Who already really needed his First Aid Kit?

[Billy-o]

Only people I have seen badly hurt have been put on a sled or helicoptered out pretty imediately; though I have heard lots of first-hand stories of climbers with ugly breakages being carried out.

Otherwise the FAK is used pretty often, although just been the gamut of minor injuries, and not all to me. Cuts and grazes of different depths, in different parts, from knives, falls etc - some needed glueing, some just dressing with tape. Sunburn. Sprains and twists that need support with stock neoprene tubes or bandage and a stick to help with walking. Dehydration requiring a bit of electrolyte. Sudocrem and vaseline mainly for rashes or as a way of making a barrier for cuts. Kids (and not so much kids) falling through ice needing a towelling-off and a quick fire. Leukotape for blistering and some burns. A loupe and sliver grippers for splinters. That's about it really.

On a two week trip in my twenties I opened a can of beans, put it on the fire. Picked it up by the jagged rim of the can. Too hot, I went eek! and threw it. The rim of the can tore through my index finger and thumb of my right hand to the bone. Two days later I did exactly the same to my left hand. I kind of just became more careful after that.

 

[Erbswurst]

I think bushcraft skills and to be carefull help to avoid a lot.
I did cut myself only once, when I did some more complicated carving and talked to a few friends the same time.
(I used a pretty long blade, by the way, what didn't make it easier.)

That was the only bushcraft injury I got myself. And I am doing such things since perhaps 45 years.

That's why I personally don't carry other first aid equipment than pain killer tabs (and Micropour forte).

But instead of it I am very well educated in first aid. The life guard swimmers taught us to manage most problems without equipment, because a first aid equipment doesn't fit so well into swimming breefs.

 

[MCNZ]

I've previously worked in what some would describe as 'extreme sport' tourism, so I've dealt with all sorts of abrasions, fractures, lacerations, dislocations and even a few unconscious patients. I tend to take a FAK of some kind whenever I'm in the outdoors. I have a good store of case studies whenever I do a first aid course!

 

[Erbswurst]

But base jumping and rafting aren't really bushcraft, isn't it?

 

[MCNZ]

But base jumping and rafting aren't really bushcraft, isn't it?

True, but human-powered expeditions through mountain and jungle regions of developing countries that involved wild camping and catering for groups in the outdoors provided plenty of relevant learning opportunities!

 

[tombear]

Looking for a crossing point i slipped off the bank of a river in flood from melting snow and fell four or five feet hit a boulder and went under water with my bergan still on. I tried to stand twice and fell over each time but was able to crawl to the bank with my head out of the water. There i shrugged off my bergan and wedged it between a boulder and the bank and managed to pull myself onto it and then haul myself up onto the bank.

My left leg was decidedly floppy and short below the knee and when I rolled my trouser leg up a d got my boot and socks off I found my tib and fib poking out of two separate holes in my calf. I emptied so e of the sterilised water I was carrying onto it to get a better look at it and straightened my leg until the bones had gone back into my leg and it was the same length as the other. Bleeding wasn't great , probably from the cold more than anything else and pretty much stopped completely when I tightly applied a 1980s style first field dressing over both puncture holes. The waterproof wrapper had worked well and had come off easily i didn't need to apply the other FFD I'd got in the first aid kit in the lid of my pack. A ex squaddy had told me to loosely tape it to a shoulder strap. I later got a dedicated pouch to hold one there made by Aktis. It was about 3 hours before it was replaced by a doctor with mountain rescue. I had been very lucky where the punctures had been no major bleeds. I was wearing a Buffalo shirt straight against my skin and this worked admirably despite being soaked.

Atb

Tom

 

[MrEd]

Looking for a crossing point i slipped off the bank of a river in flood from melting snow and fell four or five feet hit a boulder and went under water with my bergan still on. I tried to stand twice and fell over each time but was able to crawl to the bank with my head out of the water. There i shrugged off my bergan and wedged it between a boulder and the bank and managed to pull myself onto it and then haul myself up onto the bank.

My left leg was decidedly floppy and short below the knee and when I rolled my trouser leg up a d got my boot and socks off I found my tib and fib poking out of two separate holes in my calf. I emptied so e of the sterilised water I was carrying onto it to get a better look at it and straightened my leg until the bones had gone back into my leg and it was the same length as the other. Bleeding wasn't great , probably from the cold more than anything else and pretty much stopped completely when I tightly applied a 1980s style first field dressing over both puncture holes. The waterproof wrapper had worked well and had come off easily i didn't need to apply the other FFD I'd got in the first aid kit in the lid of my pack. A ex squaddy had told me to loosely tape it to a shoulder strap. I later got a dedicated pouch to hold one there made by Aktis. It was about 3 hours before it was replaced by a doctor with mountain rescue. I had been very lucky where the punctures had been no major bleeds. I was wearing a Buffalo shirt straight against my skin and this worked admirably despite being soaked.

Atb

Tom

Jesus, you were lucky. Nice prompt action by yourself though by the sounds of it.

 

[Stew]

That is quite a tale! Well done on getting out of it!!

 

[Erbswurst]

Oh God!

 

[tombear]

Yup, I was 50 or 60 yards from the road I was going to finish on and hitch back into a town to get the train home, just the wrong side of a small river that fed into a larger one. I was walking with a pair of poles and being careful looking for a crossing place, normally you can paddle across the tributary but the snow was melting and it was unusually deep. To this day I don't know if I stumbled or a bit of the bank fell away. I didn't realise my leg was broken until I looked back as I was crawling along and for a brief moment I thought I had some how caught a fish on my boot or yeti gaiter as there was something thrashing about in the water behind me then I thought, that's my leg that is. There was surprisingly little pain (shock?) and I recall I was more unhappy about one of my leki poles being washed away than it hurting.

After about half a hour a local taking his dog walking responded to my whistle and was a real hero and after a short shouted conversation went off to phone for help.and then came back, crossed the main river further up and sat with me. After 20 minutes more a ambulance bounced down the track and parked about 30 yards away, the wrong side of the river and we waved at each other while they radioed in to request mountain rescue to fetch me across. Now here's why I won't say exactly where this happened as I'd be the last one to criticize those dedicated souls who provide this vital service but someone high up had made a poor decision and had organised a major exercise and left no cover for real shouts on the opposite side of their area, So it took two hours to round up the people out on the moor and drive 3 side of a square to get to me, who was about 15 minutes drive and walk from one of their bases. When they did turn up it was mon handed, there was about 5 landrovers and 20 or 30 men and they had me in the back of the ambulance taking in as much of the free gas and air as I could in minutes. I recall being very apologetic about the fuss I had caused. I made the local paper anyway although the reporter got my name wrong and my weight. I was a beefy 16 stone at the time and fitter than I ever have been. but he had me down as 19.

I had two weeks in Hospital and they put a steel rod in side one of the bones. A week after I was let out I slipped going to the toilet in the night and although I didnt land on my bad leg hard the steel rod bent side ways and cracked a piece off the side of the bone at the join. Herself was horrified at the sight of my leg with a rigid 45 degree bend to the side as I hopped about asking her to phone for a ambulance.

Anyroad Off I went to the local hospital and had a third operation. After wards the consultant who dealt with me told me that the previous lot had fitted a rod (pin?) suitable for a 8 stone granny and he had used something far more hefty. He also told me he was amazed that I had managed to break the bone in the first place. Back when he was a medical student they had practived working on the bones of bullocks and working on my leg it had been as dense and hard to drill as those had been. I wish I had got it in writing as it seams I'm the only fat guy to have genuinely big bones! This may explain why despite 12 lessons at school I cant swim. Even with one of those big white floats clung to my chest and kicking like mad Id sink everytime and have to be pulled to the surface with this big cruck like stick. They just couldnt get me to float! Well it's as good a excuse as I can come up with.

ATB

Tom

 

[FerlasDave]

Yep plenty! I nearly took my thumb off with an axe once!
Funnily enough though, the mountain rescue has had more influence on my first aid kit than the crap I used to carry in the army ever did! Far more comprehensive now and not just focused on dealing with trauma.

 

[Erbswurst]

Did you hold the log or what?

 

[FerlasDave]

I was splitting it down into kindling and not paying attention. When I lifted the kindling and the axe together and dropped them down to split I forgot to move my hand away and went down into my thumb!

 

[Suffolkrafter]

The strangest I've had to deal with was a swollen eye ball two days into a multiday trek. We didn't know the cause, possibly an allergy, but it was severe enough to cause loss of sight. The next day we came across someone who had an eye drop in their FAK. We applied this, and the by the next day the eye ball had resumed it's normal proportions and we were able to continue the trip.

 

[CLEM]

Years ago as I fashioned an arrow for the survival bow ( loved ole Lofty’s book ) I had made I slipped and pretty much ponassed my index finger, claret everywhere, exposed bone..............
I needed a first aid kit then but didn’t have one, ah to be a young teenager again lol

 

[SSGN_Doc]

I've used the following on outings:
Elastic bandage
Small Banaids
Benedryl - (Diphenhydramine)
Antibiotic ointment

Used my vehicle kit at a motor vehicle accident on the way back from a hike. Driver went off the road avoiding a deer. She had brittle bne disease and had open fractures of both lower legs. SAM splints, elastic bandages and large dressings along with trauma scissors were handy. But my vehicle kit is probably a bit of overkill from my days as a military hospital corpsman.

Was 20 minutes before emergency medical services arrived.

 

[Oliver G]

Luckily I've never needed the FFD, tourniqet, or SAM splint. I regularly go through plasters, drawing paste, blister pads, tampons (weird thing altitudes and periods, not all members of your group may know about it) and of course tick tweezers and germoline.

I think a lot of people think mainly of catastrophic incidents (and rightly so) but we shouldn't be shy with using the day to day supplies in a first aid kit.

 

[Yngve Cymric]

I habitually have my bleed out kit with me and a first responder pack in my van, I'm often a lot be worker and I'm a woodworker so constantly using sharp tools.
At the start of the first lockdown I was self isolating in my woodland cabin having flown back early from Norway.
I did the " if you're not careful" moment with a knife and successfully opened my hand up, spent the next few hours sticking myself back together whilst realising that the kit then was pretty poor.
Put myself through a FREC3 course and when things are settled I'll revisit a wilderness medic course.

I've also stuck countless colleagues back together