A medical kit geared toward major injuries will focus on treating the most common causes of death in traumatic scenarios, the first of which is blood loss.
If you’re selecting a medical kit to treat major injuries, you’ll next want to decide whether it’s something you want to keep in a bag, on a vest, in a vehicle, or whether it’s something you want to carry on your person. For off-body carry, we recommend starting with the vacuum-sealed ETA Trauma Kit. It’s the original commercially-available vacuum-sealed trauma kit that fits almost anywhere and has the equipment needed for treating major injuries. We’d also recommend adding a tourniquet and either our Fatboy or Tallboy Trauma Kit Pouch. These pouches allow you to carry either the vacuum-sealed kit, or to break the contents down in the organization of the pouch for faster access.
The first line of defense in a traumatic scenario is commonly to apply a tourniquet, which is why we advocate not having one sealed or buried inside your kit. Keeping the tourniquet mounted in an easily accessible location helps with the expedited nature of deploying a tourniquet in an emergency situation. We’ve developed the ITS TourniQuick® to save valuable time, because seconds count when you’re bleeding out.
