Laws Relating To Emergency Medical Aid should know Everyone

With the assistance of a well-stocked first-aid kit, you can successfully respond to common injuries and emergencies. 

A first-aid kit should always be kept in the house and in the automobile. Keep your kits out of young children's reach in a handy place. Children who are old enough to understand the purpose of the kits should be informed of their location.

Many drugstores sell first aid kits, or you may put one together yourself. Your demands and hobbies may dictate how you should customize your outfit. 

MEDICAL EMERGENCY KITS 

Remember the last time someone in the family cut a finger or picked up a splinter, or your visiting aunt Lizzie tripped on a step—and you hunted fruitlessly in the medicine cabinet jumble for needed supplies and had to end up rushing off the drugstore? Yours will have been no isolated experience.

Medical emergency supplies don't need to take up much room, but they should have a place of their own. Spend some time putting those items together before you need them. Act right away!

Except where specifically noted otherwise, the suggested items can be obtained without a prescription.

You should not put your home supplies with other items in the medicine cabinet. Instead, keep them separately in a labeled container, which can be an old tackle box, or small tool chest with a hinged cover, or anything else suitable. Keep emergency supplies for the car in a similar container. Keep the home container unlocked, on a shelf beyond a tot’s reach.

 BASIC HOME KIT

• Sterile gauze dressing, individually wrapped, in 2*2-inch and 4*4-inch sizes, for cleaning and covering wounds.
• Piece of an old bed sheet, clean, folded, for use in making bandages and slings and in trying on splints.
• Roll of 2-inch gauze bandage, for securing dressings over wounds.
• Roll of half-inch-wide adhesive tape.
• Cotton applicators, small package, for removing foreign bodies from the eye.
• Feminine napkins, four, useful for staunching heavy bleeding anywhere on the body.
• Rubbing alcohol (isopropyl, 70%), a small bottle, for sterilizing instruments, and for sponging the body during high fever.
• Calamine lotion, small bottle, for insect bites, rashes, sunburn, etc.
• Mild, non-stinging antiseptic such as Merthiolate, zephyr chloride, or betadine. Milk of magnesia. Rectal and oral thermometers. Tweezers. Scissors with blunt tips, for cutting tape and gauze.
• Thick, blunt needle for removing splinters. Tongue depressors, for small splints.

 BASIC KIT FOR THE CAR 

• Table salt and baking soda, 1 small package each.
• Matches box.
• Bottle of distilled water, for burns and washing wounds.
• Sterile gauze dressings, individually wrapped, in 2*2-inch and 4*4-inch sizes.
• Piece of an old bed sheet, clean, folded
• Roll of 2-inch gauze bandage 
• Roll of half-inch-wide adhesive tape
• Cotton applicators, small package
• Feminine napkins, four
• Rubbing alcohol
• Tube of petroleum jelly (petroleum)
• Band-aids or equivalent, assorted sizes
• Aromatic spirits of ammonia, a small bottle
• Aspirin or acetaminophen
• Mild, non-stinging antiseptics such as Merthiolate, zephyr, chloride, or butadiene, and tweezers.
• Scissors with blunt tips. Thick, blunt needle.

  A basic kit for travel

• Steris tips, for use (instead of sutures) in holding together the cut edge of a laceration 
• Oral antibiotics for infections, prescribed by your physician
• Dramamine tablets, for motion sickness
• Demerol, for nausea and vomiting 
• Kaopeatate, for diarrhea
• Sterile gauze dressings, individually wrapped, 2*2-inch and 4*4-inch sizes
• Roll of 2-inch gauze bandage
• Roll of half-inch-wide adhesive tape
• Cotton applicators, small package
• Tube of petroleum jelly. Rectal and oral thermometers.
• Aromatic spirits of ammonia, small bottle. Tweezers.
• Band-aids or equivalent, assorted sizes 
• Aspirin or acetaminophen

 A basic kit for travel to isolated areas

In addition to the items just listed for ordinary travel, it would be wise to add:

Snakebite kit

Suturing equipment

About suturing equipment and suturing: it would be advisable to check with your physician for additional advice and perhaps some basic instructions he may be willing to give you. A sterile suture package is available, with nylon thread joined to the end of a needle. Except for the face, a suture thread of size 3-0 or 5-0 is typically suitable. Whichever is finer will probably not leave a scar.

The needle can be held with a hemostat—a clamp-like instrument that amounts to a small, self-locking, needle-nosed plies, which also has some usefulness in removing thorns and fishhooks, and even on occasion for repairing fishing and other equipment.

Suturing may be necessary only when a wound gapes so much that it cannot be treated any other way. In most cases, but not all the wound edges can be brought together and held with a star strip. A deep cut in an area of the body subject to much movement sometimes can be a problem.

When suturing appears to be essential, clean the wound with soap and water, and then dry it. Holding the needle with the hemostat, take a stitch through the skin only, never beyond into fat or muscle. The skin is never more than a quarter of an inch thick. By staying within the skin, you penetrate no vital structure. If you should hit a blood vessel, pull the suture through and out, and start again in a site just a little above or below. Bleeding will stop if you apply pressure for a minute or so. 

Emergency supplies

Contact information for your family doctor and pediatrician, as well as the poison aid line, local emergency services, and emergency road service providers, are included in the list of emergency phone numbers. 

• Medical release documents for each member of the family
• Medical history forms for each family member
• Extra batteries and a small waterproof torch or headlamp
• Aquatic matches
• A compact notebook and a waterproof pen
• Emergency blanket for space

Examine your toolkit

Check your first-aid kits frequently to make sure the torch batteries are functional and to replace any expired or used-up materials. Give kids age-appropriate medical emergency preparation.