welcome back guys in this week's video I'm going to show you guys how to build
your own car first aid kit
alright guys as promised we are continuing the video series on building
your own medical kit and today we're going to talk about building your car
kit now I want to make it very clear that we are not talking about a car
survival kit this is more just the aid portion of it so there is more you
should probably carry including like a shovel and warm clothes but this is the
medical portion of that so don't be confused there the second thing I want
to talk about in this video is that this is not what I carry in my kit now I
carry all of these components in my kit but because of what I do I have a little
bit more in what I carry now I've designed this kit that you're gonna see
today to be more appealing to the average person somebody that has taken
some first aid classes that knows what they're doing but it doesn't get super
advanced you know we're not talking about IVs or decompressions or anything
like that so take that for what it's worth so jumping right into the video
one of the most important things when you're talking about a car wreck is
actually accessing the patient if you can't access the patient all your
medical equipment is completely useless so the first thing I would have in this
kit is a tool of some sort now I use my Leatherman Raptor trauma shears these
are a great tool I have a review on them but whatever you use it should at least
have a window punch and a seatbelt cutter you can use a knife to cut a
seatbelt but it's really a little bit dangerous because you might stab the
patient and that obviously doesn't go over well so I'm not too concerned of
what brand of tool you use I would just recommend you have something with that
window punch to the seatbelt cutter to at least get to your patient like I
talked about in my home first-aid kit video i stratify my kits out into a
couple different tiers of supplies so at the base of every kit I have my core
contents and these are items that are most likely to make the biggest
difference in a life-threatening traumatic issue so to start the core
contents off I carry tourniquets now I would
recommend either getting the cat tourniquet by north american rescue or
the SOFT wide because those both are approved by the committee for tactical
combat casualty care however I don't want to give anybody the wrong idea
because just because these are used in combat
situations and tactical situations doesn't mean they won't be useful to you
at home or in your car so if somebody gets a gun shot in the arm and they're
bleeding out obviously these will work great but they will also work just as
well in a chainsaw accident or if somebody has a pane of glass come down
on their arm or leg and that's why I recommend always carrying a tourniquet
because exsanguination, that's bleeding out, is one of the leading preventable
causes of death and we really don't want that to happen obviously so besides the
tourniquets I would also carry some kind of compressed gauze or rolled gauze that
you can use for wound packing in a patient with a junctional injury I've
talked about this in my wound packing video these are used basically in the
same situations a tourniquets used except these are used for junctional
sites so the base of your neck your armpits or your groin where a tourniquet
won't work so I would always recommend carrying
some kind of gauze to pack a wound in addition to that I would carry some kind
of occlusive dressing for usually a chest seal but this could also be used
for a severe arterial bleed in your neck where you have to control the bleeding
and then put an occlusive dressing so air doesn't get sucked into that wound
I'd make sure you have something once again the brand of these doesn't really
matter all that much I use HyFin for most of my stuff but I've also used halo chest
seals and they work just as well so get some kind of occlusive dressing that's
relatively large and I would also recommend getting two then you can have
one for an entrance wound one for an exit wound if it is a gunshot next up on
the essentials is going to be some kind of trauma dressing these are emergency
trauma dressings you guys have seen these a lot on this channel they're just
basically an elastic band with a pad on it they can be used to secure your wound
packing in place or they can be used to stop the bleeding of a little bit more
of a minor wound on the armored leg or head where have you so these are really
useful to have and then lastly I would have some way to give rescue breaths for
somebody this is a pocket shield this is probably not
your best option obviously this is great because it's small its compact however
for this I would probably get a pocket mask I personally use a bag valve mask
which the American Heart Association doesn't necessarily recommend you use if
you're on your own but I have enough experience with it that I'm comfortable
using it can use it with a pretty high level of effectiveness but if you're
just a way person I least get a face shield for CPR
even though respirations aren't really used in civilian CPR in a lot of
different settings anymore and I'm gonna do a video on that coming up here
shortly but this would also be good if somebody's overdosed or has a severe
head injury and they've gone into respiratory arrest and you need to
breathe for them this is a good thing to have this is the poor essentials of the
kit so whatever kit you build I would have a minimum of these supplies now you
can kind of play with the numbers if you don't feel like you need two tourniquets
you could potentially have one you wouldn't necessarily need to ETD's and
so on and so forth but these are kind of what I would carry in my car as far as
amounts of each supply so moving along
all right the next section is what I would classify is a little bit less
emergent these are issues that might not be necessarily life-threatening but are
severe that you do need to address so to start that off I would say make sure
especially in your car that you have some kind of survival wrap or a survival
blanket I've said this a lot hypothermia kills in trauma so you need to make sure
you keep your patient warm if there's a car wreck you know sometimes you can't
move somebody necessarily to your car so the next best thing would be covering
them up in addition to this I would probably carry a blanket because on its
own this isn't really going to provide much insulation so if you can put a
blanket on them then put the survival wrap on them that would be what I would
recommend personally so this is really important coming down that list I would
carry some kind of splint I carry Sam splints almost
we've leave for my splints just because these are really pliable they can be
rolled up and stored in a variety of different ways they last for a long time
and they're relatively cheap they can also be used for a variety of different
issues and it kind of gives you a diagram here of different ways you can
splint so this is really good to have you know if somebody has an orthopedic
injury you can splint that form that'll reduce pain and it Lord will reduce the
healing time actually in conjunction with any kind of splint you should
probably have something to sling and swath that injury and that's just going
to support it and hold it up these are actually kind of cool these are
triangular bandages or kravitz that I got from North American rescue and I'm
pretty sure this is a new product but these are both cravat and they're also
double as burn dressings so if you do have somebody with severe burn you can
put this over the wound they're not adherent so it's not going to stick in
the wound and I I think this is a great use of
space because it's kind of killing two birds with one stone so you've got
something to address burns and then you have something to make a sling in a
swath with your splint that you have I
would also carry some kind of cling wrap or some kind of wrap to secure your
splint in place you obviously have to wrap that around the arm or it's not
going to stay this will also double as a pressure bandage if you need it to and
can solve a bunch of different problems for you I would recommend carrying some
kind of saline this will be great for flushing out a wound or flushing out an
eye if somebody has something in it just a good thing to have and then with that
I would also carry some kind of eye shield that you can put over somebody's
eye you can wrap it up with something like this and keep that eye from getting
further injured and possibly help them with their pain and discomfort of that
and then the last thing in this section would be some kind of tape once again I
don't really care what you use this is a medical tape that I have duct tape works
great and this can be used for all kinds of problem-solving
you know if you have a bandage that won't stay on this would even you know
potentially wrap up a splint onto somebody's arm although I
wouldn't necessarily recommend that for your first line but another very useful
thing to have all right and the third and final item I would keep in this kit
are going to be potentially medications and your minor wound care items so this
is actually the out pouch from active carry technologies and I just use this
because honestly this is what I would keep it's got a bunch of small band-aids
in it it's got tweezers and a utility knife in here all are pretty useful it
also has advil benadryl hydrocortisone cream some burn cream and triple
antibiotic ointment as well so this is basically what I would carry you know
you can kind of decide what kind of over-the-counter meds you want in your
car kit I would make sure that you at least have something to address minor
pain so your tylenol your ibuprofen something like that you could throw in
some benadryl for your minor allergic reactions or even potentially a sleep
aid if you absolutely needed it I would also put in something for wounds for
cleaning minor wounds like hydrocortisone or some kind of
antibiotic even though you don't want to be using antibiotics a lot it's still
something you know if you have a cat bite or you scrape it on a rusty nail or
something you can apply that and be much better off and then band-aids are always
really useful for your minor stuff and that might not be for like a car wreck
but if you're in your car you're you know at a park with family and somebody
skins their knee that's a good thing to have and I'd always recommend carrying
some kind of band-aid and then tweezers are great for your stings or removing
other things from wounds you know the uses are pretty endless so
that's pretty much the main stuff that I'd make sure you have in your car
first-aid kit that will address most of the issues
you're gonna come across and it keeps it relatively simple so you're not doing
advanced procedures and risking having a lawsuit brought against you or further
liability you know one thing I want to address really quick because I know
somebody's gonna bring it up and talk about in the comments and
fine but I would not keep anything for spinal immobilization in this kit really
more and more we're going away from that in the professional setting because a
lot of studies are coming out and saying that it's really not doing a whole lot
for a majority of our patients so it's not something that I would keep in my
kit personally none of the kits that I have outside of on the ambulance have
sea collars in them or do anything with spinal immobilization so keep that in
mind when you're putting your kit together that's not really something
that I would recommend having in it kind of the last thing I want to talk about
on this topic is going to be what your gonna store all of this in don't get too
hung up on getting a specialized medical bag for your car or anything like that
you can if you want it's certainly going to offer you superior organization and a
little bit more ease of access but honestly for this I would recommend just
putting it in some kind of backpack or duffel bag make sure that you can easily
get at the tourniquets the chest seals and the wound packing supplies but
everything else it's not going to make a huge difference to your patient if it
takes you a couple more seconds to get out a piece of equipment to help them so
don't get too hung up on that too don't break the bank you know a lot of people
really like those bags including myself but it's not something that you have to
worry about too much so that's pretty much all I have for this video if you
think I forgot anything in the kit please leave them in the comments down
below I'm really excited for the next couple months I've got a lot of great
videos lined up right now I'm working on a day in the life of a SWAT medic which
is actually a lot more work than I thought it would be and I'm also putting
together a video for basic cardiac arrhythmias for people that might want
to take advanced cardiac life support down the road or if you just need a
refresher and then a couple other videos that I'm planning so stay tuned for
those and I will see you next week