Would you rather carry a trauma kit that you picked out yourself and made from drugstore purchases, or one that was developed by special request from Delta Force Special Operations? Yeah, that’s what we thought. Most people can put together a first-aid kit, but a trauma kit is a second-level skill.
“We got a special request to create a trauma kit that soldiers could have on them in the field that was small and low profile,” says Tom Kaleta, marketing director of Blue Force Gear. “Turns out the trauma kits they were carrying were larger and more obvious, so it singled the guys carrying them out as medics and they were being targeted for that reason on the battlefield. We wanted to do something to correct that problem.”
The Blue Force Gear team spent the next month sourcing the smallest size packaging for the contents needed inside the trauma kit. Everything is made in USA and is the highest quality available on the market. The kit itself is so small that when on the belt it can look like a cell phone or wallet– it does not look like a trauma kit — and it contains items to help with what experts in the field have determined are the top three most common serious injuries.
The Micro Trauma Kit NOW! is sold in several variations with or without medical supplies. The “filled” versions come in basic and advanced.
Here’s what the Basic Kit includes:
1) Hemostatic dressing for wound packing/clotting (1 included)
2) 4-inch Emergency Trauma Dressing (1 included)
3) 9-inch Medical Grade Easy Tape (6 included)
4) Tourni-Kwik Compression Tourniquet (1 included)
5) Heavy Duty Medical Gloves in tan (1 pair)
Here’s what the Advanced Kit includes:
1) QuickClot Combat Gauze
2) HyFin Vent Chest Seal (2 seals included)
3) Cleer Medical Trauma Bandage 4-inch Flat Pack
4) Decompression needle
5) Six 2-inch-x-9-inch Frog Tape
6) Size 28 Nasopharyngeal Airway
7) Heavy Duty Medical Gloves in tan (1 pair)
The three injuries this kit is designed to treat are tension pneumothorax, which is when air gets into the lungs and the lungs can no longer inflate. Massive hemorrhaging is the second. The kit’s 4-inch Israeli bandage combines sterile dressing with the application of pressure to a wound. Finally, injuries to the head, nose or throat which prevent breathing can be treated with the kit’s nasopharyngeal airway.
Kaleta says some people have complained that the BFG Micro Trauma Kit NOW! advanced version doesn’t have a tourniquet. That’s because of two reasons. “Most people have a tourniquet on them in other ways, in the rest of their gear,” he says. “My guy Travis Hall always has one around his waist as a belt. Also, we just couldn’t fit all of this gear into the pack and a tourniquet too.” So, always carry a tourniquet on you.
Kaleta urges everyone to learn how to use the contents of the Micro Trauma Kit NOW!. People probably don’t want to use an aspiration needle in someone’s chest if they’ve never learned how to do it but the goal of the Micro Trauma Kit NOW! is that everyone will be prepared to handle severe trauma if needed.
“You know, you may have your EDC knife and pistol on you at all times and that’s great, but the chances of you being able to stop a situation where someone is a real threat are pretty slim. But with everything that is going on in the world today the chances of you coming across an injured person and being able to help them survive is a greater possibility. Even if you don’t know how to use these items, there’s a good chance that someone around you will.”
Kaleta feels so strongly about having a trauma kit on him at all times now due to a hunting accident he witnessed a couple of years ago. A friend’s black powder rifle exploded, severely injuring his hand. “We didn’t have anything with us,” Kaleta says. “It took my friend 2 1/2 hours to get the help he really needed. We went from being worried that he might lose his hand to being worried that he might not make it at all. And that was a scary, helpless feeling to see your friend suffer and not have anything with you to help him.”
His friend ultimately was ok, but they weren’t on the battlefield, or even hunting in the wilderness. They were in a remote part of the guy’s own property, and they still experienced a potentially life-threatening situation. Kaleta also stresses that had his friend been alone and had a traditional trauma kit that only opened with a clasp, he might not have been able to undo it.
If you ever experience a trauma and you’re muddy and bloody, you want something that opens quickly and easily. “It’s fine to think about packing a kit and knowing how to open it and what’s in it and where everything is when you’re safe at home,” says Kaleta. “But when you’re traumatized adrenaline sets in and you don’t think clearly.”
This kit’s ball handles make it easy to deploy with one hand on either side. Furthermore, when it opens, it falls open with the contents easily arranged and visually laid out in front of you. The kit was constructed with care, so that everything has its place and you don’t have to search for things. The kit opens, falls open, and reveals its contents in an organized manner.
Another advantage to this kit’s construction is the super strong Ten-Speed military grade elastic. “This is the high-quality elastic we always use in construction of our gear,” Kaleta says. “This elastic is like wearing a scuba suit or lycra and tucking something inside that. It holds it that close to your body. If you’ve got guys on planes or in the field, you can’t have your kit getting caught on anything and with this elastic it stays in place.”
So, yes, you could put your own kit together if you wanted, but why would you? Kaleta doesn’t mind, though, if you put your own pack together or buy a less-expensive version from another company. “Just get one,” he says. “I would much rather have someone carry a kit, any kit, than not carry a kit. It doesn’t matter whose. The goal of the Micro Trauma Kit NOW! is to change the mindset of everyday carry to include trauma care and to help our boys on the battlefield stay safe.”
But just know, if you get the Blue Force Gear Micro Trauma Kit NOW!, you’re getting the best quality products that a company the size of Blue Force Gear, with more than a decade of connections in the industry, can put together. Learn more now, or purchase the filled kit at www.blueforcegear.com/micro-trauma-kit.
