I agree. A full IFAK is a great kit for someone trained in every component. Even then, for swapping out parts it is still a good starting point.
Exactly. It’s a starting point. Buy it and swap stuff out for your skill level. The average person is more likely the use whatever they’re familiar with. That usually means gauze, tape and ACE bandages. They can take some things out and add things.
Most IFAK don’t come with trauma shears, add those. Add in gauze and an ACE bandage if you want. If you can’t see the wound you can’t do an adequate assessment and treat it effectively. Remove clothing or cut it (I’m speaking more in the vein of gunshot wounds), visualize what you’re dealing with and go from there.
I’ve been in EMS since 1997 and while I’ve run across some layman bandaging and even a tourniquet or two I’ve never run on a call where someone has darted a chest. Some of our district is in the county with deer and hog hunting opportunities.
Our response times out there are in the neighborhood of 8 to 10 min at its furthest point off road.
We generally fly those out because of transport times to Baylor, Methodist or Parkland. The chances of someone needing to do that even out in the near boonies is pretty slim. In the city or the burbs it’s almost nonexistent. In most situations we'll be there pretty quick.
I’m not as worried about people doing too much as much as I’m worried about them doing too little. Most people know that sticking a large bore catheter in someone’s rib cage without adequate training is a bad idea.
The problem is they freeze and/or they don’t want to dive into the goo because they’re squeamish.
The biggest mistake I see with the average Joe is not wanting to remove or cut clothing and visualize what’s going on and at least put a great deal of pressure on the wound because they’re afraid of “Making it worse”. If your buddy has a .308 hole going out his back and out through his chest it’s not going to get much worse.
Take their clothes off and at least put pressure. If it’s in an extremity and there’s a spurting bleeder do a wide tourniquet and keep cranking down until the bleeding stops and there isn’t a pulse in the affected limb.
If we think it needs to be removed we’ll do so when we get there.