, because your primary role will be to destroy the forces that have disabled the medical service. That we know how to do. The doctors can’t do that, and they can’t heal us until we protect them.
Oh, by the way, the item that better be in that bag, right on top, is a vest with big Red Crosses, or EMT insignia all over it. If you are going to enter that scene before the patrol, be it local or military gets there, you will be a target even if you are helping others. You need to identify yourself by clothing as a first aid provider and not as a terorist.