It isn't that hard to exhaust the contents of any normal FAK and who says you will be dealing with only one casualty in an incident?
On one operation with one seriously banged up victim, I was now improvising splints, casting questing eyes at a small pine tree along the trail, and I had removed my pants to use them for splint padding. I had another pair in my pack and treatment and stabilization was a higher priority. This one victimnearly exhausted my fairly extensive FAK.
You might even have to use a non-sterile material to staunch blood flow in an extreme case. Not recommended,, of course but if you can deliver a patient to the ER still containing appropriate liquids, they have the resources to compensate for infection.
I'm learning so much from this thread. Thanks gang!
FWIW - As first responders at a truck vs elderly pedestrian collision a few years ago, the nurse who stopped with me grabbed a package of paper towels from her trunk and told me to grab the other one instead of the gauze pads from my FAK. A whole package or four non-sterile of gauze pads would have been helpful in that case, not just a few individually wrapped pads. I've carried a couple rolls of paper towel in my vehicles ever since.
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