First Aid Kit Essentials

Having a first aid kit in your home or car probably isn’t something you’d classify as an essential, until something happens and you find your without it when you need it.

I had one first aid kit in my house; there was one in my car but it needs replenishing.

Here’s is one of mine:

Fun but practical 🙂

I’ve been a qualified first aider for 3 years now, following are my recommendations / first aid kit essentials for your home first aid kit using the knowledge I’ve gained from my training and occasions I’ve needed to use my skills.

• Small pair of sharp scissors
• Burn dressings
• Sterile cleansing wipes
• Face shields
• Plasters (band-aids)
• Tape
• Freeze packs – perfect for bumps and bruises and can help reduce swelling
• Variety sizes of adhesive bandages
• Large gauze pads — You can cut these down to smaller sizes if necessary.
• Alcohol based wipes — Useful for cleansing wounds prior to bandaging. Also good for cleaning thermometers, scissors, tweezers, or any other piece of equipment so you don’t risk infection.
• A thermometer
• Tweezers – for pulling out splinters
• Non-latex gloves
• Sterile saline — Good for irrigating wounds, rinsing eyes, and as a nasal flush.
• Triangular bandages — Use as arm sling, cravat bandage or cover for head dressing.
• Critical medical family histories — It’s always a good idea to keep information with the first aid kit pertaining to allergies and such in case of extreme emergency.
• Emergency Inhaler, Epi-Pens, or other emergency prescribed medication
• First aid book or wallet sized guide

You’ll notice there are no lotions or potions in this list, that’s because in a first aid kit for work their not permitted in case of allergies. I wouldn’t want to recommend specific items here for the same reason, however, useful items to have on hand would be:

• Painkillers
• Antibiotic ointment
• Anti-Diarrhoeal pills
• Antihistamines
• Bee sting sprays or kits

What did I miss? What do you keep in your first aid kit?