This might save your life!

[Unchained]

If you look at the comments on Mountain Medic's review, it seems that he was mistaken on a few points and referring to a previous generation of the product that had serious issues (one of the worst being that it made a real mess for the surgeons to clean up). The 2nd gen seems to have addressed most of these issues.

On the Celox powder, I don't believe that it was ever approved for use by the military. That said, I would be hesitant to use any uncontained, powdered clotting agent unless I had no other choice. See my comment above about 1st gen Quikclot making a mess inside the wound.

On the more general subject of severe bleeding, there are 2 things I always carry in my med kits. The first is individually wrapped super maxi pads. Clean, hella cheaper than trauma dressings, most won't stick to a wound and they are designed to soak up a lot of blood. The second is tampons. Laugh if you will, but they are sterile and work for penetrating injuries such as gunshot or stab wounds. As both items can also be used for their primary purpose, a good thing to have on hand.

 

[decodancer]

Unchained, those items only work for those who are man enough to go into a store and buy them LOL.

 

[Zil]

These products are good for general bleeding, "flesh wounds". The only way to stop arterial bleeding is with direct pressure. I vote for tampex.

 

[caseyc]

I also have a small sewing kit with different size needles and threads just in case I need to do a temporary stiching of a small open wound before applying a gauze pad, etc. I hope to never use it!

 

[StarEcho]

Just an FYI, tampons are NOT sterile and are not required to be sterile. They are packaged to keep them clean. So they would only be good to use for wounds if there were no sterile option available.

 

[Starlight]

maxipads...

I just skimmed over Mountain Medic's comments... about all the traumatic events he's had to deal with... pretty serious stuff. There really are times when a good background of first aid really comes in handy.

As a kid, our family was driving thru Georgia and there was something up ahead... on the road... what was it...?? We slowed down. My mom saw it first and told all the kids to turn around and keep our eyes looking behind us. Then she grabbed all our swimming towels, some drinking water, and then ran to this... man lying in the road... struggling for his life. Someone had hit him and left him to die in the road. My mom comforted him as he died. He was so seriously injured. A construction crew caught the guy further down the road who were watching for a damaged vehicle.

Another time... my ex and I were driving through the high wind area of California desert... and ex says... "lookit" and he pulled up his CB ready to call on it... There was a piggyback double trailer 18-wheeler trying to pass another long trailer and the wind caught the piggyback and he swished and swang and swished and swang and swang himself over and then he tumbled over and over doing sideways summersaults right down the highway. And we were on the divided highway going the opposite direction. We had a front row view of the whole thing. "Breaker Breaker."
We pulled off... thinking... well, he's a goner fer sure... and would we run over to pull him out...? Then... truck laying on its side... the man climbed out, brushed himself off... and walked away.

Ya know... people who drive a lot, need to know how to handle this stuff. These are need-to-know skills.