1 Vee with the contents of his more well-equipped Medic and trauma kits, with a range of items such as clotting agents, saline drips, anaphylactic kit, oral rehydration salts and medical shears, all ready for a trip to the outdoors. Of course it helps if you have some basic medical training to use these items correctly as well.

IT NEVER hurts to carry your own Individual First Aid Kit or IFAK, as every second counts when you are injured in the jungle with help taking more than an hour to arrive.

Of course, it also helps if you had some training with accredited first-aid organisations to get some grounding in using the supplies in your kit.

You can easily make your own IFAK from disparate suppliers, although the adventure and outdoor shops here also sell ready-made ones to be used straight away.

You will want a waterproof container for various items. You can find this at a supermarket’s container section.

Some common items you would want to put in the container are waterproof adhesive bandages or plasters, gauze, crepe support bandages along with compression bandages for larger wounds.

Although some people pack only alcohol swabs to disinfect a wound, others might want to pack a small bottle of iodine, which can be used together with the swabs as the former helps in cleaning the wound, while the iodine kills off any microbial activity.

One recommendation I got from a friend Vee, is to include a pair of non-latex gloves, in case the wounded victim is allergic to latex.

A basic IFAK in an everyday watertight container which has waterproof adhesive bandages, gauze, topical cream, iodine and alcohol swabs, crepe and triangular bandage as well as a pair of non-latex gloves (in blue).

Oral aids include non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), which serve as painkillers and anti-pyretic (to reduce fever). It is also a good idea to bring along a strip or two of other medication such as antihistamines as a first-line response to common allergens in the wild, such as bee-stings.

While this would comprise the individual hiker’s kit, larger expeditions often have a trained medic going in with the group (although I have taken part in trips and hikes with no medic), who has a much larger and better equipped kit.

Using my friend Vee’s medic kit as an example, besides some basic diagnostic equipment, you could also have a Ventolin inhaler for asthmatic hikers, sterile water for eye irritation and various topical creams.

“One nice addition is a tube of aloe vera gel, which not only works as an analgesic, but can also be used as a topical rehydration gel,” Vee explained, while showing me his medical kit.

A close-up of the self-made anaphylactic kit, with syringes, hypodermic needles, adrenaline or epinephrine (in brown bottle), and oral steroids to quickly treat any growing allergic reactions.

While some people bring along an expensive epinephrine auto injector or EpiPen for any anaphylactic reactions, it’s also possible to construct your own epinephrine injection kit.

This also requires the person administering the shot to have some medical training, as the epinephrine, which is actually adrenaline, needs to be injected to the thigh muscle.

Still, this last item is pretty helpful and cost-effective. Compared to the EpiPen which costs about RM400, you can make your own three-shot kit for less than RM100, which is suitable for a group of four to five hikers.

Tags / Keywords: Metro , Lifestyle , Central Region , Metro Adventure Club; Individual First Aid Kit; wilderness medicine

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