A hunters first aid kit

This week at work I sent an old school bus to be scrapped. Before it went to school bus heaven, I walked through it and found an old first aid kit. It was under a back seat. Some of items in it had expired in 2002. The box was rusty and ugly.

It looked something like this. Actually, it looked exactly like this. This is it.

I decided to fix it up and turn it into my truck first aid kit. The first thing it needed was a new paint job. I scraped off all the loose paint and gave it a coat of automotive paint. Then I made a stencil out of a piece of card stock and painted the words "first aid" on the front.

After the make over. The homemade stencil sucked.

My wife is a nurse, so I had her go through my first aid stuff and let me know what I needed and what I didn't. My goal with this kit is to keep me in the field when I have minor health problems and to keep me alive until help comes if I get hurt bad. This is what made the cut:

• Band-Aids - for the little boo-boos
• Eye wash - can't soot 'em if you can't see 'em
• Triangular Bandage - for a sling or used as a large bandage
• Flexible gauze - amazing stuff for wrapping bandages
• Smelling salts - unconscious people are hard to move
• Medical tape - invaluable for attaching bandages
• Offset bandage compress - another largish bandage
• Insect and sting swabs - running into a hornets nest is one of my many nightmares
• Alcohol wipes - disinfectant and cleaning around a wound so tape will stick
• Latex gloves - in case I run into someone who needs help. Don't want to get cooties!
• Sterile pads - for larger boo-boos that band aids don't quite cover
• Medical scissors - a must have for sizing bandages
• Various large adhesive bandages - mostly for scrapes
• Tourniquet- can save your life
• Tylenol - can keep those minor pains at bay
• Mole skin - my most used item. Will keep you walking.

I also have some non-medical emergency things tucked in it. Including:

• Poncho - useful for lots of things besides keeping you dry
• Toilet paper - never get stuck in the swamp without TP
• Vienna Sausages - sometimes a little food is the difference between staying till dusk or going home early
• Solar blanket - can save your life

All tucked neatly in my little, poorly stenciled box

 I also keep a small kit on my person when I go out. I keep it vacuum packed so everything is waterproof and small. It contains:

• Butterfly bandages - will close large cuts
• Snake bite kit- contains a tourniquet that can save your life
• Antacid - stomach pain sucks
• Tweezers - for stings and nagging splinters
• Matches - If I'm stranded and cold
• Qtips - useful for cleaning wounds and guns
• Medical tape
• Gauze bandage
• Tongue depressor - splint
• Ace bandage - for sprains and the like
• Eye wash

The vacuum packing was one of my best ideas. Vacuum packed Toilet Paper works great too!

 I'm probably not as prepared as I think I am, but I feel like I have the necessities. One thing every kit needs, that most don't have, is a tourniquet. Get one and learn how to use it!

What do you keep in your first aid kit? What did I leave out?

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