Unlike a standard first aid kit, a medical trauma kit is an essential piece of kit for treating more serious, major injuries with confidence until emergency medical care can be received. In public spaces, agricultural/forestry settings or factory/industrial work spaces, having access to a trauma kit can make the difference between life and death.
What’s the difference between a trauma kit and a first aid kit?
An emergency trauma kit is designed to treat major, life threatening injuries. It’s there to allow you to keep the patient stable until emergency medical professionals can get to the site and begin treatment.
So while some trauma kits can include basic essentials like plasters and bandages, their primary function is to include more specialist equipment to treat more serious injuries. Trauma kits are not a replacement to first aid, but are essentially specialised additions for, hopefully, rare but life threatening moments.
Essential Trauma Kit items:
A standard trauma kit should essentially include items useful for stemming the flow of serious blood from various parts of the body.
Being able to stem major bleeding at the site of an incident increases the chances of saving a life. A person can die within just 5 minutes if blood loss is severe, so make sure your emergency trauma kit includes:
- Tourniquets - to treat major blood loss or severed limbs
- Wound packings/Hemostatic Gauze - sterile packings used to speed up the clotting of blood which might be pooling at the wound site.
- Chest Seals - used to stem bleeding in the chest area
- Trauma Dressings/Compression Dressings - with non-adhesive pad to avoid re-opening of the wound on removal
- Emergency Blanket - to prevent hypothermia caused by excessive blood loss.
Additional Trauma Kit Items:
- Gloves - for protection and to prevent cross contamination of bloods and body fluids
- Scissors - to allow for opening of clothing to treat the wound.
- Epipen/antihistamine
- Tweezers
- Digital Thermometer
- Distilled Water
- Different Types of Emergency Trauma Kits
What kit do I need?
While you can put together your own trauma kit, it’s often better to buy a ready made critical injury kit specifically designed for the environment you’re in.
We provide emergency trauma kits for a variety of scenarios from workplaces and factories to vehicle or mass injury incidents and international relief agencies in war zones.
Is Specialist Training Required?
In short, if you’re likely to need an emergency trauma kit you would be advised to have training in order to properly use the tourniquets and dressings correctly to effectively stem the flow of blood.
For industries like construction, hospitality, events, agriculture, forestry etc where there is a risk of danger involved it’s advisable to not only have your site kitted out with several trauma kits but to also make sure a number of your staff are duly trained in correct use. In the case of a major accident it really will make the difference between life and death.
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December 2022