Keep your first aid kit stocked
 

I work for myself as a finish carpenter. I usually work alone, often in fairly remote areas. Monday afternoon I was mortising out a strike plate on a custom door I installed. As I reached for a different chisel, I hit my wrist on another chisel in my chisel case. I ended up slicing my wrist almost down to the tendons. The cut was about 1/8" away from hitting a main artery. Luckily I carry a pretty extensive first aid kit in the truck. It took all of my big gauze pads and 4 rolls of gauze wrap plus several feet of duct tape to get the bleeding under control so I could drive myself to the ER. This is the first time I almost called 911. The only thing is the house I was working on was new and didn't have a physical address yet. 11 stitches later and I am doing ok.

If you do not have a first aid kit in your boat/car/truck, please buy one. The life it might save may just be your own.


---end public service announcement---

Hopefully the place didn't have new carpet.

Good to hear you didn't bleed to death, btw.

Everyone should consider the addition of Quikclot to your first-aid kits... I have their combat gauze in all my kits, but it is hard to find. The sponges work pretty good too!

Another important item to have in a good med kit is a solid set of shears...especially wakeboarding and cutting broken ankles out of boots.

Sam and M dizzle, good points. I will be getting some quickclot this week. I already have 2 pairs of trauma shears in the kit and one in the tool bag.

My wife is an ER and ICU nurse, so we have pretty good first aid items in the cars. An other item you might want to carry are a few diapers. They are super cheap and work really well on large or wet wounds.

Be careful with the Quickclot, they are finding that it does more harm than good. We've been getting ours recalled from our med kits or not being given anymore once we use it.

After talking with some other people in the trades, I will be adding some maxi-pads to my kit as well. I guess it makes sense, they are meant to absorb blood and have the adhesive strips on them to keep them on the wound until you can get it wrapped.

What problems are "they" having with Quikclot? Which version is it, the military or the civilian version? I have used both and have both in my gun shot wound kit. The combat version is gauze that is meant to pack into a gunshot wound. It even has a silver thread in it so that it is not accidently left in the wound, as it shows up pretty clear on an x-ray. The civi version is just a sponge and is meant for topical wound treatment. Quikclot says that training is required for the combat version.