A Quick Discussion About Safety and First Aid

I just wanted to quickly touch on the subject of safety and first aid but more specifically preparedness.  Emergencies can strike anywhere and any time.  You never know when you or one of your family or friends may receive a traumatic injury. 

If you're like me, you spend your week days working with your hands in an environment surrounded by things like power tools, bladed tools, heavy objects, and open flames.  In my spare time I'm generally at the range, on a boat, or engaging in some other activity that could potentially inflict a traumatic injury.  Even relatively tame activities like yard work or cooking can result in serious accidental injuries. And you never know when you may be the first person on the scene of a vehicle crash with injuries.
 

Hopefully this indoor range was equipped to treat a GSW on site

Are you prepared to render first aid?  And even if you possess basic first aid skills, do you have the tools on hand to deal with a major injury?  Enter the "blow out kit" or "blow out bag".  This is a common item used by combat troops and first responders who need to apply immediate life saving techniques, specifically for traumatic injuries like gun shot wounds, lacerations, punctures, amputations, and shrapnel injuries.  The blow out kit is intended as a single-use item which contains items necessary to stop bleeding, restore breathing, treat for shock, and keep the patient stable until he or she can receive more advanced medical treatment.   The idea is to have a compact portable kit that can be used quickly without having to search around for needed items.

Items commonly found in a typical blow out kit include the following:

1. A battle dressing or sufficient gauze to stem severe hemorrhaging
2. Rubber gloves
3. Medical tape
4. Elastic bandages
5. Blood clotting agents
6. Triangle bandages for slings
7. Foil rescue blanket
8. Decompression needles*
9. Tourniquet*
10. NPA – Nasopharyngeal Airway tubes*
11. Surgical shears

* indicates items that require additional medical training

 

Though you can purchase complete Blow Out Kits online and at specialty retailers, most of these items can be easily found in your home or local drugstores and pharmacies.  Simply select the items that best fit your needs and place them in a large Ziploc freezer bag.  Make several kits to place in various locations so that they will always be there if you need them.  For anyone who has a food sealer, you can use vacuum seal bags which both seal them and make them even more compact for portability.

 

One for the car and one for the range bag.  Blow out kits - don't leave home without one.

 

  Clearly we all hope we never have to use them, but just like a gun, its better to have one and not need it than to need one and not have it.  Stay safe.