Wilderness Medical Kit with Gear Suggestions

[Music] but we're talking about remote wilderness energies and how to prepare for those you know there's again going with the starting with the ended mind thinking about the needs and the things that you're going to need to provide for with this kit and then packing around that obviously bleeding is the first thing that we're talking about so let's look at kind of what should be in a good bleeder kit and of course I've got more examples than you would need and I'm also carrying more than most people would because I'm carrying this for students in the backcountry but take this and the takeaway from this is not what gear I'm using the takeaway from this is what needs I'm carrying this gear for and how to provide for those so if you have a different brand that you prefer if you don't think you need this much stuff then that's fine just adjust your kit accordingly but knowing kind of what I'm carrying and why I'm carrying it is the takeaway that I want you to have from this so kind of universal to all of these that kind of go with a lot of different kits your gloves nitrile gloves are best over latex because some people have a latex allergy but these are just gloves it's a universal precaution that you should take when you're handling in these type of open wound or handing somebody that you don't know it protects you it's it's BSI body substance isolation so your gloves are your BSI your body substance isolation they're what you're wearing to protect you from the bodily substances of another person and also protect that person from yours but anyway gloves are kind of universal for whatever injury we're handling so that's a great idea to have in your kit trauma shears are another great example of something that's kind of universal because you want to open up expose whatever you've got in the emergency medical technician field we have what's called trauma naked if you have trauma you're trying to figure out all the stuff that you're you're dealing with when you come upon a scene of an accident then you just get rid of all the clothes the boots everything find out where the injuries are prioritize those injuries and take care of them so that's what the trauma shears are for so you can quickly expose whatever the wound is and find out what you're dealing with and handle it appropriately so trauma shears are kind of universal a marker is something that you may need for anything from bleeds all the way down to bites and stings so sharpie and of course some tape I recommend to bench tape this is kind of a silly I'll on dirt poor tape this has the most strength this can be used for anything from handling bleeds all the way down to intervening on the bites and stings again so it's kind of one of those Universal items in your kit to apply it to all the other different kits and then from there I kind of break it down into what I'm trying to intervene on you have a bleeder kit you have a break since branes kit you have a burns kit a blisters kit and then bites instinct there's a lot of things within this that you can use for those depending on what type it is but the most important bites instinct kit you have is your car keys and your cell phone as far as tourniquets go there are a number of ones that you can use or a number of these that are approved by the committee for tactical combat casualty care teacher policy that have been proven in combat common to all these tourniquets for me when I'm looking for a tourniquet is I want typically I want a windless style or possibly a ratcheting style that's approved by the committee for T Triple C and I also want them to be able to be placed on myself one-handed a fie injury or an injury to the leg handling that yourself is no big deal it becomes a little more tricky doing a an injury to an upper extremity with one of these with one hand but that is kind of a requirement because these are these are kind of you know for that concealed carry kind of situation or the military or law enforcement guy that gets shot and needs to handle that really quickly by himself before anybody gets there to help so being able to put it on one-handed is another thing that I look for no I'll give you three great examples of windless style tourniquets that fit that bill the first one being the cat alright the combat application tourniquet this is the one that I carried most often in Iraq and Afghanistan and this one is proven in combat it's an outstanding tourniquet just take a look at what version you have make sure you have the most updated version that's available out there because they do change things they upgrade things as they go along and with everything that we're going to talk about you know make sure you know what the manufacturer's instructions and guidelines are for using these type of things before you carry it so that's the combat application tourniquet next is the soft T this is the wide version this is a Gen 4 right that stands for Special Operations Forces tourniquet special operations forces tactical tourniquet wide alright so used to this was a one-inch band they've since changed it to a one and a half inch band which i think is a better a better design and there's some other design features that they've upgraded so again make sure you got the most up to date that you're carrying then from there Sam XT the Sam Medical Sam XT is the Sam extremity tourniquet the same company that makes the splinting interventions the splinting gear that I use makes this tourniquet this is an outstanding tourniquet as well but again make sure that you've got the most updated one there was one that was voluntarily recalled that had straight stitching along here this one actually has a boxed X stitch and that is the newest version so if Sam XT is outstanding so those are three windless style tourniquets that are recommend the two ratcheting style tourniquets that I recommend or both from Rev medics this is the TX 2 which is TX 2 inch and the TX 3 right at TX 3 inch I like both of these I prefer the 2 inch 4 upper extremities and I prefer the three-inch 4 lower extremities you can get away with one for both this just has a little better surface area that it spreads the tension across on a thigh so I like these tourniquets as well but those are ratcheting style tourniquets whereas these have a windlass that you turn to tighten these are actually ratcheting style and these are very easy for everybody to use because your mechanical advantage comes from clicking those tight alright so great tourniquets all t Triple C approved the last tourniquet I want to talk about is is the rats tourniquet the rapid application tourniquet system this was designed by a buddy of mine Jeff Kirkham and you know it's not teeth Triple C approved because it's not a winless style and it's not a ratcheting style so your mechanical advantage actually comes from the elasticity of this bungee style material and it cleats right off and does well it's also a very thin tourniquet so by design you have to wrap it around three times to spread that surface area so I personally don't mind these tourniquets but they're not teacher will see approved so does that mean they don't work now it doesn't mean that it just means that it's not been approved by them and probably because it's not a winless style or a ratcheting style but I do carry these one they're a lot more compact so they fit easily in a smaller profile if I want to just put one in my pocket for a concealed carry not concealed carrier that tourniquet concealed carry weapon and I have this tourniquet in my pocket technically I guess that's concealed as well but it's great for Pediatrics it's great for kids these a lot of times are too big depending on how big your kids are they kind of got to grow into these so these are great to have for kids and they're really great for dogs so or any other animal really no those are a lot of examples anything outside of that I either don't have any experience with where I have experience with and I don't recommend it so those the ones that I prefer to go with as far as the tourniquet choose one never carry just one tourniquet understand one you have four extremities but you also need to understand when we talk about how to use these to intervene on a life-threatening bleed if one doesn't work you're going to need a second one so rather than improvised that second one I just go ahead and carry at least two of these so that's what I recommend for your tourniquets okay so that's where your bleeder kit starts and then from there those are four extremities obviously you could also take injuries that are outside of the extremities that that's not appropriate for and those you tend to need to do some sort of wound packing and a lot of times the tourniquets not necessary or you initially put on a turkey in it and then you downgrade it to a wound packing and a pressure dressing so you need to be able to facilitate that so I recommend kana this is combat gauze from QuikClot but you also have other versions of this I think I have in some other kits that are more civilian it's the same thing this is gauze that is impregnated with a hemostatic agent that assists in clotting the older stuff used to burn the skin it used to be in powdered form there's a lot of different forms it comes in the most up-to-date stuff and the one that's recommended is the impregnated gauze so combat gauze at least one of those in your kit is a great idea to have and then if you don't have that you know you can use other things other forms of gauze you've got s rolled gauze and then you cannot compress gauze or you could use a simple rolled gauze like you see kind of a curl X I think I have some in here actually simple rolled gauze like this will work and it's just not as easy to pack into a wound and keep clean as this s rolled gauze this s roll of gauze is already rest folded so that you can pack it directly into the wound and this particular brand is a very small pack this is North American rescue again but it has a dispenser style packaging so you don't have to open the whole thing and expose it to dirt and debris before you start packing it into a wound so I recommend at least two of these to pack a good Cabot a pack of cavity nice and tight so two of those and then just to compress gauze this is basically one of these in a compact package that you can use in the same way that's kind of what you're using for wound packing the minutes are as a pressure dressing there are a number of different things you can use for pressure dressings as well one of my favorites to use is an Israeli dressing that has a pressure bar on it and we'll talk about those when we get into that but I carry a six inch and a four inch is more of a pocket size they're both they're both going to work equally well just this is obviously for a larger type of injury and then for some people they don't like the pressure bar for some people they can't wrap their heads around you know getting that on there and putting the tension on that way so I'm going to show you how to use a more simple dressing in the same way to create that pressure dressing this is a North American rescue again emergency trauma dressing this is a six-inch right here you can also get these in four inches but there is a way to use these to do that as well so those are a couple things I recommend for making your pressure dressing some of those are used in conjunction with all of the other stuff so that's kind of your your basic bleeder kit after the bleeding is stopped you've got to go into something that we'll get into a little bit later after the bleeding is stopped you know cleaning the wound and doing some sort of wound closure technique okay and you'll notice that there's no suture kits and my kid because one a suture is not something that's used to control bleeding alright a suture is to close a wound and promote healing prevent or kind of lessen the scarring and to keep some of the dirt out it's not a control the bleed type thing so the first thing that you need a handle is that life-threatening bleed then secondary that that is a hypovolemic shock and then tertiary to that you know we start worrying about things like infection and closing wounds and all that so that's why there's no suture kits in here if you're carrying a suture kit it should be for gear repair not for skin repair because you don't know how to use it it's not a clinical environment you don't have good lighting you don't have the experience and it's not meant to actually stop bleeding unless you're a surgeon in the field that knows how to locate a severed vessel isolate that separate vessel and either sew the end of it or tie it off you're not going to be using sutures to stop bleeding so those are best served for your gear repair but anyway when we start getting in the compound fractures and bleeds and before we close up that wound using non-invasive techniques that I'll show you later on I recommend you carry some sort of irrigation syringe this happens to be the irrigation syringe that comes with the Sawyer mini filtration system so it's kind of a multifunctional item that you can use for first-aid as well so that kind of goes along with that kit right so that's my leader kit again a tourniquet for extremity wounds quick clot s troll gauze and rolled gauze or compressed gauze for your junctional areas or extremity wounds that don't require a tourniquet so that bleeder kit in this depending on which style that you've learned which protocol you've learned that's what you're going with for the ABC protocol that would be the SI circulation for the March protocol that would be the massive hemorrhage the a.m. as well as the circulation the C within that March protocol obviously for the bleeds and the five B's if you're looking at it that way when you're approaching and building your kit for anything any threat to a and B 4 a.m. for the ABCs you know your airway and breathing or airway respirations for the marked protocol that's where you're going back to your eye FAQ right to handle those so that's why I think carrying both of these is a great idea a wilderness med kit as well as anything involving firearms or the potential of firearms having that I pack with you so you're able to handle any injury that's thrown at you so that is where I'm going to go back with that so after that you know you've got circulation handled with the bleeder kit as well and then when we start getting into the hypothermia portion of the march protocol we'll talk about that when we talk about a hypothermia prevention kit here in a little bit which is kind of in addition to the five B's and the reason that I've grouped that together and kind of put it towards the end is because that also kind of falls on circulation for the ABCs and also for the March protocol and that that's where you would address you know preventing shock you know hypovolemic shock in this case so that kind of goes hand in hand with the hypothermia and prevention kit so we'll talk about that when we get to that so now going back into the five B's we've handled the bleeds now we need to talk about being able to handle breaks and sprains and again a lot of times the bleed is a life threat its immediate life threat now something you need to handle quickly a break in a sprain you know granted there's some danger because you have broken bone ins that are sharp and they're running very close to vessels if you don't immobilize that and stable that than what can happen is a compound fracture where you actually puncture through the skin now you have an open wound as well as a break and you have to handle the bleed before you handle the actual fracture itself or you had a simple fracture which is closed with no damage to the skin no puncturing through but you rupture a vessel and have a lot of internal breeding bleeding that Union take care of so you need to be able to splint those type of injuries so aside from you know preventing further injury what you're trying to do is regain mobility because that may be the only reason you're forced to spend the night out in the wilderness exposed to the elements unprepared is you cannot physically walk out because you've got a debilitating injury so that's what the goal of this kit is is to be able to handle that and get yourself back and kind of self rescue if you will get yourself back to civilization go on and get higher medical care so with that for a simple breaks and sprains kit I recommend carrying at least one 36 inch SAM splint pretty much everything that you need to do can be do with done with one with the exception of two being better so if you can carry two 36-inch and carry it they pack extremely small they're very flat and they fit everything well you can just slide this down pretty much any kit you have and a lot of things can be improvised but this is one of the things that are gonna save you a lot of time and it's they're very effective splints to use in the field so personally I carry two 36 inch one 18 inch and one 9 inch a lot of these smaller ones are good for upper extremity injuries like to the hand to the wrist but they're also great for kids which I have four of so I carry smaller ones as well as well as I also have students that are different sizes so I'm at a minimum one of these recommend two of these 36 inches for everyone's kit and if you've got small ones if you got little ones then an 18 inch and a nine inch it'll all pack together nice and flat and you can pretty much handle anything you need to handle in the wilderness as far as breaks and springs with that assortment of splints the only thing I would add to that which is not necessarily a debilitating injury but it is an injury that can be painful it could mean the difference between being able to carry your equipment out or not is these small little finger splints they don't weigh enough or take up enough room for me to justify not taking them sort of Sam finger splints is kind of what I recommend so that assortment of sizes will handle everything that you're going to run into as far as breaks and sprains to 36 inch and 18 inch a nine inch and one to three finger splints so that's kind of what you're using for splinting material a kind of a multifunctional item that you can also use for those smaller splints are these tongue depressors they're great for finger splints they're great for a lot of other things as well so really thin pack nicely they're lightweight another good addition to that but anyway you have things to splint with and then things to secure those splints in place I recommend that you use elastic bandages I've got typically two six inch and two three-inch I tend to use these more often than not on injuries to the lower extremity and I tend to use these smaller ones on injuries to the upper extremity it's just the way it ends up working out and and two of each size has been all I've ever needed in these kits so that's what I recommend and these you can also be used as pressure bandages to kind of supplement or in place of these Israeli dressings or emergency trauma dressings these can be used to actually apply pressure dressings as well so those are multifunctional good piece of kit to have in your gear it's in addition to having these elastic bandages that you can use for secure and you can also secure it with tape and this goes back to kind of that universal thing that applies to a lot of different kits but as far as breaks and sprains go you know taping those splints on forming certain types of splints which we'll get into it's good idea to have this tape as well as something like a usable anchor anchor injury your injury on your anchor and you can't put it out for a usable ankle injury you could do something as simple as taping this or taping that ankle and still make your way out successfully so tape is definitely a great thing to have kind of as part of your breaks and sprains kit and then 3m makes this product called koban which is basically a self adhering wrap both this is called Co flex so it must be a different brand they're all trademarked but this is basically a self adhering wrap that also has some elasticity in it so this works well especially if you bud eat a bit beforehand but it's kind of a combination between the tape and your elastic bandages so you could have used those for those applications as well so this is a good thing to have in your kit as far as the breaks and sprains go once you have your splinting material and something to secure that with another great thing to secure splinting material with and as well as used for bandaging in your bleeding kit as well as a lot of other applications for survival and emergency situations are cotton cravats also known in a civilian market as triangular bandages but this is just a triangular piece of cotton I like the military cravats these particular ones are from North American rescue rescue North American rescue it's just a triangular bandage and you use those for sling and swath techniques as well as securing splints and of course cotton has a lot of other applications but five of those will do any technique that I'm going to show you in this video series so they're very compact and lightweight these have all been folded out but they typically come in a package and they're about this size so five cravats I add to my breaks and sprains kit because that handles a lot of things that we need to be able to handle in a remote wilderness setting so after you know bleeding being the most life-threatening and then breaks and sprains the loss of mobility and the potential for furthering or making that injury more severe is next then after that probably the most severe things you're going to run in two in the wilderness is a burned and typically we're not dealing with large surface area burns we're dealing with small surface area burns right it's it's being scolded from dropping boiling water on yourself reaching into the campfire and grabbing a hot metal container when you were boiling your water to disinfect it a small surface area burn is typically what we're running into maybe you burnt yourself a little bit on the coals of the fire or the flame from your campfire that's typically what we're running into but you need to be able to handle small surface area burns and large surface area burns and we'll talk about that when we get into burns but as far as having things in your kit that basically that the the short version of that is you have a wet dressing and you have dry dressings one is more appropriate for different things or one is more appropriate than the other for certain injuries like a small surface area burn you're going to use a wet dressing on and larger surface area you're going to use dry dressings on no I recommend again for North American rescue burn Tech is basically a wet gel it's a wet dressing for burns at least one of those and this is a four inch by four inch they may come in all different sizes but most of the stuff that you're going to be handling this represents probably have one percent service area burnt which is basically the palm of that person's hand and that's typically what you're going to run into in a wilderness setting aside from something like an electrical burn being struck by lightning which is not very common at all or being stuck in a forest fire in that case that's that's not something that that we usually run into so being able to handle the smaller burns is what we're going for then basically for the dry larger surface area we have again from North American rescue these are dry sterile burn dressings which are essentially cravats but these are actually sterile right these are clean but these are sterile burns you'll learn later are highly susceptible to infection so keeping them as clean as possible is something that we want to do and then of course part of that kit again is that irrigation syringe to keep those clean and cool them off before you dress them up so that is kind of what's in my burns kit but as far as wrapping those up and give us some additional protection I've got some additional compressed gauze in there you could use the same thing the Chancellor you having you know a bleed and a burn at the same time maybe a little more slim so maybe you're only carrying one or two of these and you can get away with that I carry a couple of extras in my kit that is for burns and then as far as a blister kit for your blisters really it comes down to prevention you know your your boot choice or your Footwear choice having well broken in Boots taking care of hot spots whenever you feel them coming on is something you want to do but there are some things that you can carry to make your life easier and blisters are painful but they're not necessarily debilitating they're not necessarily a loss of mobility all the time but it can make your progress out very slow especially if you took something like a snowmobile 50 miles out into the wilderness and it broke down around on the gas and you're making your way out you may have the rest of your life to get back out of the wilderness so anything that slows you down and becomes a nuisance is something you need to worry about and they had longer that blister is open the more susceptible it is to infection so being able to handle that is something that you want to do so what I carry for that it's just some moleskin then I've got moleskin plus some padding and then kind of mold foam with padding and these are basically three different thicknesses of the same thing with the goal of covering that blister and producing and reducing friction things that are making it worse a couple of little vials of tincture of benzoin which these come with steri-strips so that's another thing we can talk about when we get into wound closures but this just is a kind of a and antiseptic and it's also a super adhesive that makes this stick a lot better for your blisters so that's what I carry in my blister kit so those are kind of your five B's and again your bites and stings kit is your car keys your vehicle and your cell phone those are the best things you can have for the bites and stings having said that I'm not allergic so I don't carry a bee sting kit or an allergy kit you know and peepin epinephrine as well as some sort of oral antihistamine like benadryl if you are allergic then I recommend that you get with your doctor so your doctor will prescribe whatever you need for that if you're susceptible to bee stings that's something you need to carry in your kit when you're out in the wilderness exposed to that potential allergens so revisiting that March protocol with the H in March being hypothermia prevention granted it's it's often a function of your shelter system and your fire kit in the normal gear that you're carrying but for me I live in the Adirondack Mountains we have winter basically you know winter seems to be a little bit longer up where I'm at and it's a lot colder and having students having a way to prevent hypothermia in addition to their kit you know is is always a good idea so I'm going to show you kind of what you need to have in that and along with hypothermia prevention going back to massive hemorrhage you know the bleed itself is your primary concern following that bleed the lack of volume hypovolemia leading to hypovolemic shock is what's going to kill you after the bleed so you need to be able to handle that and part of handling shock one of the main priorities of that is to help maintain that core body temperature so that's where this comes into play so what I carry is a heat reflective shell from North American rescue this is basically a space blanket that's kind of in a mummy sleeping bag style with a hood on it that at a minimum so I can wrap the patient up in that wrap the person up in that or wrap myself up in that if I'm suspecting that I'm going into shock is something that I recommend you carry and that can be used in addition with wool blankets sleeping pads things that you have in your normal kit for me up in the wintertime I'll usually add one of these ready-to-eat blankets which is basically a self heating blanket or a self heating blanket insert that you put inside this which maintains the heat these heat provide their own heat for about 10 hours which should be plenty of time to get a person out of the backcountry that's if you need additional heat if you're in that type of an area then I recommend you throw one ready to eat blankets in with your heat reflective shell and those two things together what the military called a hypothermia prevention and management kit the HP MK that is the hypothermia kit and again that goes along with preventing or treating for shock in the field and also hypothermia prevention we're talking like an Italian I gotta talk over that racist I think that might be

Channel: The Gray Bearded Green Beret

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Keywords: wilderness medical kit, first aid, wilderness medicine, first aid kit, wilderness first aid, wfr, backpacking first aid, emt, search and rescue, wilderness first responder, medical kit, ifak, trauma, emergency, prepper, camping first aid

Id: CA_zd7Mv-zU

Length: 29min 19sec (1759 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 12 2020