What's in your first-aid kit?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Not the one in your house, but the one you carry in your car.

This is mine. It has an irrigation syringe, topical antiseptic, 5" x 9" abdominal or pressure pad, NeoPro gloves, 3" x 4" non-stick pads, 2"x 2" gauze pads, 4" x 4" gauze pads, 2" x 4.5 yd gauze roll, 3" x 4.1 yd gauze roll, 2" x 4.1yd. stretch gauze roll, knuckle elastic bandages & fingertip elastic bandages, butterfly closures, 3/4" x 3" adhesive bandages, 1" x 3" adhesive bandages, 3" x4" moleskin, 1" x 10 yd tape, 3" elastic bandage, wire splint 3.25 x 30", antibacterial wipe, triple antibiotic ointment, cotton swabs, Sooth A Sting wipes, hydrocortisone, aloe vera gel, acetominophen, ibuprofen, antacid, antihistamine, four pill vials and labels, 4.5" bandage scissors, 3.5" splinter forceps, three safety pins, accident report forms, pencil, and The Wilderness First Aid Manual by Dr. William Forgey.

I used to carry a Johnson & Johnson first-aid kit, which came in a 5"x8" plastic box. It followed me from car to car for years and was never used. Until one day…

I was working on a student film called The A Train. A little Greek girl wants to leave Greece (where her family was from and to where they returned) to her native New York. She builds a little boat. The cinematographer was on the beach getting ready for the shot, and the boat was near the water. The tide was coming in and it took the boat. The cinematographer went into the surf to get it. A wave picked up the boat and drove it into his shin, taking off some skin. Ooh, that looked painful! My little J&J kit was the only first-aid kit available, and I went to get it. I used most of the kit treating the injury. (But did I get a screen credit as “medic”? No! I didn’t even get credit for the chalkboard drawing that opened the film. No, I was listed as “Grip”.)

The little kit I’d bought so long ago at Thrifty’s (now Rite-Aid, FWIW) was good enough for this one incident; but I wanted to be better prepared for the next time. I keep the REI kit attached to my “ditty bag” (a circular bag for my slate, light meter, and various other filmmaking tools). When I got the Jeep, I bought a duplicate kit to carry in there. Although I have used my “filmmaking” first-aid kit around the house, mostly for the bandages, which I’d added more of, the ibuprofen for the co-worker is the first time I’ve used the one in the car. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it!

So what’s in the first aid kit you carry in your car?

2

Well first of all I believe the best handbook would be the SAS Survival Handbook…I have that with a custom Survivial Kit in the back of my Avalanche. Without listing a string of things I have in my first aid kit, which mirror much of what you have Johnny, I additionally have: One Navy Issue wool blanket (Grey), three thermal insulation wraps, water purification tablets, 4 sets wet/dry matches, a flint, a wind-up radio, 12 flares, a flare gun with 6 shots, a hundred foot of 1/2 inch nylon climbing rope, a come-along, 2 cases raman noodles, a sling shot, fishing tackle, with telescoping pole and fly reel, a compass, and a change of clothes.

All of this fits in a handy dandy continental ruck-sak fitted into a 2x2 foot locking rubbermaid container bungy corded to my cab. :slight_smile:

Hey, I was a boy scout…:slight_smile:

3

My USN wool blanket is clipped over my bedroom window. It gets pretty darned cold up here sometimes, and it’s a better insulator than my very thin curtains. I haven’t taken it down because you can see through the curtains and I wanted a bit of privacy while the vacationers are around.

I also carry a little “compass carrier” clipped next to the first-aid kit. It contains a “space blanket”, a mangesium fire starter, some waterproof matches, a tube of Charms candy (no doubt horribly melted), and a small pocket knife. Maybe some other stuff as well, but I’d have to check. I have some road flares under the back seat, along with a G.I. folding shovel, booster cables, and a length of ½" nylon rope. I used to carry a machete under there as well, in case I needed to cut some brush for traction. The only time I used it was to trim some limbs from a Christmas tree at a home for troubled teens, and it gets much more use around the house; so it’s not there anymore. I usually carry a Victorinox Champion (the older model w/o the pliers) and a Cold Steel ER-1 Rescue Knife in the cubby.

A ladyfirend gave me a car “emergency kit” a couple of years ago for Christmas. It has various things in it, including another set of booster cables and a triangular marker.

4

Is it me, or is outfitting a car or truck with all this stuff for being prepared make you feel really good, almost child like. I spent two hours in Popular Outfitters stocking my ride with the best they had to offer. Things that wouldn’t degrade too much, and things that could have more than one use. I dunno, I love this sh*t…my wife thinks I’m crazy and should spend some time in the shed with my tin hat…I just simply love buying survival/preparedness stuff. :slight_smile:

5

House first aid kit: Band-aids, maybe, and some aspirin.

Car first aid kit: ha ha ha ha ha. Does some pre-chewed gum stuck to a receipt in the ash tray count as provisions?

6

:eek:

Me too! Although my home supply of goodies is quite extensive it is not in a kit. Maybe it should be. And my car? Unless you count the high heels my daughter left in there about a month ago and the shawl I use for movies (said daughter refers to it as a doily) I am out of luck. I feel so unprepared and I travel for my work sometimes.
:smack:

I think I will reform. :slight_smile:

7

Wow. People who post often enough on the same board start to think alike!

My truck has in it: one highly-modified REI First Aid Kit (see **Johnny L.A.**s link), One Johnson & Johnson First Aid Kit, two heavy-duty Space Blankets, 1/2 case MREs, 3 gallons of water, a fairly complete tool kit, jumper cables, identification panels, and a general Survival Kit. I boosted a number of items in the Aid kits, adding medicines and a trauma kit.

I live in an earthquake zone…being prepared is a habit I’ve gotten into! :smiley:

8

Let’s see here, I’ve got Fix-A-Flat, 2 gallons of water (from before I fixed the leaky radiator), a spare tire, a jack, some baseballs, a long wooden stick for holding the hood open, and some pieces of cardboard. Yep, looks like I’m set!

9

I have some band-aids and some alcohol wipes in my glovebox. When I travel, in my car, the other first aid stuff gets packed for the trip that would be more useful.

I have far more tools in my car than first aid items. My emergengy tool kit includes: tool kit (with wrenches, sockets etc), jumper cables, quart of oil, window cleaner, paper towels, antifreeze, funnels, jack, extra set of wiper blades, flashlight, road flares, packets of fast orange hand cleaner, plastic gloves etc…

However, my first aid kit I carry in my pack while out hiking/camping has lots more stuff: band-aids, alcohol wipes, gauze/tape, pain reliever, sunblock/burn aid, emergeny eye wash and other nifty stuff.

10

My first aid supplies are severly lacking. In my car…well…there’s a lot of trash and ATM receipts…I think a roll of electrical tape, so I have some makeshift band-aids. As far as something to clean/disinfect wounds…there’s a small amount of Mountain Dew Pitch Black in a bottle. I’m sure by now it’s fermented nicely and is full of bacteria killing alcohol :slight_smile:

My other car (the one I actualyl drive more often…though it’s not really mine, it’s a company car) is just as lacking, but it has a lot of tools, and now that I think about it, a lot of alcohol wipes. At one point there was a defibrillator in there…does that count for anything?

My apartment…hmm…I have ibuprofen, some bandages, and that’s it. Seeing as I do work in a hospital, I think I should start pilfering some things…like morphine… :wink:

11

You know, I need to get or make one up that is very heat-stable. My present car here has nothing at all.

Any prepackaged kits worth a darn?

12

Gee, lots of neat things at First-Aid-Product.com. On the other hand, the prepackaged kits lack the splints, CPR stuff and tourniquets I expect in a real First-Aid kit.

I suppose the thing to do is buy a kit and some additional stuff.

13

That is really the only way to go. Everybody has different needs, and only you know what you need. I added splints, prescription meds and a lot more burn bandages to my kit.

14

A film canister full o’ greenery, and a bottle of Wild Turkey. That’s all the medical aid a man needs!

15

In the car is a 25-person worksite/office type of kit. Loaded with all the bandaids, gauze, tape and such you’d expect in a commercial first aid kit.

My Faire kit is closer to a trauma box and is housed in a large fishing tackle box. Pop open the lid, and without opening up any trays, you’ve got 99% of your boo-boos handled on the top layer with bandaids, splinter-outs, antibiotic ointment packets and benzalkonium chloride wound wash (Sounds much more butch than “Bactine”!) Open the trays and find ammonia inhalers, yet more bandaids, gauze pads ranging in size from 2x2 to abdominal/surgical drain sized. Rolls of tape, Epi-Pen, glucose tablets, Burn-Jel, stethoscope, instant ice packs, CPR barrier widget, gloves, scissors, scalpels, hypodermic syringes with needles (empty - more for lancing and draining than injecting) and suture sets.

If it sounds like I’m set up to do surgery, it’s because we’re 10 miles from the nearest city. Other than the boo-boo stuff, which gets used fairly often, I pray we never need any of the stuff.

16

For around the house I have a kit very similar to this living in earthquake country it may be need in a hurry.
In the car I carry a kit more like this one designed to supply support till the pros get there
When I go hiking or mountain biking more than a few miles from a trailhead, I carry my own personal kit that I stocked with items to deal with likely problems. Items include a Brave Soldier crash pack as well as gauze, other pads, triangular bandage, tape, splint material for broken fingers, and a bunch more stuff that I can’t recall off the top of my head. The idea here is that if I am 20 miles or so from the trailhead, and one of us gets hurt, I need to be able to stabilize the injury until we head out, or help arrives. Riding back to the trailhead bleeding is not much fun (been there done that :frowning: )
My personal opinion of most small first aid kits is that they give you 25 bandages, 20 aspirins and five other things and call it a 50 piece kit. They are fine for a cut finger, but if the damage is more serious, not much good.

17

I checked my little compas pouch today (the one that is clipped next to the first-aid kit in the Jeep):

Gold/silver space blanket
Packet, Charms candy
Small bar of Ivory soap
Two trioxane tablets
Magnesium firestarter
Five waterproof matches
Three blade pocket knife
Band-Aid adhesive strips so old, they still have the strings on them

That’s what I like about my REI Backpacker kit. Yeah, it has bandages and pills, but it has a few other items as well. I think the wire splint is especially nifty.

18

Mine is probably on the excessive side of complete with a few extras like a disposable skin stapler thrown in to boot. I recently bought a lumbar pack and carry my backpacking essentials in it when I’m not camping, so it’s too much to list taken all together.

Check Doug Ritter’s site for some good ideas, or just to drool.