Furnishing a Fabulous First Aid Kit
Even if you’re not exactly roughin’ it, you may still get hurt while you’re exploring your wild side out in nature. Piercing thorny plants, stinging insects, campfire burns, and all sorts of other maladies can turn your luxurious campsite into a MASH unit. That’s why it’s important to pack a first aid kit as you get ready to set out on your next fantastic glamping trip.
A good first aid kit should contain supplies to treat some of the common conditions you could encounter on your trip. In a 1998 study of wilderness injuries by Montalvo and colleagues, the most common nonfatal injuries in the backwoods included lacerations, insect bites, and sprains/strains. Thankfully, major injuries like loss of limbs, heart attacks, and anaphylactic reactions were relatively rare. For these serious cases, you would need to seek immediate help from medical professionals.
If you peruse the internet, there are a ton of great resources that list what you should pack in your kit. Personally, I really like the recommendations listed by the American Red Cross, which are included in this article.
For lacerations, you should have an assortment of dressings and bandages, antibiotic ointment, and alcohol swabs to protect wounds and prevent infection. Instant cold packs and roller bandages can be helpful for mending strains and sprains. And having tweezers, hydrocortisone cream, and pain relievers is useful for insect stings or run-ins with poisonous plants.
Just because you have the right medical supplies doesn’t make you a wilderness medicine guru. First aid can be complicated, so it’s wise to pack a first aid booklet with your kit so you know what to do when illness or injury strikes. Otherwise, you could make the situation worse.
As a pharmacist, I implore you to check the expiration dates on your medications and other supplies. It’s hard to get relief when your aspirin expired during the Bush administration.
If you like to accessorize (and who doesn’t?), you can always add more supplies to your kit. Go ahead, customize the heck out of it! Get some Sesame Street bandages, rainbow-colored scissors, or funky-colored exam gloves. To help you customize, many sports-equipment retailers carry small individual packages of medications, bandages, and other supplies so you don’t need to buy first aid materials in bulk.
Hopefully you never need to use your first aid kit when you’re out glamping, but packing one can turn a potentially urgent medical need into a manageable mishap. And who knows, if your skills are comparable to Florence Nightingale’s, your first aid knowledge might just impress your friends and special someone as well.
