Compact First Aid Kit for Personal Carry and Your Car | PDN

Carry Compromises

Emergency medical professionals may carry a large kit or a mobile hospital backpack. But most of us who consider carrying life-saving medical gear important choose something more compact.

Among his self-defense accessories, Rob Pincus has a number of med kits. The largest, his trauma response kit, is staged in his vehicle when he’s driving around the country. The next largest kit he keeps in his luggage when traveling. It still carries a lot of gear. Much smaller is the emergency bag, which contains the bare minimum of items he wants to have while on the range to deal with a gunshot wound: a pressure dressing, hemostatic agent inside some gauze, tourniquet, and chest seals.

Everyday Carry Med Kits

But even this size tactical first aid kit is too large to carry every day. A great choice designed for everyday carry is the SF Responder, an ankle medical kit that contains the same items as the emergency bag, but all packaged very compactly.

Carry of a tactical first aid kit is a compromise. The amount of medical gear you can realistically carry with you daily is a lot less than what Rob keeps in his large trauma response kit, which lets him treat more people and tend to a wider variety of injuries. With the compact first aid kit, Rob can only control bleeding and help with breathing.

You can find hundreds more self-defense videos here at PDN, including numerous videos about specific med kit items.

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6 Responses to “Compact First Aid Kit”

Shane's Email January 25th, 2021

Rob, precisely what brand is that “Ratch Tourniquet”?
Chris April 20th, 2019

Great info on what gear is available to have. However people need to know how to use it. Especially a tourniquet and the sucking chest would bandage. I think it would be wise to say that people who choose to buy these kits should seek out the proper training to use them.
Cary Kozberg April 17th, 2019

extremely helpful! been carrying an ankle kit for about a year but with items that seemed oversized. This video gave suggestions on items that are better fits. Agree that links to H and H and North American Rescue would be helpful.
Ernie April 16th, 2019

A SWAT Tourniquet would fit well in your ankle unit. I have a CAT in my large Go bag and a SWAT in my over the shoulder Active Shooter Bag.
John August 31st, 2017

Thanks for this video. As a retired nurse I am familiar with all sorts and sizes of bandages, but not so much so with first aid kits. I really got a lot out of this that will help me put together a variety of tactical first aid kits.
Howard August 23rd, 2017

Great info even for those of us who have been carrying 1st and 2nd aid equipment for decades. Always something new to learn. Would like to see links to North American Rescue and H&H as I don't know those companies. A bit of critique from my teacher side . . . it always feels condescending to me when a teacher uses the word "obviously". If the info were obvious to me, I wouldn't be watching the video. Otherwise, great video although I'd slow the voice down a bit. We'll wait!