Survival Course and Travel First Aid Kits

The first aid kit can be one which sits in the house and is ready for any small injuries that occur, or at the other extreme it can be the life saving collection of items in the frozen ice caps of Greenland or the tropical jungles of Borneo. Whichever it is it needs to have some basic items, common to all first aid kits. These items would include bandages, in both long length and set sizes. Width of the bandage is also important as it may need to go round the thickest part of a leg. Scissors to cut the bandage are vital and some form of sterilisation and anti sceptic cream completes the cuts and bruises category of injuries which need to be covered with your survival first aid kit.

The tropics can be cruel places, with a myriad of potential dangers lurking in the undergrowth. The most common attacker is the mosquito so your survival first aid kit must have both repellent and after bite ointment in the pack. The vital ingredient in mosquito repellent is called DEET and this will be marked on the bottle or tube of the repellent. This is most commonly used in the standard insect repellent and has the desired effect on mosquitoes and other crawlies such as ticks and all manner of disease ridden insects. Most of the DEET products come in the form of lotions, creams or sprays. The best time to apply one of the repellents is around sunset when mosquitoes are most active, and the places to cover up are the legs and arms. Ankles can be sprayed with the lotion as this is an area where the mossey likes to take a meal.

The survival fist aid kit should have some more useful items which would include elastic bandages for strains and twists, sun block, and the most useful tool ever invented for the adventure traveller, the Swiss Army penknife. They vary in size and combinations, and the simplest has scissors, a flat edge screwdriver, a Philips head screwdriver, and odd things for punching holes, plus a few other bits and pieces. Be careful to get the real thing as there are copy Swiss penknives which are near to useless. If a situation arises where you need to call on your survival first aid kit, the last thing you need is to find the scissors snap in half. The Swiss Army version is robust and like most things Swiss is a precision made item. At the most expensive and comprehensive end of the range the Explorer has: Large blade, a small blade, can opener with small screwdriver, bottle opener with large screwdriver & wire stripper, scissors, magnifying glass, reamer with sewing eye, Phillips screwdriver, corkscrew, hook, toothpick, tweezers and a key ring. The company which makes this essential piece of kit is Victorinox, and the genius who managed to pack all these things into a penknife should be congratulated. There are travellers walking around who only discovered the inners of their penknife by accident, its all so cleverly put together. The final items which need to be part of your survival kit are a water bottle, a torch and a cigarette lighter. Not because you may fancy a quick smoke in the jungle but one way of getting rid of leaches is to burn them off.