Most of my friends (and I) tend to carry a full IFAK — Individual First Aid Kit — or two on our range bags for emergencies that hopefully will never happen while we’re practicing. But as we see new emerging threats like the attacks in Paris and Nigeria, people are beginning to understand that gunshot and similar wounds can happen to ordinary people anywhere, not just on the practice range.
With that in mind, a relatively new company called CLEER Medical, the brainchild of some very established firearms industry experts, has put together a small, easy to carry “pocket” emergency kit.
While a bit tall, this entire blow out kit can easily fit in the back pocket of a pair of jeans or the chest pocket of a suit coat. It contains:
- 24″ long Celox hemostatic gauze
- A RATS one handed compact tourniquet
- CLEER’s own Medical Easy Tape surgical tape
- A pair of nitrile gloves (size L)
- all in a LokSak bag which can be used as a small occlusive dressing if necessary
The kit costs $79 and is 3x6x1.2 inches in size. If you wanted to skip the tourniquet for size reasons, they also sell a mini-EDC kit for $64 that measures a tiny 3x4x1 inches. That’s smaller than a normal packet of the 3×5 cards we all use as targets.
I keep the full size EDC kit in my Uh-Oh bag and intend to add another one or two to my Jeep and my wife’s car. I’ll probably toss one of the mini kits in my range bag to supplement the existing IFAK (or save the weight and space of a second IFAK, depending on how you look at it).
pistol-training.com strongly urges all shooters to get at least basic first aid and gunshot wound care training. But even if you choose not to, remember that having this gear with you at least gives a trained but unequipped bystander a chance to save someone. That someone may even be you.
For the cost of the new gun you were going to buy just for fun & giggles, you can outfit your range bag, every vehicle you own, and your bug out kit with these small, lightweight, and simple to use emergency medical packs. They may not be fun, they may never be used, but they’re the kind of thing that when you need one, you’ll need it right now! As the saying goes, better to have it and not need it…
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
…and/or…for the cost of a new gun, you can take an EMT or first responder or LEFR course.
Medical training is vital, once you get it, a kit like this is great. This would fit perfectly into the cargo pocket of a pair of 511s.
I agree on the need for medical training. So I recently took two courses from former combat medics, one was 18D qualified. Both really up-to-date in their knowledge.
Both really discouraged the use of flexible rubber-hose style tourniquets due to tissue and nerve damage. The SWAT tourniquet is supposed to lessen the impact by being wide, but due to the rubber material, it constricts mostly in the middle, too.
Now some might say “ah, in case of a gunshot wound, this is irrelevant”, and I might agree with that, but since for every TQ on an actual bullet wound, I have about a thousand practice runs, this risk becomes highly relevant.
Sadly, that leaves the stiff, wide TQs with hard levers like the CAT and the SOFTT-W, which are quite bulky and don’t lend very well to pocket carry. Plus, they are expensive.
An alternative might be Paul Gomez’ improvised solution with a carabiner and a sturdy keyring on a bandana. You could pack the rest of the kit into that.