hey guys my name's sam and welcome to prepmedic after two years of being on
the special operations response team in my area i think i have finally figured out how
to pack medical supplies for search and rescue missions and today i'm going to share with you
our special operations team attaches to two swat teams a search and rescue team and dive
rescue since i started on the team i have really struggled in the search and rescue
territory because i haven't known really what to pack or how to pack the medical gear trying to
balance sustainment items with als capable medical gear has been a huge challenge and there's not a
lot of backpacks or kits that are really designed for that role you have people that like to take a
ton of supplies and people that are very very minimalist on our team and i find that i fall
somewhere in the middle so this has gone through a couple different evolutions for me i started out
trying to do both the swat kit and the sar kit in the same bag that was actually the rats pack
right here and that was just absolutely monstrous for both applications because i was trying to keep
too much in it try to keep everything i needed for both rolls then i went to a really minimalist
setup where i took everything i had for medical supplies and i just kind of threw them in a
hiking backpack and went and i really found that i didn't have some equipment that i really wanted
and it wasn't organized very well for rapid access that all has brought me here to this pack now the
pack in front of you i got and i was intending to do a review on the kit itself this is the
tasmanian tiger mark ii medica salt pack small and i was really just going to do a review on this and
then probably throw it in storage or do something else when i got it though i realized that this
had a lot of other potential and i didn't waste any time and i expected out for exactly what i
wanted so this is a relatively small medical bag you can kind of see compared to my hand
i've reviewed ifax bigger than this i think the mymetic kit is just a little bit larger
and this is substantially smaller than my swat kit the whole thought behind this is that it is
kitted out to deal with your bleeds and traumatic injuries like that from falls or other accidents
in the backwoods but mainly it is designed to treat orthopedic injuries and some other
things we might see in the wilderness environment what i really like about this is this kit here
can store its handles in the back so i don't need those out i can take my search and rescue
pack which is this this is a hill people gear pack and i can just strap this to the outside of this
kit which has all of my sustainment supplies it has my extra layers water food everything that i
would need as part of the search and rescue team this will just add to some of its capabilities
so i can strap that on that backpack or any other backpack that has cinching straps on the side
all else fails i can always just carabiner it to one of the lifting handles
of a third-party pack if we're trying to split loads or i'm using something that i'm not used to
i just take this and put it in there i love this thing i am super happy with how this
turned out i'm still kind of playing with it so not everything's gonna stay the exact same
starting with the outside as always up here we've got a pair of x-shears extras are my favorite
scissors they're pretty lightweight they're very simple they don't have all the doohickeys that uh
your raptor trauma shears will have so these have been a favorite for a long time that just fits in
this pocket i have just a really tiny beacon on here it's just a source of light i can put on if
somebody's you know looking for me or i can mark a trail head um it was basically just something
to fill up the velcro there identifier down there really not a big deal um and then on either side
we have a tourniquet over here now this kit isn't really kitted out as a tactical kit i still carry
all the major bleeding supplies but realistically in the backwoods if we get to somebody and they
haven't bled out that's probably not going to be an issue for us because it takes us
um you know between an hour to three hours to get to somebody on average depending on where they are
so usually the major bleeding unless they've done uh their own makeshift tourniquet or something
that's worked it's not gonna be a huge um concern for us i still have everything that needs to
go into that march algorithm though now on the right side of it i have the swishman i always say
that name wrong traction splint so this is a very very small traction splint like i said this kit is
specifically designed for orthopedic injuries this is for your mid shaft femur fracture somebody
can lose a lot of blood there we have a lot of climbers that fall so those bone breaks are pretty
common for us i really wanted to have something where we could treat that femur fracture if we had
to because that's a pretty big deal in the front pocket and this is packed pretty tightly because
i've got a lot of stuff on the inside i have two things so number one i've got the sore rescue med
mag this has basically it's their pill pack and this has acetaminophen ibuprofen diphenhydramine
lopermide bismuth multi-system cold burn cream triple antibiotic pack hydrocortisone pack
band-aids and eye drops so it's kind of all of those little over-the-counter things that you
might need uh just good to have in these kits because not everything you're going to is like
the super serious life-threatening thing and then in the top if i can get it out we have
a sam splint so i don't carry sam splint with my swat stuff and like i said this is pretty tight
there we go um so the sam splint is just for those breaks this can be used on legs arms hands it can
even be turned into a makeshift uh c collar so there's a ton of different uses for the sam splint
and that just goes right on the outside pocket it's kind of where it fit um the best and then the
pill pack just goes right next to it i'll try to leave links down uh below to all of these kind of
off the wall products that i have because a lot of these are just things i've gotten over the years
i really like the sore rescue med mag so coming into the kit itself um this thing is pretty tight
but i find that it actually works pretty well it closes easily sometimes you'll be like you
can't even get it closed again i definitely can so inside this kit i have this um really not laid out
in any particular like order in march algorithm because in the environment we're in i can take
a little bit more time to get in here and get exactly what's needed for the patient one of the
really cool things about this kit is these panels actually will come out um and these just have that
these elastic bungees on them so you can kind of customize them how you want i honestly left this
laid out exactly as it came in the package because it worked for what i needed um all right so in the
lid of the pack here i've got a number of things so i've got these uh peen hemostats great for
some minor surgical procedures your finger thor costumes it can assist with a surgical
cricothyrotomy can also be used as like tweezers or getting a thorn out of somebody we do have
a cactus in the highland desert here below that we have the gnar survival wrap and that's just
a hypothermia prevention kit you still need to insulate the patient but i carry some extra layers
i can throw on them in my search and rescue pack that can be used in conjunction with this while
we're waiting for evac i've got two little plastic baggies with uh gloves in them and then i've got
my hyphen chest seals just the twin pack in there i like them because they're super super
compact now up in the lid here i've got the gnar compressed gauze this is um just for wound packing
it be used as wrap it can be used to wrap the splint on i've got some other stuff for that
it can be used to wrap a head wound just really multi-purpose and really cheap so it doesn't take
up much room and it doesn't weigh anything so i like to have that in there next to it i know you
guys are going to have a cordinary i don't usually carry elias or laze bandages however you like to
say it but here i decided that multifunction was kind of the name of the game so this guy has
like an eye cup in it it's got a little plastic sheet can be used as an improvised chest seal
if you absolutely have to um but mainly it is a pressure bandage it also has some gauze you can
use for wound packing as well so i like the fact that it's multi-function just put it in here it's
form factor isn't super conducive but it fits in the pack so i'm not complaining right here i've
got combat gauze that's for your wound packing that's a hemostatic agent now in contrast to
this this is like 45 bucks the difference between these this will stop bleeding a little bit faster
but there hasn't been any data to show that this actually makes difference in long-term
patient outcome so in this situation you know compressed gauze is going to work pretty well
if you can't afford to go with something like this or if your agency doesn't have
this combat gauze you can't go with something else now on this side i've got a thing of sailing
now this guy here i have shrunk wrap i took it out of its original packaging in the bag
and you know you have to kind of follow your department's policies and procedures for something
like that because it does technically break that sterile field on the inside but it still has
um its cap in there uh so that's still on that's still sterile and then i just put
a 20 drop set behind it and vacuum sealed them together the reason i did that was because um
there's actually a lot of air in that baggie so it's nice to be able to get it out and it just
packs a little bit flatter especially for an application like this so as we move on to the
lid contents i got a couple uh things in here uh in here we've got um the micro bvm the pocket bvm
you might save a little bit of space taking out of the container but because this isn't something
i use a ton and i'm always in these kits i like to keep it in the container just to keep it from
getting damaged now this is a bag valve mask which is pretty cool you open this up and then you can
breathe for somebody we're only going to do the bag valve mask respirations for a short period
of time until we can get an eye gel or surgical airway realistically um or if somebody's like
just having uh difficulty breathing we might assist them for a time wilderness environment
it gets a little bit difficult to do so that all packs down in here it's better than mouth-to-mouth
or mouth-to-mask uh it's just a lot cleaner so staying on the airway theme over here i've got a
vacuum pack eye gel um so these are a supraglottic airway i really don't think it's that realistic
for our team to carry like a full intubation kit we can carry that out there but if we're doing
that i'm gonna need more than just this kit here um so this is just supraglottic airway it makes
it easier to bag somebody goes down their throat and sits and it protects their airway slightly
and then below that i have a north american rescue crike kit so this is a bougie introducer with
the uh crike tube in there that we can cut somebody's throat and put that in
if maybe they still have a gag reflex or if it's massive facial trauma something like that we have
a back up airway besides just the eye gel here so that all fits pretty well in here um the eye gel
if you're carrying one and you can vacuum seal it do so the packaging keeps it really really
big and rigid and it just kind of sucks so if you can pull it out of there vacuum seal it
you're good to go but once again it's technically not sterile at this point not that anything is
sterile in the pre-hospital environment your agency might just take issue with it however
uh in here i've got a scalpel in the sign that's got these cool elastic loops on the side so
i just have a scalpel in there for the surgical cricothyrotomy
also you can do a finger thorough cost me with that you name it and then i've got a 28 french
npa this one's going to be hard to get back in on camera just a 28 french npa in there to
secure the airway you can do that with anybody i don't carry opas because gag reflexes i just don't
use them in my practice all that much um so i kind of stick with the npas for almost everything
middle of the kit i am carrying a black diamond headlight now this is um extra from
what i carry in my other kits this is just to make sure that any time i'm deploying with this
if maybe i just grabbed this kit because it's not that far of a hike i have something to work in
the dark you know it gets dark quickly and if you don't have a headlamp you're more of a liability
to your search and rescue team than anything else and that just kind of free floats right there
on this side i've got uh elastic wrap and this is more for like securing the
splint to the arm or wherever putting it it can also be used as a compression
bandage and then i have two just triangular bandages old school guys will call these
cravats and these are for your slings swaths you can wear them as a bandanna face mask
tons of uses for these and in this environment i think they're really important to have because
orthopedic injuries somebody falling down with a backpack on their back bracing with their hands
is pretty common where you'll have clavicle injuries wrist injuries uh humorous injuries so
like i said orthopedic injuries is what this kit's made to treat mainly along with your major life
threats on this side in this loop i'm carrying just some electrolytes you have an exhausted hiker
i carry water bottles in my other kit and enough for the patient so if we're not doing iv hydration
then i can open one of these up put it in their water bottle and just replenish some of those
electrolytes if they've been sweating a ton and then ideally we'll hike them out we don't really
want to carry somebody out of the trail you go much more than 500 feet and that becomes a
huge pain so we try to walk somebody out whenever possible and then additionally on the side we have
two ars needles i'm going to change these out to 10 gauge needles when i get a chance these
are just the 14s not that there's anything wrong with 14 gauge needles just 10 gauges
are going to work a little bit better now lastly this top little pouch here this is also removable
if you want to take this out i've got a couple things oral glucose for your diabetic issues
a thing of med admin syringes needles whatever you need to give a medication
is wrapped right up in here some tape to secure stuff and then lastly i i bought a
vacuum sealer and it's it's been a lot of fun to use uh i've got three iv needles a flush
um and then some start kits in there with j loops if we're gonna start ivs i really like it in here
because the paper packaging over time gets really damaged this just protects it from the elements
i cut two little slits on either side you can just tear this open really easily and use the iv kit
so that is what i have in here for med admin now you're thinking well sam you don't have any meds
why do you need med admin supplies two things that are not in this kit that i will take out of
my swap bag because i don't have uh duplicates of it and it wouldn't fit in this anyways i'm
going to take my diagnostic pouch which is just a rip away container that has my pulse oximeter
blood pressure cuff stethoscope and pen light and i'm going to put that in my search and rescue bag
and then my medication pouch i'm going to take that out and put that in the search and rescue bag
as well along with some minor items like your mole skin basically the things that you would need for
hiking through the wilderness so those are all going to go in the other kit and i'm going to
switch them between the two bags as i need to but this is pretty much packed and ready to go for the
major things in theory i could just grab this and go and treat a majority of life threats in the
field even though i've been doing it for about two years the search and rescue realm remains
relatively new to me and especially packing gear i'm not an expert in it
so if you guys see anything that you would change or something i don't have that you would have or
vice versa leave them in the comments down below and i will see you next week
you