Backpacking First Aid Is A Must For Any Backpacking Trip

by Ric Henderson 

Something that you are going to see preached time and time again is First Aid. While your tent, boots and backpack are extremely important, no trip should ever take place without someone in the group being able to perform First Aid. This could literally be the difference in life and death and if your group does not currently have someone that can do this, do not go on the trip until someone has been trained.

An essential part of any backpack should be a first aid kit. While everyone does not need to pack one, there should be one for every two or three members. If you have a larger group, you may want to have 3 or 4 kits in the group to make sure that everyone can get taken care of in case of an emergency.

Realize that the early stages of any injury are the most crucial. Imagine a worst case scenario when someone falls and breaks a leg or an arm. While you will not be able to cast them in the wild, someone will have to know how to ease the pain and hot to prevent the injury from getting worse. If everyone is panicking, the person that is injured will risk further injury that could result in a much worse ending than if someone can take charge and knows how to handle the situation.

Besides the ingredients that are in your pack, you may come across some things that are normally everyday problems that you can reach into the medicine chest, but are not around on a backpacking trip. For instance, you may get some bad water or maybe the food is not agreeing with you and you end up with a case of diarrhea. You can take blackberry roots and boil them to create a drink. Let it cool a bit and then drink it down. You should be better in no time at all.

Blisters are more than likely going to be experienced by someone. They are going to have to be popped and then sealed to prevent infection. You should have something in your first aid kit for this, but if you run out, you can always use tree sap as a balm.

While aspirin is another item that should be in your pack, if people are not used to this type of exercise, the bottle may not last very long. When you run out and want to get rid of some of those aches and pains, you can make a cup of tea out of willow bark. It may not be the tastiest thing that you have ever had, but its natural makeup will give you pain relief.

Backpacking should be a fun experience, but there are times when the unexpected will happen and someone needs to know how to deal with this. If you are like me, you feel better being the person that knows how to do this. If you aren’t proficient in first aid, take a class and take on the burden for your group. At least this way you will know that someone in the group is ready to deal with emergencies.