Recap
Our last post covered the four questions one should answer before choosing a Wilderness Medical Systems kit for your needs and described the importance of knowing if your destination is less than or greater than 8 hours from critical emergency medical care. Now to the second question…
How Many People Are In Your Party?
Without belaboring the point, the more people that need to be covered with the kit, the more stuff you have to take with you. We generally recommend that your kit carry enough for a few people more than the number you anticipate, especially if you are a trained medical professional. The only travelers who should be carrying the bare minimum are those who are carrying everything themselves. Even then, we recommend that they have some way of resupplying their kit, if necessary.
If the number in your party requires supplies that are too much to hold in one kit, you can also have a divided medical kit that can be carried by two or more people. The advantage to this is that there will be enough supplies for the trip. The disadvantages are that time can be lost determining which of the kits has the supplies you need for a particular illness or injury, or the part of the kit you need is with someone who is gone.
Our Suggestion
We suggest that each individual carry a small backpack sized kit and then have a larger kit transported and left at basecamp to supply out of. This has worked well for several of our clients and insures that all the capability you need is available, while allowing light travel during daytime activities.
The third criteria, How Long Will You Be Gone? will be covered in our next post.