Medical skills preparedness

[BrianS]

How often do you have to cycle out your supplies from things expiring? Is anything prone to heat damage if you leave it in car?

 

[smokey]

How often do you have to cycle out your supplies from things expiring? Is anything prone to heat damage if you leave it in car?

Depends on the equipment. It is one reason the chest seals are in the backpack and school bag instead of the car kit though. Probably once every 4 months or so I'll glance around in the kits for expiration dates or if anything looks wonky. I pickup a new pack of celox gauze about once a year to make sure it stays good. The seals I have now should be good until 2025, so I'll just pickup new ones and maybe train with these once they're expired. The medicine has expiration dates on the packaging(2023 for the benadryl) and I cut off the directions from the box to put inside the medicine pouch for reference for dosing and such. Sidenote, benadryl and aspirin are awesome at lots of things. Need to sleep? nauseated? having an allergic reaction? Lungs getting fluid from a gas attack? benadryl to the rescue. Pain, heart attack..etc. Powdered aspirin can come out.

The stuff in the car kit is pretty stable. It's mostly gauze, sponges, triangle bandages...etc.

 

[smokey]

Just plugged a gap i had in the med kits with splint material. SAM splints are great. The ever ready rolls seem to basically be the same thing for less money.

 

[Jim12]

.

Great thread. Thanks for putting all this information together.

 

[twimc]

Great info.

 

[Patriot]

Depends on the equipment. It is one reason the chest seals are in the backpack and school bag instead of the car kit though. Probably once every 4 months or so I'll glance around in the kits for expiration dates or if anything looks wonky. I pickup a new pack of celox gauze about once a year to make sure it stays good. The seals I have now should be good until 2025, so I'll just pickup new ones and maybe train with these once they're expired. The medicine has expiration dates on the packaging(2023 for the benadryl) and I cut off the directions from the box to put inside the medicine pouch for reference for dosing and such. Sidenote, benadryl and aspirin are awesome at lots of things. Need to sleep? nauseated? having an allergic reaction? Lungs getting fluid from a gas attack? benadryl to the rescue. Pain, heart attack..etc. Powdered aspirin can come out.

The stuff in the car kit is pretty stable. It's mostly gauze, sponges, triangle bandages...etc.

As a side note here, improvised chest seals are better than no chest seal. That packaging can easily be made into an improvised seal if you have a roll of tape in the kit.
There are two schools of thought on how to tape it. First says just tape all four sides to completely seal the compromised cavity. The second says to leave a small opening allowing built up air pressure to escape on the exhale, hoping that on the inhale the pressure will suction the occlusive material back down onto the wound.

The tape won't stick to a wet or bloody wound nearly as good as a purpose made chest seal so you have to dry the wound off better. If the seal is first effective but breathing becomes difficult the seal should be burped by quickly peeling up one side of the seal allowing built up air to escape. If your victim is with it enough this should be coordinated to be done during a forceful exhale. *Not a doc. YMMV.

 

[rouchna]

Thank you for starting this thread. In terms of preparedness, medical/first aid is an area where I would give myself an F. This thread is a good reminder for me to get my sh*t together.

 

[Crosseye Dominant]

Could a civilian actually purchase Narcan?

When I checked a few months ago spray from CVS is $80-90 if you are outright just purchasing it. As mentioned before others get it through training, work it community program.

 

[Pale Ryder]

Narcan severely interferes with a self-correcting problem. It is one of mankind’s worst inventions and no one should carry it unless forced to by their employer.

Ever think about changing your name to Thread Dump, it would be fitting?

 

[smokey]

Thank you for starting this thread. In terms of preparedness, medical/first aid is an area where I would give myself an F. This thread is a good reminder for me to get my sh*t together.

Glad it's been useful.

 

[boule]

I think they do. Just google your county health department and "narcan"

Yup. Interesting thing mentioned in the training. They said be prepared for a fight after saving someone's life that overdosed. They said that it's common for the person that overdosed to get mad at you for taking their high away(that they paid hard-earned money for), and that they'll become belligerent to the person that gave them narcan.

Depends on a bunch of factors but generally speaking: short acting opioid, habitual user (withdrawal symptoms) and high dose of naloxone administered - prepare for some interesting times. Of course, you can always smooth things over with some benzos or ketamine if they get too combative. From a personal perspective, succinylcholine i.m. works just as fine to stop aggression but creates other problems (B) for the next 15 mins or so (+/- a minute or two).

Please remember that if you play around with narcan/naloxone, it has a rather short half-life when compared with morphine. You get a combative patient who runs away, naloxone stops working and a few days later you can track him by smell
Some fellow shamans try to solve this problem by administering a second dose s.c. or i.m. Last time I checked the literature, there was only limited evidence and no clear recommendation towards this course of action.

 

[Blaster229]

What I hate is that of the few 50-$100 gsw kits I have all over the place, I use more .03 band aids than anything.
Well, not that I hate that, but you know what I mean.

 

[smokey]

What I hate is that of the few 50-$100 gsw kits I have all over the place, I use more .03 band aids than anything.
Well, not that I hate that, but you know what I mean.

Yup. That's especially true at la casa de smokey with a 4 and 6 year old running around. Between that and the PE teacher gig, I feel like I'm constantly making it rain bandaids.

After bandaids, the itch cream, eye wash, and headache medicine come in handy fairly regularly. The gauze, tape, and steri-strips are less common, but have been needed a few times in the past year. I dropped a glass dish in the kitchen that hit our tile floor as I caught it. A couple shards ended up sticking me in the hand straight to the bone on a couple fingers. It was good practice steristrip zipping a couple wounds closed one-handed.

Thankfully the bigger stuff hasn't been used, but it's still nice to have around just in case.

At school, it's like 99% bandaid with the occasional big deal. I've had kids break/dislocate limbs, split heads open, and one kid that slashed his arm pretty bad dicking around with sharp metal near the bottom of a portable during recess. Generally the bad cases are quickly transported down to the nurse, but being able to do that without leaving a trail of blood is always a good thing.

 

[smokey]

I picked up these for little burns around the house. Anyone here with more knowledge, what's a good burn dressing for larger emergency burns?(besides some Vaseline and kitchen plastic wrap?)

 

[Biggfoot44]

I'll bite . Are there any quasi reliable statistics about Narcan usages ? Ie first responders , industrial accidents , young children vs deliberate drug abusers ?

 

[smokey]

Bump

 

[Sealion]

Great thread. Missed it first time around. Did I miss where you mentioned where you got your training? I'd love to go through a comprehensive first aid course.

 

[ToolAA]

Bump

Thanks for the bump. I missed this first time around too. I’ve seen a man die right in front of me years ago. I felt so utterly helpless. I had zero first aid training at the time. In called 911, I was so unprepared I couldn’t even be sure I was checking his pulse correctly. I’m not sure I could have done anything considering his injuries but if it happened today I sure would try a lot harder.

Also after taking CPR. I decided to buy an AED. My brother died if heart failure at 42yrs old. My parents and in-laws are high risk. When we have family get togethers I actually remind myself that if something happens I CAN help. I even play the CPR/AED scenario in my head sometimes.

Thanks again.

 

[ToolAA]

May be a good idea to ask the mods to
Move this into the Prepper forums.

 

[smokey]

May be a good idea to ask the mods to
Move this into the Prepper forums.

Good idea