Heat vs First Aid Kit

[jgaz 750]

I know we’ve discussed in the past about the affects the heat has on our FAKs.  
Meds getting cooked, tape fusing to itself, etc.   But, there was one item I never considered.

 

I recently had an experience with the nitrile gloves I carry in the FAK in my truck.   I faithfully change out the contents of my truck and hiking kits around my Nov. birthday every year.

However, I never really thought about changing out my nitrile gloves.

 

Last week I was working in my garage.  The  young man that was trimming my neighbor’s yard came across the street and in a very shaky voice asked, “Sir, sir, can you help me”.  
He was bleeding BAD from a 4” laceration on the top of his wrist.  Blood wasn’t spirting (arterial) but was seriously running between the fingers of his glove and dripping all over the street.

 

I grabbed the FAK from my truck and sat him down on the tailgate of his truck.  I immediately grabbed a couple 4x4s and had him apply direct pressure to the wound.   At this point I grabbed some gloves out of my kit for protection to continue to dress the injury.

Two of the first three I tried to put on ripped!  
I finally got a pair on, applied a pkg. of compressed gauze to the soaked 4x4s, and secured everything in place with vet wrap.  
I had him continue to apply direct pressure and took him to a near by urgent care. ( He begged me not to call 911)

Urgent care stopped the bleed and told him to go to a hospital and have the tendons checked.

 

Long story just to say from now on I will be changing out my medical gloves during my yearly restock.

Worst bleed I’ve ever encountered and I really felt the need for protection in this case.

 

On the same note.  This is the dressing I applied on top of the 4x4s.

 

I bought a few of these dressings to use in my hiking kit and was glad I put one in the truck kit.
They give you an impressive amount of material in a very compact package.  
In the above case I applied about 2/3s of the material on the wound and wrapped the rest to hold it in place until I could grab the vet wrap.

 

These were purchased from  https://rescue-essentials.com

 

 

 

 

[theksmith 5,778]

great info Jim!

 

and good thing you were there to help that guy!

[Cypher 19]

Good info! I've experienced the same, thankfully not a severe injury, (BTW great job with that!) but gloves that were completely useless. I've had better luck with gloves that I placed in a zip lock bag and squeezed out all the air that I could. That is, they seemed to last what I would estimate to be about 50% longer than gloves just shoved in a bug out bag or FAK open to the environment, however they also eventual failed.

[jgaz 750]

@Cypher

Im glad you brought up keeping the gloves in a ziplock bag.

I do that as well but I must have waited too long to change them out and reached the limits of the added protection.

[GTGallop 60]

Add those Mylar/foil emergency heat space blankets to the list of things that fail.  I got one out at a windy camp site on the rim and as I unfolded it, it turned into chaff in the wind.  Disintegrated in my fingers and blew away like we were having a parade up there with a confetti cannon. It was old.  Well over 10 years and may have been the first one I ever bought 20+ years ago.

 

Thankfully it was neither an emergency and we weren't in space.  Was just getting it out to test a theory and ended up learning a lesson.