Medical Supplies - Volume Lesson

[Scythe13]

This is something I didn't give a load of thought to, and am reassessing as things go on.

Imagine the scene:
My beautiful new set of kitchen knives, a new cook book, an overly zealous wife with a desire to cook me up something tasty, and way too much red wine to be using a knife...especially one as sharp as my lot are. Yes you've guessed it.

No major drama. Stopped the bleeding, sorted everything out, and she's fine (for those of you wondering).

But the lesson is not just don't get drunk and pretend to be Delia Smith. But also, have you given ample consideration and do you have ample experience, in caring for a wound until it is healed?

For my preps, I had always looked at First Aid, and the alike. Things like medication and all that, stocked up like a pharmacy. But I didn't really look too much at wound redressing. Thankfully, my experience in MMA, in training, in the cage and as a cornerman, have given me plenty of experience and practice with dressing wounds and treating my own injuries and those of other people.

The issue is that when caring for my own wounds, I'm very lackadaisical (see incident playing, left handed, with a saw where I cut the top of my knuckle off, for example) and don't care for, sort out, or change dressings very often. Now that my wife has a hefting gouge taken out of her, I'm 100% Medical S13, hand sanitizer gel, alcohol swabs, steri-strips, iodine, regularly redressing it and treating the area. However, It's proven to me that my medical gear, although plentiful and ideal for first aid, is nowhere near enough to treat AND MAINTAIN too many injuries until fully cleared. I have about a year's worth of medical gear, but if someone has a few injuries at the same time....

Daily checking of the wound, cleaning, redressing, taping, and the alike, are all ripping into the medical supplies, like termites on antique furniture. The damage may be small each time, but it soon adds up!


If you, like me, are looking at first aid, I hate to say it, but we're both forgetting the big picture.

The idea of First Aid is to be the first action taken to stabilise. Once that's sorted, there's a whole lot more that needs to be done! That 'Second Aid' will use about 5 times more equipment and supplies!

What I'm going to be doing is rebuilding my prepping medical supplies to cover the later stages of aid. First aid, I'm pretty covered on. But now I'm having to build my secondary stage medical equipment.

As bad as the experience has been for my wife, I appreciate the lesson she's taught me about prepping, and the lesson she learned about alcohol and sharp knives not being a good combination.

Think about how much effort it would be to treat a 1 inch, 2 inch, and 3 inch cut, for 1 week, and see if your gear is enough for that. Think of the amount of cleaning equipment you'd need. How much hand sanitizer. How many plasters or bandages and the sizes of them. How much micro-porous tape. How much sterilising equipment you'd need if you were re-doing stitches. How much cotton wool and TCP you'd use over a week of daily work. How much clingfilm you would use to keep the injury dry and clean when showering, etc.

Yep, that level of stuff caught me off guard! Do I have it all? Yes. Do I have an abundance of it all? Not your issue. Your issue is, do you have enough of it all?

[uks]

We are currently expanding our first aid and dental supplies to include more medicines and general kit etc

[Scythe13]

(31 December 2013, 09:46)uks Wrote: We are currently expanding our first aid and dental supplies to include more medicines and general kit etc

I'm glad you are mate.

It really caught me off guard how much post care treatment would be needed. I'm treating the wife's cut, but also one of her feet is rubbing against the top of her wellington boots and blistered. To make it worse, she's been scratching it in her sleep and picked up a small infection, so that's being treated too. All in all, I looked at how much my equipment could cope with it just this alone. Okay we have more than enough.

Then thought about treating my own injuries, and some other team members, and some neighbours, and so on and so forth. It adds up to about 5 times more than I initially thought. Considering I've got 6 full first aid kits, it's really a hell of a lot more gear in post injury care than expected.

[uks]

Some of the overland expeditions we've been on has meant that we have quite a big medical kit anyway. It is housed in a 47 litre water and dust proof aluminium box http://www.amazon.co.uk/Enders-3890-Alum...nium+boxes
Maybe we could make a comprehensive list of recommended medical supplies?.

[TOF]

St John Ambulance shop is your friend when putting together first aid stuff. They sell guality sterile stuff for not a lot of money. from kits, to refills to a single roll of tape and everything inbetween.

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Forgot linky.

http://www.stjohnsupplies.co.uk/products...asp?cat=FC

[MCavity]

Its all good practice as accidents will happen. I had the chance to try out my new med kit when I sliced my finger a few weeks back. The wound is healing fine thanks to quick action.

[Devonian]

I'd certainly be interested to see recommendations for First Aid Supplies, its an area that I have been building up supplies in following an accident I had with an axe - its surprising how much damage can be caused by a 15mm wound (if your tendons just happen to be located in the same place!!!)

But I'm sure there plenty of things that I have not considered..........

[Midnitemo]

a lot of things can be improvised post shtf such as tape dressings and bandages , I've used gaffa tape aand a sani pad in an emergency! improvise and adapt...can't beat having the perfect gear to hand though

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Gaffa tape is far more secure than micropore lol

[TOF]

One thing I've never been fond of is surgical tape. I'm much happier securing a dressing with a bandage. I'm a big fan of Cohesive bandages, they're the bits

[Skean Dhude]

Glad to hear she is fine.

Two lessons here. How easy it is to get injured and the repercussions after an event will be much worse.

How much medical equipment you need for after an event. I have a good set of stores for after an event which I am continually adding to but it will never be enough.