Preparing on a Shoestring Part 4: First Aid and Medical

The ability to treat injury and illness is essential in any preparedness program. If you are sick or hurt, your ability to cope with problems will be diminished. If you are sick or hurt and untreated, you are in REAL TROUBLE! Prepare to safeguard your health like your life depends on it because, well, it just might.

The ideal scenario would be for your rich, long lost uncle to leave you a fully stocked, manned, and functional hospital in his will, but that isn’t a realistic expectation. Start small. I recommend a commercially sold first aid kit geared to construction sites. They are a long way from an ideal trauma kit, but the ones geared to serve a construction crew are designed to provide for the treatment of a wide variety of injuries and minor medical problems. They can also generally be had for less than $50. They give you a good start and you can add to them as you go along.

My old field trauma kit from my BSA days included dressings for everything from minor scrapes to arterial bleeds and broken bones. I carried triple antibiotic ointment, eyewash, peroxide, alcohol, betadine, and some stuff called water gel for burn treatment. Dressings included band aids, eye dressings, two triangular bandages, surgical sponges, tampons (for the obvious reason and for stopping bleeding from deep puncture wounds, feminine pads (again for the obvious and for large open wounds), steri-strips for use in place of stitches, two US Army surplus wool blankets for shock treatment and for use as an improvised stretcher, and six 12” tent pole sections for use as splints for broken bones.

I carried a couple of tourniquets as a last resort for massive bleeding. I kept supplies of aspirin, Tylenol, ibuprofen, Benadryl, and at least 4 doses of any prescription meds my boys or fellow leaders might be on. The prescriptions were added when we left home base for an outing and returned to their owners upon our return home. This was in addition to their meds they kept themselves. Dosing instructions and contact info were enclosed in the same Ziploc baggie as the meds. I also kept sting relief wipes and 2 chemical ice packs. When it became available, I carried some stuff called water gel. It is a burn treatment that a firefighter put me onto.

There was always a notebook and pencil, not a pen, in my kit. A record was made of any and all treatments rendered. I kept water and salt tablets. I kept a few bite sized chocolate bars for energy and to treat diabetic attacks. Orange juice is better, but doesn’t keep well in a trauma kit.

The kit I just described would serve well in almost any emergency. Back in the late 90’s, it would have cost around $500 to assemble from scratch. I put it together for around $225 in the mid 80’s. I did not do it all at once. It took almost 2 years for me to get it all together. It weighed 16 pounds and packed into a teardrop daypack without an inch to spare. With it, our troop was equipped to pack a seriously injured kid out of the wilds even if it took days on foot for the evac. I carried 3 marine signal flares too, but that was with an eye toward getting the undivided attention of a pilot in a medivac helicopter in woodland or mountainous terrain who would already know we were there and to look for us.

A first rate med kit takes time and money to fully assemble. The point is that if you wait until you have the money to buy it all at once, you are liable to find yourself in the middle of an emergency in a world of hurt and no way to treat it. A box of band-aids and a bottle of peroxide beats a blank. Start with the basics and buy upgraded supplies as your budget permits. I listed some of the particulars of my trauma kit to give some idea of what a field grade med kit looks like and what it is capable of treating. Still, the best kit in the world, even a fully stocked hospital, does no one any good without a user skilled in the use of the items. Spend your first money on a good first aid and CPR course. Check with your employer or any civic or religious organizations you may be a part of. They might offer such training at a reduced fee or free. They are worth the money at any price, but save your money if you can get a good training course free or cheap. If you already have the certifications, keep them up. New treatments and techniques come along all the time.

Pick up a book or two on the subject. The BSA first aid, safety, emergency preparedness merit badge books and the Scout Handbook have a huge amount of information in them. They are a good start and should cost less than $20 to purchase all four. Build your library from there. Check with the American Red Cross. They offer publications too. I do not know if there is any cost for their publications.

If anyone you might be responsible for has any special medical needs or uses any medical equipment like oxygen, get them to teach you how to use their equipment. In an emergency, they may need the help. If you don’t know how, you can’t help. Changing oxygen bottles and setting flow rate or cleaning a CPAP machine isn’t rocket science, but does require a very small bit of training. It took me about 5 minutes each to learn these tasks.

Again, start small. Get the knowledge, training, and basic gear. Upgrade all three as you can afford, but make steady progress. Over a few years, you might just find that you are nearly a walking MASH unit. That kind of capability would be worth something now and would be priceless if the balloon ever goes up.

Good luck and happy prepping!