Vehicle Preparedness – First Aid Emergencies

You’re out at a park with your kids, and they’re having a blast.  For summer, it’s a fairly cool day in the mid-80’s.  The sky is the soft blue of a lovely day.  Even with the blue of the sky, there are plenty of clouds to douse the intensity of the sun from time to time.  There are your kids again.  Their squeals of delight pull your attention back to their smiling faces. Dontcha just love hearing them laugh their raucous laughter as they slide down the twisty slide or play hide and seek in and around the playground?  It’s almost bliss.  Then, it happens.  You’ve just looked from one child to another and you hear that blood-curdling, “I just got hurt” scream.  Have you practiced vehicle preparedness? Are you ready?

Have you missed the first few articles in this series?   You can find them here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

***There are links in this post.  Some of the links may be affiliate links. My promise to you is that I will only recommend the most economical version of the best quality of items to serve you. All of these are the items that I have bought for my own family.  If you click on a link, your price will remain the same.  If you make a purchase, we may make a small commission that aids in the cost of the running of this website.***

There are three types of parents.

There are the parents who practically wrap their children up in bubble wrap and never let them have ANY real fun.  Don’t be that parent.

There are parents who let their children loose on the world.  When something happens to that child, there is nary a band-aid to be found, let alone anything to clean the wound with.  And what’s Neosporin?

Then there’s the prepared parent.  They quickly assess the situation.  No bones sticking through the skin.  Okay, that’s a good thing.  No deep gashes spurting blood.  Check.  Superficial scrape, but bleeding quite freely.  What do you do and what do you have in your arsenal?

What do you carry with you?

If you’re like me, you have a few first aid items in your Every Day Carry arsenal.  Those band-aids, small ace wrap with a fastener, and anticeptic wound cleaning spray will take care of many of your kids superficial wounds.  But what if it’s not quite superficial?

I was helping someone new to the area clean their new house before they moved in.  A bunch of us moms and our kids there were helping her scour her house.  One of the kids was out in the backyard and his foot slid under the chain-link fence.  When he pulled his foot out, he cut the top of it fairly deeply, but not very wide.  I keep a small first aid kit in our vehicle for every day running around.  We were able to clean the wound out, we sprayed it with “Neo To Go” and then used steri-strips and covered that with a self-adhesive wrap.

These types of things happen more often than we’d like to think, so how are we going to be prepared for those non-life-threatening wounds either on our kids or on ourselves?  Having a first-aid kit put together for your car is a necessity!

We have three different ‘layers’ of first aid care.

Vehicle Preparedness – Layer 1 or EDC

As I stated earlier, I always have my EDC or Every Day Carry items with me.  This covers the basics.   Included in my EDC first aid items are Tylenol, Advil, Advil PM, Baby Aspirin, Bandaids, and nitrile gloves in a pill-minder box. (Shown Below).

In a small cosmetic bag, I also have, anticeptic spray, Benedryl spray, Homeopathy Kit, Wound Seal, self adhesive wrap, bandana, alcohol pads, a small roll of first aid tape rolled on itself so it takes up less room, Neosporin + Pain Relief ointment, 2×2 gauze pads, and wound closure strips (steri-strips).

Vehicle Preparedness – Layer 2 or Car Kit

This is the kit that it kept in the car no matter where we go and it gives us another first aid layer.  In this kit, we keep Dental Medic, ammonia inhalants, nitrile gloves, paper and pen, tons of band-aids,   rolled gauze, first aid tape, self-adhesive ace wrap, finger splint, Tylenol, Low Dose aspirin, alcohol wipes, tweezers, a container of q-tips and cotton balls, and gauze pads.

We have only had to dive into this a couple of times, but it’s been helpful to have.

Vehicle Preparedness- Layer 3 or Long Trip Kit

Because of the size and the bulk, we only take this with us on long trips for more extreme emergencies.  This is a craft box that I purchased at a craft store with a 40% off coupon.  It was about $60.  I got it for about $40 after tax.  That may sound pricey for a place to keep supplies.   As I go through the kit, I think you’ll agree that it is the perfect receptacle for the job.

Under the lid on this thing, I keep my big items: peroxide, alcohol, iodine, “Be-Cool” forehead cooling bandages, an Israeli style tourniquet, Dental Medic, medic scissors, sting and bite extractor kit (snake venom), hand lotion, lip balm, and eyeglass cleaning cloth.

If you open the front of this, you’ll find three separate drawers with lids.  In our first drawer, we keep hydrocortisone cream, nystatin and triamcinolone ointment, Benadryl spray, anticeptic spray, thermometer, thermometer sheaths, lighted tweezers, fingernail clippers, and two eye droppers.

The second drawer contains baby aspirin.  We thought if someone were having a heart attack that these would be the better to use than actual aspirin. They would get into a person’s system faster.  We also have Pepto tablets, acetaminophen, Excedrin, New Skin, nasal spray, blink eye drops, Equate pain reliever, Prid drawing salve, and alcohol wipes.

The bottom drawer contains sterile 2×2 gauze pads, corn pads, all sizes of band-aids from very large to the dots, rolled non-sterile gauze, wound seal, wound seal for nosebleeds, first aid tape, and self-adhesive wrap.

Almost everything from the EDC and the car kit is duplicated here, we didn’t want to have to remember what bags contained what if there was a true and larger emergency.  It just made sense to have a larger kit that had pretty much everything.

Prevention

We also keep items in our vehicle which aren’t meant to help heal us but to prevent us from getting ill.  These are important in every vehicle.  We keep sunblock, bug spray, lotions, and an umbrella.  While the umbrella seems stupid to put on the list, it is super handy!  My skin is fair.  I burn easily.  Having an umbrella around on sunny days allows me to use it like a parasol if need be to keep the sun off the majority of my body so that I don’t get burned.

What About You?

I don’t expect you all to run out and buy every single one of these things right now (or necessarily ever).  I want to show you these things so that you have a basis for your own first aid kit(s).

For yourself and your family, think in layers.  Start with something like EDC (Every Day Carry).  What is most likely to happen to you and your family?  You’re probably most likely to get scrapes, bumps, bruises, headaches, and the like.

Once you get that done, then if you want to go with a car kit which is another level or layer of protection, then put it together.  There’s a checklist in the printable library.  If you haven’t already done so, sign up for my newsletter and get access to the printable library found on my homepage.

Then if other areas of preparedness are taken care of, or if your family needs more medical care than others because of illnesses, diseases, or other things that a member of your family suffers from, make this a priority and put together a much more comprehensive kit like I did.

So are there items that you think should be in my kit and I should include on the checksheets?  I’d love to hear about them!  Let us know your thoughts in the comments section!  And never forget . . .

You’ve Got This, Mama!