To put it another way, what injuries or maladies is your first aid kit designed to address?

Seems to me that a good way to put together a first aid kit is to look at what it will be used for. And that will depend a lot on where you’ll be when you have your kit — in town, in the woods, bugging out, at home eating cheerios with your Becker Tac Tool…

So — what are the first aid scenarios you hope to be able to address with your first aid kit?

Here are a few things I thought up. This is by no means comprehensive, and I understand that the larger a kit one carries, the more scenarios that kit might address.

Before following this approach, I would thumb through a first aid book or three and look at what you might actually *need* the kit for.

My basic assumption is that I’m hiking in the woods or anywhere else where I can expect slow or no 911 response, or a minor injury that I can control well enough to transport the injured person to proper medical attention.

1. Assess the patient — I have pencil and paper, but better yet I have a small form with ABC stuff along with “fill in the blank” on stuff a medical professional would want to know. This is good because it gives me a place to start, and I am not a cool headed professional and the form will help me prioritize and focus. In addition I carry some small shears and I EDC a bright AAA light.

3. Stop bleeding — gauze, trauma pad, QuikClot or Celox, maybe a tourniquet if you know what you’re doing.

4. Clean and dress small wounds — some sort of antiseptic, tweezers, etc., antibiotic ointment, gauze dressings and tape, benzoin so the tape sticks — heck, maybe even throw in a few Band-Aids.

5. Splint and support a broken (or otherwise injured) limb– SAM splint, ACE bandage, triangle bandage.

6. Treat shock or shelter someone while you go for help — e-blanket, signal device, maybe a fire… survival kit stuff

7. Treat anaphylaxis (allergies) — benadryl, EpiPen, prednisone

8. Treat a headache or control a fever

9. Patch a boo boo

What else?