Continuing with my Bug out Bag series;

Shallow cuts and scratches are the most common injuries faced when hiking, getting a small scratch at home or on a day hike is no biggie but when you are escaping a hostile environment I would imagine that hygiene is not high on your list of things to worry about, thus the risk of infection can become a big problem.

To combat this you want to clean your wound with a strong disinfectant- the choices on the market are huge but I just use 90% proof alcohol which not only will kill all water and airborne bacteria but can be handy as an emergency firestarter.

With regards to bandages I have both band aid type waterproof bandage in a roll and butterfly clips.

Those two types of bandages + disinfectant, paracord and superglue will allow you to deal with 70% of common injuries as long as you think outside of the box which brings me to the last dual use first aid item which is the sewing kit which you can use to mend clothing but more importantly to also close a wound.

Should you have a wound that is deep enough that you require sutures then simply boil your needle to kill any bacteria, clean the wound with the alcohol and stitch it up , liberally apply more disinfectant then cover the sutures with a band aid and add duct tape over that.

Strong, safe and it does not require much gear to have with you (and risk losing).

Done.

The big problem people will have is that I have not included one of those mini first aid kits in my BoB template, the reason why is quite simple- I often hike with far less than I have listed and I cannot see a situation where I will need all the crap companies add to justify the price.

The other reason and in my opinion the more important one is that I dont want to rely on specialized equipment- if you need a specific tool to do a specific job and that tool gets misplaced or broken…what do you do? I dont want random chance to negatively screw up my plans. By taking control of my gear I lessen the chance of my survival being dependent on my equipment.

This philosophy is the one that really seems to annoy people and I am ok with that, you want a fully loaded med kit in your BoB as opposed to in your BOL(Bug out location) or BOV (bug out vehicle) which is where it really should be? Go for it.

Next up with be mess tins/cans and high energy bars.

First aid guide for you to glance over, bare in mind that it is from the Marine corps and thus the emphasis is on battlefield first aid.

MCRP 3-02G First Aid.pdf

So I have not posted in over a month, and while that is not terribly shocking taking into account that I am always late in updating this blog I thought I would explain why I have not been around before resuming my usual irregular service.

Essentially; my right lung collapsed and while I cant remember all of what happened I will depict you a general idea of the events that unfolded in a brief bullet point format.

• So one day last month I stand up and I hear a “pop”.
• I take a step forward and realize that Thor has decided to use my chest as a punching bag.
• I walk super slowly and decide that its probably not serious.
• Since every time I move or breath I feel like I will die I decide to go to bed and “sleep it off”.
• 3am. It fucking hurts so hospital it is.
• Ambulance arrives I get oxygen and patches stuck to my body.
• At the hospital I get x-rays, checks and more checks. (with only one lung working my oxygen level is 100% and BPM is 63, my cardio is godlike!)
• They find out that my right lung decided to collapse.
• After consultation they decide to inflate it using a syringe and some sort of dark red liquid (not blood).
• It doesn’t fucking work.
• Lung is still not normal so they decide on a chest drain.
• Due to my obvious sexy’ness and charm I get to have 3 doctors and 3 nurses for a relatively simple procedure.
• Turns out its because I am super toned and as such have the perfect body to be used as a teaching example.
• So I get a fucking tube thrust into my lungs with my adoring audience staring at my chest in awe.
• I wont go into details but it fucking hurts.
• I then spent days in bed with a tube in my lungs and morphine in my bloodstream
• After days of boredom and morphine induced haze they decided to remove it and I hobble home.
• At home I load up on pain killers and spend a whole week reading bladeforums.com and watching movies.
• And here I am.

So just to let you know that I will be getting back to posting on a mostly regular basis.

I do have photographs of the tube and yours truly dying on a bed but my phone hates doing what I tell it to do so it might take awhile for me to post them here.