I.F.A.K.

The problem with safety procedures, as many have learned the hard way, is that they rely on fallible humans. And because fallible humans make mistakes, safety procedures get violated and once in a while that means someone unfortunately comes into contact with a high-velocity projectile on the range.

The Individual First Aid Kit has become standard in one form or another for much of the U.S. military, and includes some of the necessary items to deal with gunshot trauma until professional rescuers arrive. While it cannot address every possible type of injury, the I.F.A.K. provides the basic kit that can be used with fairly rudimentary training to control bleeding until advanced help arrives.

Based on the advice of professional combat medics and EMTs from M4Carbine.net’s Emergency First Aid forum, I recently added a Tactical Medical Solutions I.F.A.K. to my range bag. The TacMed I.F.A.K. is pictured here at right next to a Surefire pen for size comparison.

TacMed was founded by a U.S. Army Special Operations Medical Sergeant (aka, “18 Delta”) … considered by many to be the most highly trained and capable combat medics in the world. Quite a few of the items in the TacMed I.F.A.K. were designed in-house, including the SOF-T tourniquet and the Olaes Modular Bandage. TacMed’s website even provides brief instructional video introductions on the proper use of these items and other issues related to combat medical care. (of course, these videos cannot take the place of proper first aid training)

I added two items to my I.F.A.K., both from TacMed: an Asherman Chest Seal and a 4″ Control Wrap. I also removed the triage card because, unlike a combat medic in a war zone, I’m probably not going to be running from one wounded person to another.

Tactical Medical Solutions caters primarily to the professional medic, and in fact they offer a discount to current and retired LE, military, and government personnel. But something like the I.F.A.K. should really be part of anyone’s basic range kit.

One option I’d like to see from TacMed: a “civilian” version in a color that clearly stands out form normal range gear (orange, red, yellow) preferably with a red cross patch or similar indicator on it so it’s immediately recognizable to laymen. It’s a lot better for me to tell someone, “Go get the orange bag hanging off my blue range bag!” then “Go over to where everyone has their range bags, find the big blue one with the smaller black rectangle thing attached to it, grab it and bring it over … oh, never mind, he bled out.”

The contents of my TacMed I.F.A.K.:

Of course, having all the cool gear won’t do you much good if you don’t know how to use it … just like having a cool gun won’t make you a shooter. Check out the American Red Cross or your local junior college for First Aid and similar classes. Because — also just like a gun — you hope you’ll never need it, but if you do you’ll be glad you got proper training.

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG