Who says the BP cuff and steth have to be inside the "official' container? As long as they are accessible and handy, they are available for use. That is what is important.

It all comes down to the situation in which events occur. My experience involved disabling trauma of various sorts, usually FX of various sorts and care for periods of two hours to a day or so. I eventually carried the cuff and steth, a couple of splints, a fairly small standard FAK, sterile pads, and improvisation. If I could have added more, it would have been along the lines of IV administration (both training and gear). We had many situations where IVs made a huge difference in outcome.

If you need to make space within the bag, I would remove some specialized items like the eye shields and chest seals (never used in my experience and easily improvised). I could even remove all tourniquets and the Quik Clot, based on experience.

I get the impression that you are preparing for shooting incidents, probably a wise idea if you are close to a school these days, and the kind of trauma inflicted by projectiles would dictate different modes and gear for treatment. It all comes down to the situation.

Leave books and manuals out of the bag. You won't have time to read them during an incident. Thumbing through a book does not inspire patient confidence (which actually is rather significant).

One last thing. for lighting, the kit has a disposable penlight. I trust you have readily available a good, really good headlamp, with varying intensities up to at least 500 or so lumens. Darkness and medical emergencies go together like ham and eggs. your hands will be busy dealing with problems of various sorts.


Edited by hikermor (06/20/18 05:05 PM)
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