Medical gear

The backpack has a first aid kit in it. Backpack goes with me on any hikes into the forest, desert, etc.

Truck, car and home also have first aid kits. All the kits include a 10,000 mAh (or bigger) power bank and cords.

I’ve got 3 modules-

EDC meds- NSAIDs, cough meds, diarrhea meds, antacid, decongescant, bandaids

  • these are for personal discomfort in an urban setting, i.e. normal daily life

EDC kit- trauma scissors, bandage, sterile wound dressing materials, gloves, tourniquet, CPR mask, tape

backpack trauma and crash kit- bigger, better stocked version of the EDC kit plus adrenaline injector, collapsible bag-and-valve mask, tweezers, scalpels, sterile needles, pulse oximeter, thermometer, blood glucose meter

All have been used before but IMO it’s not about your gear. The most important thing is to be willing to help and not turn away. First aid courses are a great way to learn to stay calm in a crisis and to know what your priorities should be. I encourage everyone to take a course, at the very least in CPR. CPR saves lives.

I have a decent kit in my car and an extensive kit in my home. I also keep a very small kit with my house tools - basically just band-aids for small cuts/scrapes to keep the workflow intact. Anything that requires a bigger kit I’d have to stop working for anyway.

I’ve considered edcing something but haven’t found any solutions I’m happy with yet. It doesn’t help that I’m allergic to neosporin/generic equivalents, and almost all of the most portable options (like single-use pouches) are that.

I downsized to my “murse” (“tactical” :person_facepalming: sling-bag), being that I typically just run out to the store in sweats and have few (if any) pockets, so I cut my edc crap to a minimum.

Before that, I carried my “parachute” (big-ass Jansport backpack), and that had, a small M*A*S*H unit inside, as well as a NASCAR pit crew, and the equivalent of about 1½ Radio Shacks. Yeah, no. All that weight had to go.

I gotta rethink what goes inside my current bag while still keeping in downsize-mode.

Yeah I feel that I now just carry stuff to stop someone bleeding out in the 20 minutes it’s going to take the ambulance to get there.

When hiking or going into the woods to chop with a big blade I take my pocket first aid kit. It’s made by Sensiplast. I’m no EMT but the kit is small and seems to cover almost everything you would want to have inside and it unfolds into a big piece that is sorted into categories rather than having dozens of pieces.
It’s cheap too. I added a space blanket, emergency poncho and pain killers.

Oh I’ve long ago given up on the idea of downsizing the colossal amount of sh*ahem*GEAR I lug around. Instead I’ve focused my efforts on modularising. Everything is grouped together into logical kits, each in its own pouch, ready to mix and match depending on where I’m going. I’ve got a huge 70l backpack, a compact 40l, and a 17l murse to choose from, depending on the final amount.

When I head into the woods, particularly where cell reception may be weak, I wear a safety whistle and dog tag (with emergency contact information) around my neck.

Does anyone here carry medical gear….yes
in them every day….yes
and if so how do you carry it?

1. in the car, i use a generic plastic box:

2. in my pocket, a small “give-away” promotional kit. here is one web-image example:

3. on overnight or long-distance (5 hours by car one-way) trips, i use a fishing tackle box. this is my current one:
yes…another web image, but it actually is the brand box i use, and it really resembles this picture.

That sounds like an interesting read to me, for what it’s worth. Packs appear to range from cheap, seam-rips-if-a-drop-of-rain-hits-zipper-teeth to incredibly expensive, but durable. I’m not aware of a middle ground these days, but I’m probably not looking in the right places. I have two multi-day packs (Kelty and Osprey) but they’re both too cumbersome for hiking.

I’m currently hunting for a ~30 liter pack with padded waist belt and durable side pockets for quart/32 ounce Nalgene bottles (as I don’t like water reservoirs). This is a quixotic task, at least in the $40–$60 range.

You sound knowledgeable on the subject, and I’m always interested in what northern Europeans are doing with outdoor gear. I’ve been a fan ever since my first small Fjällräven 10 years ago.

I have a EDC “Tank Bag” that has a First aid kit in it. the bag goes everywhere i go.

Well, don’t forget, you really gotta wear pants, too. Otherwise…

I have a Maxpedition Gear Individual First Aid Pouch that has just about everything in it. Chest seals, H&H compressed gauze, quick clot, Israeli bandage, Letherman raptor shears, ice pack, multiply types of band aids, mole skin. smelling salts, complete suture kit, tweezers, pain killers, eye drops, burn cream, snake bit kit, emergency blanket, glucose gel, so on and so forth. The pouch is 8’‘L x 2.5’‘W x 6’’H and is made of 420 Denier, great for stuffing the crap out of. I keep the Ace bandage and CAT Tourniquet next to the pouch in my Vanquest 16 sling pack along with an EpiPen, Sam Splint and another pouch full of other medications. That’s in my EDC Vanquest bag. I must have 8 other medical bags with everything! I keep the Injectable lidocaine in my main medical bag when going on long trips. I have been doing this for over 30 years and own way too many packs bags and pouches. I do take my IFAK and MFAK’s seriously. I live in Nevada just 20 minutes from my birthplace in Lake Tahoe so growing up hiking camping and fishing in the Siarra Nevada’s, surrounding mountains and Nevada desert you learn quick if you need it and don’t have it, it could be your ass! Driving for 8 hours in the middle of know where to reach camp really makes you think. No cell service, no towns nearby no one to help in an emergency. Lol, I was out hunting for minerals two summers ago and was digging away with my geo pick and a big chunk of quartz came flying at me hitting me just above my right knee cap. Not so bad but the chunk of quartz was in the shape of a 4-pound arrowhead, and it went right in my leg! Lol it bled like a stuck pig and if I did not have my IFAK with me being hours away from the nearest hospital I would have been in trouble. So yeah, I carry med supplies in my EDC pack every time I leave the house. My little daughter uses more band Aids then I have used in my life lol.

Tasmanian Tiger is some top-of-the-line gear. I wear their packs regularly. Unpacked they weigh 5 - 7+ lbs, but feel almost like nothing, just air. Amazing engineering.

I have several medical kits in bags, car, and at home.
The one with me is inside a cheap nylon pouch similar to this.

Probably half the people I hike with have some sort of first aid. I blow off carrying a kit because of this.

I usually carry just a SAM Splint and some fabric tape.

Ankle/leg/forearm injuries are more common than any trauma that requires more than a little gauze + tape.
Good improvised splints are harder than people claim.
You’ll need your trekking poles in a sprain/break situation, whether they are for limping or for carrying a victim over bad terrain.

Two sam splints in a group is extra nice.

JIC ! !

I carry an Israeli bandage in my backpack. I’ll probably add Celox again some day.

That is pretty much what I expected.

That’s impressive.