What’s in a Wilderness Medical Kit

It’s a simple question with a very complex, situationally-dependent answer, especially for this paramedic with a strong understanding of wilderness medicine. While working the streets, my medical kit consists of about $250,000 worth of high-tech equipment, supplies, and pharmaceuticals located inside a big metal box, anchored to a truck chassis, and surrounded by blinking red lights. When operating as a contract medical provider, my kit takes up every corner of a 3800 cubic inch Stat Packs G3 medical backpack. When spending a night in the backcountry or a weekend on the trail, my medical supplies fit neatly inside a quart-size Ziploc bag.

In simplest terms, the mission defines the gear. In emergency medicine, we often use easy to remember abbreviations to keep our priorities straight. Street side, when advanced life support is usually just a phone call away, the priorities are “ABC”, which represents airway, breathing and circulation. In tactical medicine, when gunshot wounds and blast injuries are common, the priorities shift to address life-threatening hemorrhage first, hence “CAB”. In wilderness medicine, when definitive care may be hours or even days away, we use “ABCDE”, adding disability and environment as potential life-threatening concerns. The ability to get yourself, or your patient, out of a compromised situation while dealing with environmental issues is paramount to a positive outcome. Regardless of the setting, without an open airway, adequate breathing, sufficient circulation, the ability to reach advanced care, and a means to thermoregulate, every injured or ill person will rapidly assume room temperature.

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