Archive for the ‘Equipment’ Category

First Aid Tip: Burns

On June 18, 2013   /   Equipment, General   /   Comments Off on First Aid Tip: Burns
First Aid Tip: Burns

Now that Summer is almost here, many of us will be spending more time in the out of doors.  That often means either camping, hiking in a local park, or even just lazing around in the backyard (which I fully hope to be doing).  While, certainly, the risk of injury in any of these situations is low, problems can manage to arise.  So, a little knowledge and preparation can go a long way should something happen.  One type of typical outdoor injury is burns, and, in fact, the most common cause arises from cooking accidents. Whether it is caused by your backyard grill or your camp stove, minor burns to your hands may be caused by inadvertently grabbing hot metal; and potentially major burns may arise from stove flare-ups and scalds from tipping over pots of boiling liquid.  In fact, these kind of burns can be more serious than that […]

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Gear List: The SAM Splint

On May 12, 2013   /   Equipment   /   Comments Off on Gear List: The SAM Splint

While I teach survival and wilderness medicine courses, I really don’t like to refer to myself as an “instructor.”  In fact, each time that I do, I cringe inside.  Certainly, I understand the appropriate context of the word, but, to me at least, it purports that I know it all.  Which I don’t.  Every time I teach a class, no matter whether its advanced or beginner, I learn something new.  And in between classes I continue to try to learn.  Which is frustrating sometimes because it seems that the more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know!  So the process of learning never ends.  I see myself, then, as a student. While teaching a Wilderness First Aid (WFA) course last weekend to a group of Scout leaders, one asked me a question about the SAM splint that we were using at the time.  I was able […]

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Communing with the Dead

On March 4, 2013   /   Equipment, News, Reading   /   Comments Off on Communing with the Dead

On Saturday, my postwoman handed me the latest version of Accidents in North American Mountaineering (ANAM) that I had ordered earlier in the week.  When I get home tonight from a meeting with my friend, J.C., I fully intend to crack open a beer, plop down on my couch with my fresh copy, and, soon after I start to read, begin heavily marking the pages with my highlighter and pencil.  Since it is the sixth year in a row that I’ve been reading this journal, I know that it will probably take me about a week to finish — And I will appreciate every minute of it. Whoa, wait a minute, Erik, isn’t it a little weird to “appreciate” page after page of death, injury, and mortality statistics?  I wrote “appreciate,” not “enjoy.”  Besides, I read it … and often recommend it to my students … for very good reasons.  After […]

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Preparation is Key

On February 18, 2013   /   Equipment, General, News   /   Comments Off on Preparation is Key

Whether it is preparing for an unexpected survival or medical emergency,  a common misconception exists.  That is, that one can effectively deal with the emergency with only the barest minimum of equipment.  For example, some people believe that they should be able to survive if they were suddenly blindfolded and dropped into the wilderness, in winter, dressed only in their underwear and equipped simply with a knife (Don’t laugh, I have actually heard this).  Perhaps this might work on a television reality show, but I doubt that it would work in actual reality.  This misconception can potentially be deadly. Consider the heroic rescue reported by The Salem News this weekend in Peabody, Massachusetts: A snowplow driver, who was parked in the break-down lane of Interstate 95 on Friday, watched a Jeep Wrangler slam, at roughly 60 miles per hour, into the back of a front-end loader being operated by a co-worker. […]

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The Survival Knife: Which One for You?

On December 7, 2012   /   Equipment   /   Comments Off on The Survival Knife: Which One for You?
The Survival Knife: Which One for You?

For anyone who spends time in the outdoors, arguably, one of the most important items to consider having with you is a knife.  It can certainly be handy as an all-around tool, but, more to the point, it plays a vital role in your survival pack.  After all, preparation is a key component to best responding to an acute emergency situation and a knife can help you more easily do 1,001 things.  So, spending a little time considering which knife can best serve your personal tastes, your chosen outdoor activity, your potential needs, while not burning a hole in your wallet, can pay off huge dividends.  Let me, then, offer you a few thoughts which you might find helpful to get your started. A survival knife isn’t just used for cutting.  In a survival situation, you will most likely also be using your knife to pry, pound, chop, dig, scrap, […]

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Tourniquet: Fact v. Fiction

On October 22, 2012   /   Equipment, General   /   Comments Off on Tourniquet: Fact v. Fiction

Recently, I was reading a popular wilderness first-aid handbook that is used to trained thousands of Americans each year and one of the sections really bothered me.  In its outline of how to control severe bleeding, it indicated that a tourniquet is used “only” as a last resort since it may “cause gangrene” and “may require surgical amputation of the limb.”  The handbook also advises that in the event that a tourniquet must be used, that it should be loosened in “five minute” intervals to check if bleeding has stopped and to “allow some blood flow” to the affected limb.  Sounds reasonable enough, right?  Except that it isn’t accurate. According to much medical evidence, the reality is that a tourniquet, used by a trained wilderness first-aid provider, may, in fact, be the initial method of bleeding control in severe extremity bleeding. Much of what the medical community now knows about the […]

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Communicating from the Backcountry

On June 22, 2012   /   Equipment   /   Comments Off on Communicating from the Backcountry

Communicating from the backcountry for non-emergency reasons is a real challenge.  Heck, that is an understatement.  More to the point, unless you have a satellite telephone, very often one is simply cut off from the frontcountry world.  Yes, of course, cellular coverage in remote settings has vastly grown in the last ten years, but it is still limited, and it is worse for those (like me) who use smartphones.  However, thanks to a new generation of Personal Locator Beacons (PLB) this is beginning to change. Historically, PLBs have been used solely for emergencies.  They are designed so that in case of an emergency, no matter how remote the location, one can signal for assistance with just a click of a button.  Not all products are created equally, though, as some of the more popular ones have technical limitations, thus giving a false sense of security.  Arguably the best and most dependable […]

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