A lot of you have emergency first aid kits. I’ve seen how much stuff @Zee travels with 
But what do you all use for your personal IFAK? A lot of people I know who train a lot have their individual first aid kit on their ankle every day.
As a girl in summer, that’s kinda hard to wear (shorts, capri pants, dresses).
Picture from Amazon: Amazon.com
I took a “Stop the Bleed” class and they provided us with a IFAK and instruction on how to use it. How to carry the kit was the issue. Most of the items could be carried in a ankle cuff similar to the one in your picture, the tourniquet was an issue for me. There are a lot of TQ’s that are more compact than the CAT, but the CAT was the only one I could apply one handed (and that wasn’t very easy either). So I went to a second ankle cuff. The first one has CELOX gauze, vented chest seals, compression bandage, duct tape, light, and EMT shears. The second has the CAT and a spare mag.
I’m not big on having anything on my ankles, I’d rather stick with belt carry or during classes I just carry my big orange “crash bag” and keep it at the line.
Just to play off of your ball Greg.
It’s easy to get so carried away stocking an IFAK it becomes too bulky to be comfortable and thus won’t get carried.
If you have safety shears, a couple of pressure dressings/Israeli bandages and a tournequit you’re equipped to handle probably 90% of the shooting related injuries you might ever come across. In case of a mass casualty event just have a more complete bag handy at the line, or in your vehicle for daily carry.
Of course if you carry a “man purse” or belly bag/butt pack of some sort you can always add but those are the essentials for immediate life saving trauma care.
@TexasEskimo, you’re on 
when should we check in on you? 
There ARE a ton of kits on amazon… and other sources. I carry a pretty big kit in my truck, but I’m still working out how / what to carry in my range bag and on my person. I already feel like Batman with the utility belt… although ankle might be doable since no one’s seen me in a dress in years 
Scissors, pressure dressings (2), tourniquet.
With those three you can handle about 95% of life or death injuries you’re likely to encounter.
Chest seals are great too but you can use the plastic covers for the PD’s for the same effect and replace them with vented seals later from your serious crash bag.
Even duct tape or gorilla tape will make a very good chest seal and you can put the tape over any kind of plastic. As long as you leave just a small air gap in one corner to allow excess air to escape the plastic will reseal itself every time the patient breathes in. The excess air in the pleural cavity will escape a little at a time with every exhalation.
Having been involved in medicine for 30 years (a lot of it smash and trash) I have gone quite minimalist and keep most of my IFAK between my ears. I have an external “pouch” on my range pack that could easily be stuffed into a cargo pocket on a pair of camies and when I hunt that is exactly where it goes. 50% of the stuff is for “Oh $h!t’s” and 50% is for the stuff you actually run into.
@WildRose has it right with the Trauma shears, Israeli Dressings and tourniquet (I will add, get the tourniquet with the ALUMINUM windlass, I have scars on my hands/wrists from breaking the poly ones)
Other handy bits and why:
-Tampon’s X2: Not only for their original intended purpose. They are FANTASTIC for long lacerations or bullet holes in meaty parts (don’t stick one in somebody’s chest or belly!)
-Roller Gauze X1: Handy as He!! for just wrapping stuff up and or using the first couple feet as packing.
-Tape X1: I like silk tape, paper tape is worthless. Vinyl electrical tape is another excellent option as is duct tape.
-Band-Aids: Put a box of assorted sizes and types in a ziplock sammich bag or similar.
-Mole Skin: A 4’ x 4" square: Blisters suck.
Put these in a zip lock together:
-Hand Cleaning Wipes X5: Like you get at a Rib or Sea Food joint, good general cleaning.
-Alcohol Pads X5: Great pre Band-Aid application prep and it also gets the oils off YOUR fingers so the band-aids stick.
-Betadine Wipes X5: Good GP anti-infective
Put these in a DOUBLE zip-lock baggy
-Tech-Nu X5: Poison Ivy, Oak, Sumac etc. lotion
-Burn Gel X5: for burns
-Bacitracin/Triple ABX ointment: Squeeze pouches if you can get them tube if you can’t
Tools:
-Tweezers with the magnifying glass: for splinters and such
-Hemostats (Actually I prefer needle drivers but that’s me) great for getting an ear plug out of an ear when shoved in too deep and other uses.
-Knife: You should already have one on but get a 1 1/2" Key chain knife with a “long pointy tip” sometimes you have to go digging for those splinters. If nothing else those key chain knives are sharp at least once. They are also handy for “drilling” a smashed finger nail.
-Light: White is preferred (Blue in a tactical situation) those little LED squeeze lights last forever and even more so if you leave the battery shield in place till you need it.
-Finger Nail Clippers: A split nail hurts
I have some other bits that I keep but they are kinda sketchy and not for regular public consumption.
Cheers,
Craig6
Pretty good but I’d argue the tampons They tend to really pollute wounds.
Super absorbent maxi pads on the other hand do not and work exceptionally well.
I learned the hard way you can work miracles with maxi’s, some curler and tape when years ago a friend was laid open by a wounded boar on a hunt. Ripped him from the inside of the knee to his crotch on one leg.
Took us 45 minutes to evac him since we were on the back size of a huge ranch but he survived.
The ER doc and surgeon were properly impressed but chided me for the use of vet iodine and peroxide; till that is they saw how well he healed without infection.
Fortunately my wife at the time had persuaded me to keep an emergency stock of maxi’s in the truck for female clients that got “surprised”.
I always keep an extensive trauma kit for the dogs since they can get seriously wounded as a normal course of business out here.
3 decades of guiding-/outfitting combined with a pretty good education and experience make for a valuable skill set in an emergency in the field.
@WildRose haven’t seen wound contamination due to tampons but I see your point as Maxi’s are “encapsulated” while tampons are more friable. Maxi’s are also more female friendly than tampon’s according to my wife when a “friend” unexpectedly arrives.
You mention"curler" which I A$$UMe is an auto correct for either Kerlex or Coban both of which I like but neglected to mention.
Kerlex is a stretchy version of roller gauze but too bulky to keep in a personal IFAK
Coban on the other hand is one of my favorite “Make a pressure dressing” wraps. It’s kind of like a self sticky bandage or more precisely covering wrap but again a bit bulky even if you flatten the tube.
On that note I also keep rolls of duct tape that are down to the last 1/8" or so and flatten the tube, gives you about 6’ of tape.
Cheers,
Craig6
I keep a small roll of vet wrap in my kit. It’s also known as finger tape in the industrial catalogs, and is much cheaper to buy that way. It’s a loose-weave tape that only sticks to itself, not to skin. Very tough stuff, too. Great for holding bandages or splints, and for binding sprains or supporting weak joints. Also works for its original purpose, which is protecting fingers while working with cutty, pinchy, shabby stuff. Used it every day in the plastics plant.
Just as with the TQ, adding the chest seals were based on my personal abilities. In class they demonstrated a chest seal constructed from plastic and held with tape. My attempts to improvise one from the compression bandage plastic and duct tape were not impressive so I decided to make some space for a vented seal. That being said your point about being able to improvise is important and well taken, we were shown how belts were a “better than nothing” substitute for a TQ, t-shirts as packing gauze alternative etc.
This may not be the place for it, but I would be interested in knowing the contents for your dog first-aid kit. I keep a full kit in the truck when pheasant hunting which gets used for humans and dogs alike.
Yep, my misspelling. In the veterinary world we just call it “vet wrap”. I use a lot of it with the dogs and horses so I always have smaller partial rolls around.
The full rolls are definitely too bulky for the small personal ankle size packs but if you carry a slinger bag over your shoulder there’s a lot more space.
We’ve seen some fibrous contamination with the tampons that can be very difficult to remove which is why we moved away from recommending them. I’d rather folks just stick to packing rolled gauze into a wound if it needs that kind of packing.
Unfortunately I’ve seen and treated quite a few penetrating injuries in both animals and people.
I use an ankle IFAK everyday. I got it from Recuse Essentials. I carry a rechargeable streamlight flashlight, shears, compression dressing, NPA, pair of chest seals, and a TQ (SOF-TW). I have a separate kit on my gun belt, another on my range bag and large trauma kit in my truck. Each kit has more equipment than the previous kit but I won’t bore you with the details.
welcome @Marty-HGFT!
I’d be interested in seeing how big that actually works out to be… seems like it would be bulky. mind sharing a picture?
@zee No problem. I can only post one pic at at time so there’s gonna be three replies to see it. I don’t find it to be bulky or uncomfortable. I literally wear it everyday and everywhere.
Thank you @Marty-HGFT - the pictures are exactly what I wanted! That’s a lot less bulky than I would have expected
My limited FAK is in a Maxpedition Volta battery pouch (designed to hold 8 AA’s) mounted on my belt. I use Velcro for securing cables to attach it’s Molle webbing to my belt: Maxpedition Volta battery pouch
