If a Disaster Happens, Will You Be Ready With the Right Medical Supplies and Emergency Gear?
Posted on June 18, 2010
If a sudden disaster, a hurricane, a tornado, a gas line explosion, or a train wreck that spilled toxic materials hit your town, would you have all the medical supplies on hand that you’d need to cope with the emergency? Being ready for emergencies means more than having a few band-aids and a bottle of iodine on hand. Sure, band-aids are good for small cuts and scrapes, but to be truly ready for life-threatening injuries, you’ll need a more comprehensive collection of wound care supplies such as a bottle of antiseptic (iodine, hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, or betadine). You’ll also need gauze pads, medical tape, some kind of tourniquet, and Celox (blood clotting powder) in case of deep cuts or gunshot wounds.
It’s also a good idea to have some tweezers for removing thorns, splinters or shards of broken glass. Any well-stocked medical kit should also have wound care items like medical scissors, a scalpel, or even some single-edge razor blades, which will do in a pinch. This should cover the major types of injuries you’d encounter in a major disaster like a tornado hitting your town and flattening the homes in your neighborhood. Because, the chances are, if the storm was powerful enough to flatten homes, it may have damaged your local hospital or urgent care facility and you’ll be on your own as far as wound care before emergency crews can tend to you or an injured friend or family member.
Of course, even if you’re not dealing with serious injuries, it’s always a good idea to have the following medical supplies in your basic home medical kit: bug spray, sun block, Calamine Lotion or some other kind of poison ivy cream, some kind of spray or ointment for itchy skin, various pain relievers like ibuprofen, aspirin, or the like (what you buy should really depend on the ages, medical condition or allergies of your family members).
Have some kind of remedy on hand for diarrhea, especially if you have elderly people or small kids in the house. Diarrhea can be a potentially life-threatening condition because it promotes dehydration. Prescription medications that you or your immediate family need should be available at all times. It’s a very good idea to stock an extra month’s supply of whatever they need. In the event of an emergency, there’s no telling when regular supply channels will be re-established.
Just look at what happened to the poor people who lived in New Orleans. Many of them still haven’t been able to get back on the same footing that they were before the Katrina debacle. Benadryl is a good thing to have plenty of since it can help deal with allergic reactions and also promotes good, solid sleep, which is important when you’re dealing with stressful situations. Finally, you should also lay in a supply of cold/flu medicine just in case. Whenever people are under a lot of stress, it lowers their resistance to things like colds, flu, and other seasonal ailments.
The bottom line is, when you’re planning for what kind of medical kit to put together for your home: be thorough. Plan ahead. Make sure you have stockpiled enough supplies to get you through at least a week of being unable to get more supplies from a store. Frankly, you’re better off laying enough of the right supplies for at least two weeks. You may not use all of them, or you may not have to use any of them, but it’s better to be prepared and not have to use your stockpile than it is to be caught short. In addition to having enough of the medical supplies described here, be sure that you have at least a gallon of water per person per day until you can get your regular water supply turned back on. You should also plan to have enough food on hand to feed everyone in your household two meals a day for at least two weeks.
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» Filed Under Diseases Tags: Tags:medical kit, medical supplies, wound care
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