Our
first aid inventory list details what we keep on board in case of emergencies. We compiled this final inventory through a variety of sources, but primarily from recommendations from Curtis Edwards and Mike Lafferty.
We took a 2 day Red Cross Wilderness First Aid class with Dr Edwards in 2008 which was geared towards offshore sailing and offered through the Seattle Yacht Club. It was a fabulous class and we highly recommend it. Edwards did a lot of lecturing, but we had labs at night where we got to practice injecting lidocaine and suturing (on pig skin), setting bones, plaster casting, you name it. Because he is a doctor himself, Edwards went beyond the stated Red Cross curriculum as he felt necessary, knowing that we would not be close to medical help if we were in the middle of the Pacific. Certainly the most memorable example of this his talk about hemorrhoids and the larger-than-life picture of a hairy ass that he left projected on the wall one day as he sent us off to lunch. Edwards recommended Lafferty's Pharmacy and gave us his recommended inventory list with a few of his own comments.
Mike Lafferty is the pharmacist in Seattle that builds most of the first aid kits for the fishing boats, so this is old hat for him. Using his list from Edwards, I went to my doctor to get prescriptions. She gave me her input as well, so by the time we got to Lafferty, the list had been altered and he pretty much altered it back to the original. Everyone pretty much has their opinion, as with boating, and I was depending on other people's advice since my expertise is not medical. Looking back, we should have met with Lafferty before we went to our doctors (he likes to sit down with clients, go through the list and let you get a bit more practice, which was really helpful). Regardless, we got a few more prescriptions from doctors and Mike was off and building our kit. It took about 3 weeks for him to build it (actually about 3 days, but he was a bit backed up). The prices in the spreadsheet are prices that we paid when we had insurance - I'm not sure how much higher they would be without insurance.
We keep our first aid kit split in 3 on the boat:
- Lockable Pelican case - we are carrying some schedule II pain narcotics and need to be cautious of this as we enter new countries. We were hesitant about carrying Demerol and Meperidine, but Lafferty assured us that he'd only heard of one of his clients having problems and the guy didn't declare that he had it. He encouraged us to carry these, but have the ability to lock the case and also carry an inventory list to show customs officers if necessary. He also recommended that the inventory list should NOT have costs on it so a customs officer isn't tempted to confiscate something just because it had a high dollar amount associated with it.
- Providence kit - this is a roadside kit that I got from work that we take hiking and will include in our ditch bag
- Every day kit - this is a smaller, more accessible tub with bandaids and cold/stomach medication. We were advised to take lots of bandaids and Neosporin since that's what you use all of the time, not the antibiotics - so true.
The other mentionable note here is regarding vaccines. We both made sure we were up on the following vaccines before we left:
- Hep A
- Hep B (fyi, this is a 3 injection process over the course of about 4 months)
- Typhoid (we got the oral version as it lasts 5 years instead of 2)
- Polio
- Tetanus/Diptheria
