Every year mishaps occur that result in individuals being stuck out in the wilderness overnight. Ski accidents, lost hikers, injured hunters. A lot of things can happen suddenly that result in you having to spend the night outdoors while waiting for search and rescue to find you.

Since the inception of the Stop the Bleed initiative, hundreds of thousands of non-medically trained laypersons have taken short courses in bleeding control.

When it comes to emergency medical equipment, most of us know better than to price-shop, yet thousands of fake “CAT” tourniquets are sold on Amazon, eBay, and similar sites. Counterfeit tourniquets are known to fail.

You’re building a bleeding control kit. You’ve done the research and have covered the basics — picked out a tourniquet, selected a pressure bandage, compressed gauze, gloves and shears. You may have even taken a wound-packing or Bleeding Control course that taught you core techniques for controlling traumatic bleeding. But the question remains; “Should I add a hemostatic to my kit?”

If you own a gun, these six medical products are essential for your trauma kit or range bag.

Worldwide, it is estimated there are a minimum of 1 to 2 million annual snakebite “incidents”. This number includes bites by non-venomous species. Of that number, roughly 50,000 to 100,000 bites result in fatalities worldwide.

Snake bites kill more than 120,000 people each year and leave another 400,000 with life-changing disabilities, mostly in the poorest communities. Every 5 minutes approximately 50 people are bitten by a snake, of whom 25 people will be envenomed, 4 will be permanently disabled and 1 will die.

Awareness of mental health is improving, however it still has a long way to go as illustrated by some of the statistics below.  One in four people in Britain will experience a mental health problem in any given year and this background prevalence means that it is almost certain that someone within in your expedition, whether this is a member of staff or a participant, will have a mental health condition. Therefore it is important to know how best you can help!

Wounds are a common occurrence on expedition, and being able to manage a wide range of presentations is an important skill for an expedition medic to possess. In some climates, particularly tropical environments, wound healing can be delayed and there is an increased risk of skin breakdown and infection.

Recent improvised explosive device (IED) and active shooter incidents reveal that some traditional practices of first responders need to be realigned and enhanced to improve survivability of victims and the safety of first responders caring for them.

A first aid kit is an essential item for any home, office, or vehicle. It contains a range of supplies and equipment that can be used in case of accidents or emergencies. A well-stocked first aid kit can help you provide basic medical care to yourself or others until more advanced medical treatment is available.

Bleeding refers to the rupture of blood vessels leading to the flow of blood outside the blood vessels. After trauma, the easiest and most common thing that occurs is bleeding. Severe trauma often causes massive bleeding that endangers the lives of the injured. Effective and timely hemostasis for the injured person at the scene is a necessary measure to save lives.

The best way to select an IFAK bag or any aid bag is to determine and plan the packing list first, then find a bag that will fit your thoughtfully selected packing list. To plan an IFAK, which by definition will be a small “personal” bag, you have to decide which injuries you are planning on managing and which you are not.

This wilderness medical field protocol outlines the treatment of a severe asthma attack causing persistent respiratory distress not responding to the patient’s use of a rescue inhaler. This is a high-risk problem that can cause respiratory failure and death from respiratory arrest.

This protocol specifically applies to dislocations of the shoulder, patella, and digits resulting from an indirect force; all other potential dislocations should be treated as one would treat any other potentially unstable joint injury (i.e., splint in a position that maintains stability & neurovascular function while facilitating transport).

In a wilderness context, clearing a potential spine injury when there is a positive mechanism for such an injury requires a careful evaluation that focuses on patient reliability, nervous system function, and spinal column stability. Adequate time must be allowed for the evaluation.

To be effective, CPR must be started promptly and be provided in a consistent and quality manner. Even then, its benefits in a wilderness or remote setting are limited.

In the management of all wounds, bleeding must be controlled using well-aimed direct pressure with whatever means are necessary. Controlling all severe bleeding (Stop The Bleed) is a higher priority than cleaning out a wound, regardless of how deep or wide the wound is. This is to be accomplished via well-aimed direct pressure, followed by the use of either a hemostatic agent or with the use of a TCCC-approved Tourniquet.

Anaphylaxis is an allergic reaction that has life-endangering effects on the circulatory and respiratory systems. Anaphylaxis is an almost immediate, rapidly progressive multisystem allergic reaction to a foreign protein injected into the body by stinging and biting insects, snakes, and sea creatures or ingestion or inhalation of food, chemicals, and medications.

Only in the past two centuries or so has civilized medicine been able to eliminate the environmental obstacles to providing care, allowing healers to focus on the medical problems before them. Aside from the occasional disaster situation, a hospital emergency department is free of wind, rain, rocks, and slope angle.