First Aid Kits and Hot Cars

When I lived in Dallas, I always had a first aid kit on my person. I never had to store one in the car where it would get baked by the Texas summers. Situations have changed. Nowadays a more equipped bag is needed and it would be inconvenient to take it in and out for every instance in which we need the vehicle.

How often do I replace the prep pads, ointments and medications for a kit that is to be stored in a car, once a year in the fall?

Jeanette Isabelle

There are inexpensive and flexible coolers that will moderate the temperatures a lot. It just depends on the size of your kit.

For a short-term, that may work. Not when the kit is stored in the car all year long.

Jeanette Isabelle

What does time have to do with it? The insulation moderates the outside temperature reaching the contents, whether hot or cold. You would need to access and check the contents regularly anyway, as you would with most important pieces of gear or supplies. You can get a better cooler, with better insulation, or you can store in your car with no insulation, your choice. You pick which one is better. To insulate or to not insulate, that is the question.

Definitely insulate. I keep the food in my truck in a cooler, dehydrated food that doesn’t really care about temps - but it doesn’t hurt. I hadn’t considered a need to insulate my FAK, but the meds are minimal. That said, max recommended storage temp for Neosporin is 77ºF (25ºC) so temps are an issue. Temps inside the garage exceed that routinely so I may need to rethink...

The insulated bag doesn’t need to accommodate the entire FAK; most of the bulk in an FAK are bandages and things that likewise don’t really care about temps. So maybe an insulated lunchbag inside the FAK, or a smaller medication bag that is kept with the FAK, but that can be grabbed and brought in your house when convenient to chill out. I’m thinking Neosporin goes in my much smaller owwie kit and that goes in my backpack, not in the truck’s FAK. Truck’s FAK is shifting to trauma so Neosporin isn’t a big deal.

When storing anything, you have to consider what it is (what will cause it to go bad) and what the environment is. You are working about heat, and insulation is the only way (other than climate control) to take care of that.

Time has everything to do with it. Insulation will only slow the warming. Left in a hot car long enough, the contents of an insulated first aid kit will eventually warm up to the ambient temperature inside the car.

If you don't believe me, try a simple experiment. Take an insulated cooler, and fill it with icy cold cans of beer. During a heat wave, put the cooler inside a locked car, parked in the hot sun. A day or two later, drink your now warm beer. Better insulation will buy you more time, but given enough time the end result is always the same. The temperature inside the insulation will reach equilibrium with the temperature outside the insulation.

This is a consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Physics always wins, in the end.

Micro environments within the car matter though. My passenger compartment is actually a first class solar cooker, while the trunk is quite a bit more reasonable (my vehicle is white so reflectance is pretty decent). In a balmy SoCal climate, I am not reluctant to leave most packaged foods, water, etc. in the trunk for extended periods.

Yes AKSAR, time is important but is a constant. You know you want to leave it there, and that the available protection is only good for so long, so you check your stuff, restock, repackage, whatever is necessary. But that is a physical effort on the part of the person doing the storage. If temperature is a problem, insulation is a solution, but not a complete one. I know of no packaging material that does not include climate control machinery that will endure a year in very hot temperatures. So it means that you must service your stash. That does not bear at all on whether you decide to insulate or not. You must insulate, but you must understand that it is not a permanent solution. The point I was making was that she must insulate, and she must also service it regularly. If she is not leaving the car in a climate controlled garage, then the first aid kit will need to maintained fairly regularly. As I put in my response, time is not a factor in deciding whether or not to insulate.

I am very familiar with heat, and cold, and extremes of both, having worked from arctic conditions to some of the hottest places on Earth. I have been on some of the higher mountains on Earth, the lowest spots, the driest deserts, and the worst jungles. I take you response as a bit condescending in tone.

Montanero, no condescension was intended. However, in re-reading my words I can see how it might have come across that way. I should have been more articulate in my response. Please accept my apologies.

No worries, and I could have been a bit clearer in my earlier posts.

If you store anything in a hot car that can be affected at all by heat, you must insulate. But that is not all that must be done to ensure that the supplies remain viable.

JI....remove and replace the FAK in the car daily....as a fellow FL it is really the ONLY way. It gets annoying but unless you do what EMS does and AC the interior with a shoreline to keep the contents cool.......removing is the only real way.

I found some old FAK stuff in the garage that included sterile surgeons gloves....you know the old latex ones.... needles to say they were melted to the paper (I KNEW they would be, I just wanted to see it).

I have seen dash boards melt, but that was overseas.

If JI needs to stash a vehicle with kits inside, she will need to choose the parking area to ensure that it does not get direct sunlight for too much of the day. A parking area in the shade, with good packaging of the kits should prolong the life for months rather than days. Multiple layers of insulation may help, with the fluctuations of temperature over a 24 hour period. Understanding material and packaging is important for this.

This thread makes me believe that there may be a need for some education on the factors affecting long term storage. What breaks down materials and substances, durability of different materials in different environments, methods of mitigating the breakdown. Is this something that would be useful? If so, I suggest a new thread with a broader purpose than this one.

Excellent notion. Suggest a focus on long term storage of water; food, canned and otherwise; medications and chemicals - all with respect to appropriate containers, temperature ranges, and exposure to sunlight. Type of hazard would be a factor too. You probably stash differently if your concern relates to earthquakes vs. hurricanes, for instance.

Also a different thread title. I first thought this current thread would indicate why the owner of a Mustang or GTO would need a better FAK....

That would be a useful topic. Some items like medications and other chemicals may have storage temp requirements that preclude storage in a car, while other first aid items are impervious and are good with long term hot or cold. Knowing which items to be concerned about may allow for a smaller kit that needs more careful storage.