My concerns for safety and security in the Kearny area.
No matter what plans you make; changes in your family, living conditions, and location means you need to re-evaluate your plan. What you store, how you store it, and where you store it depends on your plan, your living conditions, and financial security.

19 November 2009

First aid kits


If you don’t have a personal first aid kit, you should have one.  You should have one in your car, one in your camping gear, one at work, one you carry with you at all times.  Having a single personal first aid kit as an essential emergency preparedness tool is the very minimum you should have.  Having one personal first aid kit per family member is very important, since it is easy to become separated in an emergency.
But more important than having a first aid kit is knowing how to use what is inside.  You can have the best first aid kit on the planet, but if you don’t know how to use it, that wonder of modern salesmanship does you no good.  You need to train in first aid so that you can use what you store.  This doesn’t mean you should become an EMT, but you should know enough to perform basic life saving on an injured individual.
When shopping for a first aid kit there are 2 basic types advertised: Boo boo kits, and Custom kits.
Boo-boo kits are small, portable first aid kits you find in that you find in pharmacies and big box stores like Walgreen’s or Wal-Mart.  These are not much more than fancy boxes of bandaids with a few other items thrown in.
Custom kits are available on many websites, from military wannabees to outdoor adventure.  Many of these kits are either fancy boo-boo kits or very advanced (and extremely expensive) kits aimed at professional paramedics.

A Balance:
So what you need is a balance, you need the equipment and tools that you have trained with and you need the common first aid supplies that are fine for everyday use.  My first aid kit is a 16inch gate mouth tool bag I bought at Wal-Mart, it includes things like bandaids, single use triple anti-biotic thingies, 70SPF sunscreen, lip balm, hand sanitizer, Nitrile gloves, aspirin, acetaminophen, and assorted pills for sinus headache, diarrhea, heartburn, gas, and motion sickness.  I also have 2’x2’ and 4’x’4 gauze pads and 4’x’4 wound toppers.  I have 2 pair of scissors, eyewash, saline wound irrigation, a couple of chemlights, and usually a flashlight, (my flashlight seems to be AWOL at the moment.)  I have been trained in the use of everything in my bag and some items I don’t have.  So pack the items you know how to use and then get more training and improve your first aid kit.
Training doesn’t have to be expensive, take the Red Cross first aid classes if available.  Buy some books on the subject.  (I suggest FM-21-11 First Aid for Soldiers for beginners and the ST 31-91B US Army Special Forces Medical Handbook for the more advanced.  The former covers everything from putting on a bandaid and lancing a blister to splinting broken limbs and gunshot wounds.  The latter goes even farther into delivering babies and diagnosing common battlefield diseases.)  You could even help the Boy Scouts by buying the First Aid merit badge books and teaching Scouts at the same time.  There are plenty of opportunities.