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Buy first aid kit or built your own? Especially tourniquet

HuumanCreed

HuumanCreed

Well-Known Member
SH Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2020
Messages
2,677
Location
Westminster Maryland
Feeling a lot more mortal with some of the injuries story lately. My current kit is just some wipes, bandages, and small gauzes. But as I move away from trying save as much weight as possible, I'm more open to carrying a more robust kit, but I dont need 50 bandages you know? @Red Beard been very vocal in his belief that we should all have a tourniquet with us. But most of the 'good' kit I see on Amazon does not have one, and I wonder about no name generic type. Like, you cant really mess up 'band-aid' or gauze, but good tourniquet might means the different between surviving for an hour or a few hours.

So who built your own kit? If you do, a breakdown would be nice.

If you buy pre-made kit, any recommendation? What did you improve upon from the stock kit?

What tourniquet would you recommend?

Other items would you recommend for the kit that is not already a part of your 'hunting' loadout? For example, I'm going to start carrying around a multitool.
 
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Thank you for this bro. Think many folks underestimate just how quick the human body bleeds out if sliced in the right place.

1. Trust your life (and the lives of those around you) to no tourniquet other than a RATS, a SOF-T, or a CAT.

2. PRACTICE with your tourniquet! A tourniquet is useless if you don't know how to employ it.
 
Guess I will be your example not to follow...duct tape, a few ibuprofen and a few benadryl. If you check out on me I can field quarter you and get you on ice. If I check out on you feel free to do the same, just gonna be cremated anyway.
 
Don’t have time at present to break down my DIY kit, but a chest seal is not a bad thing to include. Mine is more of a trauma kit then a minor first aid kit, although pills for what ails you don’t weigh much.
 
For a serious injury, trauma kit would be the way to go. These days the kits are so comprehensive that some fall just short of a portable xray machine. Might be more if a vehicle bag though. Carrying one in the field solo probably isn't practical, at least for the full kit.
 
Heres a list if goidies in a cheap trauma kit...

1 BleedStop Bandage
1 Pair Latex Examination Gloves
1 Elastic Bandage, 4"
4 Pain Relievers
6 Sterile Sponges, 4" x 4"
1 Tape, Roll, Adhesive
16 Bandage Strips, 1"x 3"
6 Antiseptic BZK Wipes
1 Pair of Stainless Steel Tweezers
1 Triangular Bandage
1 EMT Shears
5 Butterfly Strips
1 Abdominal Pad, 5" x 9"
2 Ammonia Inhalants
1 EFA - First Aid Instructions
1 Burn Aid Package
6 Safety Pins
Pouch measures 8-inch x 6-inch x 3.5-inch and weighs only 1.15 lbs
Tac Pouch includes MOLLE strap system for quick and easy attachment to bags and packs with web platforms
 
Red Beard said:
Thank you for this bro. Think many folks underestimate just how quick the human body bleeds out if sliced in the right place.

1. Trust your life (and the lives of those around you) to no tourniquet other than a RATS, a SOF-T, or a CAT.

2. PRACTICE with your tourniquet! A tourniquet is useless if you don't know how to employ it.
Click to expand...

I always encourage folks to practice too. CATs don’t need to be sterile, and you should be able to put it on any limb with just your non-dominant hand.
 
We've had first aid threads off and on, I usually chime in to advocate for not carrying much, unless you're trained. And I mean real trained, not watched a YouTube video trained. Tourniquet for example, unless you are actually trained in it's use and applications, such as having been in the military, EMS, etc, there's a very good chance you cause yourself more injury or harm than help. Lots of (most of not all, particularly nonvascular) soft tissue injuries would be better served with localized pressure, even if it is balling up a sock over the wound and taping it down with duct tape.

(This sock and duct tape scenario is not a tutorial or advice to use in the field, my advice is to only bring things that you know how to use, and do the bare minimum to keep from bleeding out before help arrives.) For most of us that's band aids, tape, and gauze, not tourniquets and quickclot and splints and all that. Bring your cell phone and an Inreach/spot satellite communicator for the same weight penalty and you'll have a much more functional kit.

I'll return the soapbox now.
 
thedutchtouch said:
We've had first aid threads off and on, I usually chime in to advocate for not carrying much, unless you're trained. And I mean real trained, not watched a YouTube video trained. Tourniquet for example, unless you are actually trained in it's use and applications, such as having been in the military, EMS, etc, there's a very good chance you cause yourself more injury or harm than help. Lots of (most of not all, particularly nonvascular) soft tissue injuries would be better served with localized pressure, even if it is balling up a sock over the wound and taping it down with duct tape.

(This sock and duct tape scenario is not a tutorial or advice to use in the field, my advice is to only bring things that you know how to use, and do the bare minimum to keep from bleeding out before help arrives.) For most of us that's band aids, tape, and gauze, not tourniquets and quickclot and splints and all that. Bring your cell phone and an Inreach/spot satellite communicator for the same weight penalty and you'll have a much more functional kit.

I'll return the soapbox now.
Click to expand...
Yep, you really just need to be able to get back civilization or civilization to get to you. Lot of the stuff listed in the kit I found above is a bit redundant and we as hunters, doubly so as saddle hunter's, probably carry equivalents.

On a similar tangent, survivalist training is nice for camping or if SHTF does happen. But if you drop someone anywhere east of the Mississippi, you can reach civilization wiithin hour's if you're able to walk. Pick a direction till you hit a road or stream rhen follow that.
 
thedutchtouch said:
Lots of (most of not all, particularly nonvascular) soft tissue injuries would be better served with localized pressure, even if it is balling up a sock over the wound and taping it down with duct tape.
Click to expand...
100% agree. A tourniquet should only be employed when the scenario is "OH MY GOSH THAT'S A LOT OF BLOOD"
 
Red Beard said:
100% agree. A tourniquet should only be employed when the scenario is "OH MY GOSH THAT'S A LOT OF BLOOD"
Click to expand...
But only if you're trained to know what a lot of blood is. ;) to a regular person(even a hunter used to shooting and gutting deer) a few hundred cc's of blood looks like a LOT when it's coming out of you or soaking into gauze/cloth but it's not yet life threatening. You need to lose around 2 liters of blood (depending on body size) to get into hypovolemic shock/death territory, so most injuries you'd be better off if you pack the wound than if you cut off blood supply to the entire limb (and risk greater tissue damage) Tourniquet (again, I am not an expert, get trained don't listen to me) is very limited, like you're holding your shirt over the wound as hard as you can and it's still actively bleeding, or you get an arterial spurt of blood into the air with each heartbeat when you release pressure and can't get it to stop.

Ok soapbox really returned for real now.
 
thedutchtouch said:
You need to lose around 2 liters of blood (depending on body size) to get into hypovolemic shock/death territory, so most injuries you'd be better off if you pack the wound than if you cut off blood supply to the entire limb (and risk greater tissue damage) Tourniquet (again, I am not an expert, get trained don't listen to me) is very limited, like you're holding your shirt over the wound as hard as you can and it's still actively bleeding, or you get an arterial spurt of blood into the air with each heartbeat when you release pressure and can't get it to stop.
Click to expand...
Agree again. Training and practice is necessary. My point all along has been that a tourniquet is the one piece of gear you cannot improvise quick enough if you are actually in need of it.
 
BTaylor said:
2TC kit couldnt be improvised in a SHTF scenario?
Click to expand...
I'd imagine that all you really need is the tether. Run it around your leg and through the eye, then double back and loop around the leg in the opposite direction. Tuck or tie off the tag end and you're good to go. Ideally rendezvous point is site of injury, if not leave your crap except for communication and compass and haul arse to help or rendezvous point.

worry about replacing the bow/gear when you're not dead.
 
Red Beard said:
Thank you for this bro. Think many folks underestimate just how quick the human body bleeds out if sliced in the right place.

1. Trust your life (and the lives of those around you) to no tourniquet other than a RATS, a SOF-T, or a CAT.

2. PRACTICE with your tourniquet! A tourniquet is useless if you don't know how to employ it.
Click to expand...

1. I would highly recommend the SOF-T or CAT over the RATS.

2. Buy a second tourniquet and designate it as a practice one. I'd recommend a different color one. Not as important with the SOF-T, but the CAT shouldn't be reused due to the application stressing the plastic.

thedutchtouch said:
You need to lose around 2 liters of blood (depending on body size) to get into hypovolemic shock/death territory, so most injuries you'd be better off if you pack the wound than if you cut off blood supply to the entire limb (and risk greater tissue damage) Tourniquet (again, I am not an expert, get trained don't listen to me) is very limited, like you're holding your shirt over the wound as hard as you can and it's still actively bleeding, or you get an arterial spurt of blood into the air with each heartbeat when you release pressure and can't get it to stop.
Click to expand...

You will not cause tissue damage with a tourniquet in 99.99% of the situations in which they're applied in the continental US. You're looking at 12+ hours before that becomes an issue if I remember the TCCC studies correctly.
 
thedutchtouch said:
I'd imagine that all you really need is the tether. Run it around your leg and through the eye, then double back and loop around the leg in the opposite direction. Tuck or tie off the tag end and you're good to go. Ideally rendezvous point is site of injury, if not leave your crap except for communication and compass and haul arse to help or rendezvous point.

worry about replacing the bow/gear when you're not dead.
Click to expand...

An improvised tourniquet is better than nothing, but a far cry from an actual tourniquet. I've applied a tourniquet in an emergency setting where someone used an improvised one prior to my arrival on scene and there was a noticable difference.
 
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