First Aid and Preparedness

First Aid is something that we have touched on a little on this blog but never really went too in depth on it. When we did our group book read of the book One Second After, one of the things that struck me most was how vulnerable to medical problems we all would be without outside help.

Long Term Medicine Storage
We recently had a friend do a guest post for us about keeping a natural medicine cabinet on hand for emergency situations, but there are also just a lot of first aid techniques that are good to know and other items besides medicines that you need to store.

First Aid Guide Books
We wanted to put together a little quick guide for you that you could print out, but we quickly realized that as far as first aid is concerned there really is no QUICK GUIDE. If you can purchase a guide to keep on hand that would be great. I found a First Aid and Safety Handbook put out by the American Red Cross at the library that I’ve been looking through, but I really wanted to have something that I can stick into my binder and have all in one place. Well I FOUND SOMETHING!

Download a FREE First Aid Manual
WikiBooks has an extensive section on first aid that has been put together by numerous sources. The online version is great but we don’t want to be counting on having computer access in an emergency. You can PRINT the entire WikiBook by downloading THIS PDF. It’s over 100 pages but it’s mostly black and white and can be printed double-sided. This is a great tool to add to your Food Storage Made Easy Binder. We highly recommend everyone prints it out right now. Don’t procrastinate, just do it!

Recommended Items for Your First Aid Kits
The Red Cross recommends that all first aid kits for a family of four include the following (along with any necessary medications):

2 absorbent compress dressings (5 x 9 inches)
25 adhesive bandages (assorted sizes)
1 adhesive cloth tape (10 yards x 1 inch)
5 antibiotic ointment packets (approximately 1 gram)
5 antiseptic wipe packets
2 packets of aspirin (81 mg each)
1 blanket (space blanket)
1 breathing barrier (with one-way valve)
1 instant cold compress
2 pair of nonlatex gloves (size: large)
2 hydrocortisone ointment packets (approximately 1 gram each)
Scissors
1 roller bandage (3 inches wide)
1 roller bandage (4 inches wide)
5 sterile gauze pads (3 x 3 inches)
5 sterile gauze pads (4 x 4 inches)
Oral thermometer (non-mercury/nonglass)
2 triangular bandages
Tweezers
First aid instruction booklet

What Additional info Would You Like?
Now that we have touched on the basics, is there anything more specific you would like us to post about? Is having a manual printed out enough? Should we go into more detail on specific treatment things on the blog? Tell us what would be most helpful to you!