Re: RC: Re: First Aid Kit Save the Day!

[CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com]

In a message dated Fri, 10 Aug 2001 12:54:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time, "Lisa P." <bludoglady@juno.com> writes:

>  After reading this post, I would like to know what to carry in a first
> aid kit for riding the trails. Duct tape will be first, I know vet wrap,
> I am thinking maybe vet bond (if I can get it without having to work in
> the vet's office). What antibiotics, etc. should I think to get? 

The main things I'd suggest for a riding first aid kit would be things such as Vetrap, duct tape, gauze pads, etc. for stopping a REALLY bad bleeder.  Antibiotics have no place in a first aid kit--they are not "first" aid but are rather a part of a specific prescribed regimen for caring for an individual situation and are not something you need in an emergency.  Furthermore, ANY sort of a topical dressing applied to a wound may severely limit your chances of having it successfully sutured (if that is the right course of treatment) once you get to "second aid"--ie your vet.

As for stopping bleeding--I am always intrigued at how concerned folks get about a little bit of blood.  Keep in mind that proportionately, a horse can lose a gallon of blood with as little detrimental effect as you can lose a pint, and won't get into serious trouble unless he loses twice that.  Imagine a gallon of red paint, just slopped around--it makes a pretty good mess.  I usually don't even try to apply any sort of dressing other than just direct pressure with my hand and a gauze pad or other suitable dressing (shirt tail, whatever) unless the quantity is at least getting into the neighborhood of a few pints (8 pints per gallon) or the wound is really spurting.  We all seem to have an inborn desire to "do something" to minor injuries, but quite often, leaving them alone is by far the best course of action.

I did have a client several years ago who was riding his horse through an old homestead site, and had the horse stumble on some buried sheet metal, causing a tiny cut that severed the artery in the coronet band.  He said blood was spurting out 3 feet or better and really pumping.  THAT is the sort of bleeder that requires first aid.  He fashioned a dressing out of his longjohn top which sufficed while he led the horse an hour back to his truck and then trailered him an hour and a half into town for help.  Upon removing the dressing, the wound began to spurt again, and we likely had two or three quarts of blood in a puddle on the floor of the large animal treatment room in the minute or so it took to numb the spot with lidocaine and get a hemostat into the wound and onto the artery.  (This horse weighed close to 1600 lbs and so could have lost more like 3 gallons before being shocky.)

First aid is often much more about common sense than it is about what "stuff" you carry--much like Karen's story about her friend using a bra to stop a bleeder.

Heidi