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comms and first aid kits
Posted by bushrat on Jan 30 2006
Akres,
To my mind, the most important part of planning for medical emergencies in the field has to do with communications: satphone, cellphone, ham radio etc. Some emergenices require transport within 24hrs. Knowing who to call is also important. Keep the # of the nearest trooper office handy. If you know a pilot, or have been brought out by an air-taxi, have their # handy as well. In some cases a private pilot can get to you before the troopers go through the process of dispatching help. Know your exact location. A gps will solve this, but if you don't have one, bring good maps from which to determine your location. Anyone hunting remote these days would be well advised to rent or buy a satphone and learn how to use it before hunting. (Carry spare batteries and put it in a waterproof container)
I also carry the dental kit with me in my first aid kit. It's a sort of a powder substance that you mix with water and then put in as a temporary filling. I also carry clove oil or extra strength anbesol for tooth pain relief. Suture thread, hemostats, also a must. Pain pills. (For those not in the know, your ordinary willow contains all the components of aspirin, so if you don't have any pain pills and find yourself needing something, you can chew willow bark for a while <grin>.) Metronidozale (sp? Flagyll) pills are good to carry in case of giardia and can mean the difference between having the runs constantly, stuck in camp, or not. So I carry those too. Along with standard gauze, bandaids, etc.
Most common fatal injuries among hunters are from loaded weapons/accidental discharge or "friendly fire" incidents, stab wounds while skinning, and drowning/hypothermia. Skinning and butchering with a razor-sharp knife can be dangerous biz---how many of us have sliced a finger or hand? One guy stabbed himself in the thigh skinning a moose, cut his femoral artery and bled out. A lot of guys use those wire-mesh gloves now for skinning, at least on their non-cutting hand.
Also a good emergency first-aid book in the kit is a must. Would like to see David offer some of those in his book section.
Best, Mark
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