Car first aid kit suggestions

In My Humble Opinion
1

So…
[stealth brag] I finally got a new car ! Yay me![/stealth brag]

It’s an Outback, and I got little room and I’m putting things together into an always-have-box in the back back. I don’t have a first aid kit(never actually put one together)

Any suggestions? I don’t have kids so planning to go through a million band aids isn’t the point. And it will likely be thrown into the box and forgotten about until I get my arm ripped off in the zombie invasion of 2034, so nothing-expiring or breakable hopefully.

Are there any good premade ones? There are a lot to sort through on Amazon, and they seem million-bandaidy in general.

2

Here in Germany first aid kits are mandatory and standardized. I am not saying that those are especially great, but they should be a reasonable starting point. You could either look at the contents for inspiration or actually buy something along those lines and add whatever you like.

At least here those kits are cheap compared to the contents sold individually because millions of them are sold, but I am not sure how true that is abroad. (Even the UK price below seems a bit high to me.)

3

I found these and have been looking through them.
http://www.adventuremedicalkits.com/medical-kits.html?cat=31

Anybody who knows see any big problems with them?

4

We have these in our vehicles, augmented by a few spare items (a packet of QuickClot powder, aspirin, that sort of thing.) The camper has one of these, plus the above-mentioned extras, plus extra extras: K9 first aid items, Benadryl, some kind of heavy-duty prescription pain meds, a personal portable water filtration bottle, survival blankets, and other stuff I can’t recall right now. In both cases, it was cheaper to order the kit and then customize than to build from scratch.

5

In addition to a first aid kit, it’s a good idea to have a blanket for shock victims, a good flashlight, and a fold-up reflective triangle to set out on the road to warn other drivers.

6

First, congrats on the new car! Good on ya for wanting a first aid kit in it too. However, remember how inhospitable the environment is in your car. How it’s baking for hours a day in the summer sun & freezing all night during winter. Certain things will not last until the 2034 Zombie Invasion. Latex gloves, in particular, dry out & rip apart when you go to put them on. If you live in a hot enough area the glue in bandages can become a sticky mess over time. I’ve even seen old gauze dry out & turn to dust. The same products will last much longer in your home than in your car.

If you have annual registration/inspection, that may be a good time to swap out the contents for fresher ones in the house so that they’re useable if you actually need them. Also, I have a hand crank flashlight in my car; yes I may need to wind it up but that’s better than dead batteries. Finally, think about some type of rescue hammer, which is a combination seat belt cutter / window punch. Each of these items can be found for less than $10.

7

Put your first aid supplies in Nalgene bottles to keep them dry and sterile.

Get a fire extinguisher.

8

Fire extinguisher. Roll of duct tape. Triangular bandage (or just cut up blankets as required). Fleece blanket(s), or (sleeping bag(s) if winter. Medical/tactical scissors (blunt nosed and can cut through zippers, boots, etc.). Tire iron. Cell phone (SPOT if out of cell range). Water.

Most important thing is to take some first aid courses.

9

I have REI Backpacker First Aid Kits in both of my cars and in the house.

10

Courses? Nah, I’m pretty sure when the zombie invasion happens some smokin’ hot Nurse will be there to use my kit to take care of what ever heroic wounds I suffer.

11

First aid for the car itself:

Get an hydraulic jack, like these, that are really cheap at places like Walmart, and toss the piece of crap jack that came with the car. If you ever change a tire, you will be so glad to have it.

Also, scroll down this page, until you see the tire plug kit that costs $7.99. If you ever pick up a nail, you can plug the hole with this, and then reinflate the tire with the inflator below that costs about $17, and plugs into your cigarette lighter. It costs about $30 to have a shop repair a tire for you, and doing it yourself takes only about 20 minutes. If you ever know you have a leak, but can’t find it (sometime you get a puncture, but the nail pops out) spray Windex on the tread, and look for bubbles.

Also, RE: the inflator, you can ruin a tire by driving even a block with it flat, and sometimes they lose air if you bump a curb hard. Most gas stations charge 50 cents to use their air hose. It adds up, and it’s so nice to be able to inflate the tire in your own driveway.

While you are in the car section, look for the lug wrench with the pipe extension, because the wrench that the car comes with will be about eight inches long, and it’s really hard to get enough leverage to get the nuts off with those. Also, by a pack of assorted spare fuses for your car. You probably won’t need them on a new car, but it can be so annoying when something won’t work for lack of a 10 cent part.

If you are going to be a commuter, or go on road trips, think about ditching the doughnut spare. You can put only 50 miles on them, and are not supposed to go faster than 50mph with them on the car. If you go to a junkyard, you can get a rim (wheel) for the car, and then get a used tire either from the junkyard, or from a tire store. Explain you want it for a spare, and they won’t give you much trouble over selling a used tire. A lot of people buy 50,000 miles tires, and replace them at 40,000 (commuters especially), so you can get a pretty good tire for spare.

I worked in a shop for a while, so I have changed a lot of tires, and I really know about this.

Also, never use Fix-a-flat. It usually doesn’t work, and is a pain to get out of the tire; so much so, that many shops have an extra charge for repairing tires that have Fix-a-flat in them.

12

I always keep a bottle of Benadryl and a simple $5 snake-bite kit in my car pack. Snake bites are pretty unlikely, but the suction cups work like a boss on wasp or bee stings. Benadryl is great if you are stung by anything.

I always carry an old replaced wiper blade, some day it might be the best I’ve got. That goes for quite a few DIY auto parts or things that can be installed by a farmyard handyman in the middle of nowhere, to save a tow.

13

If you are talking about a bottle jack, don’t bother. With a flat tire most cars are too low to use one. If you are talking about floor type jack, fine but they take up a lot of room in your trunk that you may not want to give up.

Tire plugs are not an effective and permanent repair. I will not plug my own tires much less a customer’s.

::: Laughing::: The only time I have ever seen a tire lose air from hitting a curb (and I’ve seen this lots) is when the driver hits the curb hard enough to rip a hole in the sidewall. You are not fixing that with an plug in inflator, you need a new tire.

I agree with this with the caveat that finding where the correct fuse is and then replacing it can be a challenge. Some cars now have over 100 fuses in multiple locations through out the car. Good luck.

Before you go to this trouble make sure you spare tire area has room for a full sized tire. I know of cars where the spare tire well will ONLY fit the space saver.

I’ve been doing this longer than you have, and I agree about Fix-a-flat

14

Keep a phone charger in your car in case you need that. Download some first aid apps onto your phone (preferably ones where you actually download the info, not ones where you need net access to access it.) Also get one of those hammers that can cut through seat belts and break the windows if you get stuck in your car.

15

Many owners manuals have a diagram of the fuse boxes in them. I had my cigarette lighter fail in a car and instead of taking it to a shop I found the fuse via the manual, saw it was burnt out and replaced it. Ever since then I have a case with extra fuses in it in the car.

16

It had never occurred to me to use smoking for first aid. I learn something new here every day. :wink:

17

Yes, I mean the floor jack. I love mine. There’s plenty of room for it in my trunk, and I have a pretty small car. It cost about $15.

They are way better than Fix-a-Flat (which I have never known to work), and I have had them hold for over a year on tires that were out of warranty. If the tire is in warranty, I usually air it up, and if it’s a slow enough leak, drive it the mile or so to the place where I got the tire, and let them patch it from the inside.

I agree that tire shops should not be doing this, but if you come out to your car, and find a tire flat, with a nail in the tread, and you want a fix that will hold until your next paycheck, I think the plugs are great.

Go ahead and laugh, but I have done it. I think it was more common with the narrower tires with the longer sidewalls, also, with steel wheels that had dents where the bead seats.

I guess I don’t consider it a lot of trouble. I have always done this for every car I’ve had with a doughnut. I’ve had flats while out of town, and was soooo glad to have the full-sized spare. With our Subaru that’s a hatchback, the spare doesn’t fit in the space, so we keep it in the closet, and have the doughnut for around town, then put the full-sized in if we are going on a trip.

That stuff is the “alternative and complimentary medicine” of auto mechanics.

18

The scissors jacks that normally come with the car are kind of a pain to use but they’re reliable, which has not been my experience with cheap hydraulic jacks. If you do insist on using one as your roadside jack, make sure you’ve got something in the car you can use as a jackstand so the Walmart jack can’t drop the car onto the brake rotor while you’re not looking.

19

If you don’t have a donut, a wheel is good for that.

20

Maybe a sterile suture set? Some fluid expanders and the associated tubing and needle? Do you know how to start an IV? O2 and a mask? One of those intubation things?

More seriously, I had our medic issue tape a battle dressing on the web gear suspenders of everyone in the squad. That was so if you needed one in a hurry, you didn’t have to look for one. Sanitary napkins work as sterile dressings too.