I just recieved a batch of milsurp first aid kits, and they had an item I'm not familiar with them- wet dressings. Other than using them for moist heat on an infected wound, I'm at a lose as to how they would be used.

Are they a very specialized item, or are they something I've never been introduced to and probably should have?

They appear to be for skin issues, like dermatitis and excema.

That bandage sounds like a gel bandage for wrapping burn wounds. The gel bandages are very effective!

I'm not a Dr but I used to play "Medical Officer" on a Coast Guard Cutter.

hey ironraven: could you give us more info or a pic of what you got ie..surplus first aid kit....alot of so called mil.surp. aid kits are repacked with civilian off the shelf items like soap,castor oil and other odd items not found in REAL military first aid kits. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />...real military first aid kits like veh.and aviation kits are heavy with trama type items to stop bleedig etc. and not fillers like i said above.. . <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />..vince g. 11b inf...

I do know that the military used to teach that moistened bandages are used on "gaping gut wounds." You take the moist bandage and make it into a pouch, place the casualty's intestines inside said pouch, tape the pouch to their stomach, then cover the whole affair in the plastic wrapping of the bandage. That is what we were taught as part of our GQ bill, but may not be what the Army is doing these days with all the new medical advances. It takes a little while for the Coast Guard to catch up, most of our stuff/techniques is surplus from the Navy...

Matt

hope that description wasn't too graphic, it is just what we were taught

actually, you're supposed to use a wet towel (preferably with sterile water or saline solution) to make a pouch around the intestines, then place them in a small garbage bag (new & sterile) and tie or tape that to the person before medevac.

I'm not a Dr but I played the Medical Officer onboard the USCGC DRUMMOND 1991-1993: Cape Canaveral, Fl
QMC, USCG (Ret '99 and loving it)

"...most of our stuff/techniques is surplus from the Navy..."

Oh My God, you are in the same boat as the Marines, they get old Army stuff...

"...small garbage bag (new & sterile)..."

New I can understand, sterile is hard to come by. When I was trained as an EMT, we had a large trama pad in our kits, we were trained to soak the pad with the saline we had, put that around the intestines, then cover the whole thing with the plastic bag the pad came in. There is no such thing as sterile outside of a hospital ER, for sure not out on the side of the road...

A new garbage bag (still folded from the factory) is as close to sterile as you're going to get in the field. It is larger than the size of a dressing package and in my opinion, most of those bags are usually too small to carry the intestines in, from an evisceration type of wound. The main idea is to get the victim ready for an immediate medevac to a hospital that can clean everything up AND get things back where they belong without any kinking.

Yup. Clean is good, sterile is impossible in the field. Luckily, I only had to deal with an abdominal evisceration once, and that was on a child, smaller parts to worry about. The best you can do is the best you can do...