Possibly a good time to point out that the victim (in the UK) would not have any initial direct communication with blue-light responders, MRT or SAR.
Depends on the accident. If you have phone signal and you're fallen and knackered your leg, then you may be with it enough to phone 112, and give information.
If you are going with the deadmans alert that I mentioned in a previous post, then no, it's your buddy who has picked up the beacon that is talking to 112.
In theory, the blue-light response ought to be in minutes, however, that may be 30 minutes or longer depending on circumstances.
Depends on location and the incident. Cat A calls the target is I think 8 or 12 minutes. You may get a community first responder there to stop the clock in that time, with a paramedic arriving soon after... But that is things like heart attack, head injury etc... If it was a broken leg, get comfy, they may be 40 mins.
This is assuming an NHS ambulance is coming. If you are in need of evac by SAR or MTR, then get very comfy, that's going to take a while.
A typical MRT rescue would involve the victim fending for themselves for at least 2 hours, they publish stats so this can be verified.
I'm not sure how long a typical SAR (Bristow helicopter) rescue would take, I suppose it depends on circumstances.
I have concerns about the quality of response once Bristow take over. It's even more worrying down here as the base they were going to use - Manston - has now closed...
Also depends where you are and what you're doing....a small knife cut in the northern forests on a day trip isn't going to need much and worst case will stop bleeding sooner or later and be ok with or without treatment. On the other hand...if you are on an extended trip in tropical areas a little tube of antiseptic and a plaster/dressing to keep dirt out could save you a very nastily infected wound which if untreated could fester and get worse and worse....so in the north you might get away with not using a fak on every tiny cut and scrap but in hotter places a tiny little belt carried fak might stop potential problems in their tracks
Totally agree, A friend got blood poisoning from an undressed blister on her foot. Something that could have been prevented had she just put a plaster on it.
True, but on the other hand most naughty tropical illnesses are insect-borne which means your clothing and sleeping arrangements are far more important than your FAK.
Most peoples FAKs are purely cosmetic, it is the 'other stuff' that will protect and make good any injury.
Sunburn, blisters, etc, yeah they are likely and can be debilitating; but life-threatening they are generally not.
See previous comment re a blister. Sunburn can lead to other things tho, a step towards heat stroke, it may be combined with dehydration etc...
I agree that far to many people treat the FAK as a cosmetic item, and that they don't have any real clue where it is in their bag, or how to use it when they find it. This is not a problem with the idea of carrying a FAK, but with the person carrying it....
Yep....no argument from me there, just keeping it relative to faks and the discussion
Thank you, I enjoy it when conversations go a bit off topic, but I am very much interested in the FA side of things here.
Life threatening:
-Sunburn? Agreed. At least not immediately, although skin cancer later is not only possible, but highly likely. 1st aid won't stop that though. Sun poisoning is another matter though.
-Blisters? It depends. Can you still walk out?
Sunburn can come with dehydration, sun stroke and other funky things. It can also if not treated lead to proper blistering and then infaction. Treat as any other burn. Cool the area, etc...
Blisters, see comment above about blood poisoning. Clean it and stick a dressing on it early to prevent problems later on.
Why would anyone carry icepacks?
And how would they be used to treat the examples given by Goatboy? Which were heat-stroke, snow blindness and hypothermia.
For clarity, the icepacks that we are referring to are the instant icepacks like
These, not the sort you may keep in your cool box during the summer.
The treatment for heatstroke is to cool the body down quickly. Placing icepacks in key body areas helps do this: under the armpits or in the crotch.
What he said. In severe cases you want a lot of cooling, and fast. Sometimes people get confused between Hypothermia and Hyperthermia. Low temperature and high temperature respectively. For high temp, you want to cool fast.
Thank you everyone for your responses. I now have 102 of the allowed 100, so have closed the survey for replies. Give me a little while to process the data and see what the results tell us.
In the mean time, stay safe.
Julia
