Ranch Dog wrote:pricedo wrote:As a corollary to this whole thing if I have excess meds after a course of treatment is done in the context of high powered antibiotics or pain killers I put them in my emergency bush med kit which is contained in one of those fluorescent orange plastic waterproof containers which was designed for matches that ALWAYS goes with me on any fly-in or remote trips into the wilderness. Commonly available water purification tablets are also contained in the kit and an ultra-light but very strong tourniquet.
In the event of remote wilderness incidents of appendicitis, injuries, infections, infectious & water borne diseases, food poisoning that kit could keep me or someone else alive and mobile long enough to reach help.......I have learned that severe PAIN is one of your main foes (second only to breathing and bleeding) in these situations.......it paralyzes your mind and body........if you can quell the pain & continue to think & act rationally your chances of survival are much better.
Great thinking and hard to argue. The problem is getting the items and keeping the effective over time.
I throw out old stuff and replace with new stuff whenever I have antibiotics &/or pain killers surplus to a course of treatment as an outpatient.
SCENARIO:
It is 0300 hrs and
RD is sleeping in a tent on a fly-in fishing trip in Maine where the only access to the lake is 2 hours by bush plane and he develops an infectious disease from drinking bacteria contaminated water.
An improvised kit like mine could mean the difference between the bush plane pilot finding a cold stiff body of a man who'd died in agony during the night and a somewhat subdued but very much alive
RD the next morning.
TRUE RECOLLECTION:
Badly twisted an ankle while on a mineral prospecting trip deep in the bush near the village of Temagami in Northern Ontario, Canada. The pain was excruciating. Two things
I always carry in the wilderness greatly facilitated the trip back to the highway and medical treatment. One was a roll of duct tape which makes very quickly applied and very strong slings, compresses, splints, tourniquets, bandage wrappers, waterproof boot & tent patches (short term), tent pole bindings. A duct tape bandage (clean cloth between skin & tape) is a SOB to take off but you're still alive to do it. The other was a coupla tablets of a strong prescription pain killer that I had left over from a previous ailment and had kept in the kit. I bound the ankle with several wraps of the duct tape around my pant leg to minimize motion and damage to the ankle while traveling back to the truck parked on Hwy 11. I popped a couple of the pain killers and when the pain had subsided I slowly made my way back to safety. Never woulda been able to stand on that ankle to walk for even a second if I hadn't had that pain medicine. Experience is a dear teacher up in the big country and the wilderness is absolutely brutal & merciless. Up under those northern stars you're just another potential source of food for a bigger animal taking his chances.
But we might get out of the rest of the worlds problems also and let them kill each other. As for the space program it is a drop in the bucket next to the military spending around the world.
I hope the meds kick in fast.
