A FABulous Solution

Contents being equal, which would you rather carry all day on the trail?

(Photo: Merlot ; Helpful Arms: 'Beerman' aka Chris W.)

If you've ever seen our hard working, very safety-conscious trail supervisor trying to hand out the 'official' First Aid Kits to work crews on a Saturday morning work trip, you have probably noticed that no one is raising a hand and volunteering to carry them. If anything, when the First Aid Kits make an appearance, folks tend to slink quietly in some other direction. The sawyer crews must carry them and they do ..... with a resignation borne of knowing they have no alternative. So what is the problem? Why does no one want to deal with carrying the First Aid Kits?


The answer to the unpopularity of the First Aid Kits is very simple - they are horrible to carry.  The case is hard-sided and the darn things don't fit in a lot of packs and if they do, they tend to crowd out other important things ..... like lunch, extra water, or maybe rain gear. They are unwieldy, not user-friendly, and a real pain in the ............ pack (what did you think I was going to say?☺)!


To try to solve this dilemma, over the last couple of months, all manner of soft-sided cases, organizers, pre-packaged First Aid systems, etc. have been looked at and some were purchased to see how the First Aid Kit contents would fit/be organized. The good news is that after much searching for a more user-friendly alternative to the hard-sided First Aid kits, it looks like a great solution has been found! The winner is a plain and simple bag with a roll-over/clip closure - a 'dry bag' format, although it doesn't actually have to be a water-proof bag because the contents are packaged in zip-loc bags. The bag contains what is in the hard-sided First Aid Kits plus more because the hard-sided kits aren't actually big enough to hold everything in and of themselves, making the use of an additional large zip-loc necessary (see picture).


The First Aid Bag arrangement holds everything in one package. The bag is small enough and due to it's more flexible/soft nature, much easier to 'stuff' in most packs ..... if it won't fit in the pack, you can open the clips and re-clip them around a pack handle or some other part of the pack since many packs have straps/elastic cord on the outside to accommodate carrying extra items. The contents of the bag are organized in water proof zip-loc bags that can be labeled and easily replaced if they become worn or torn. If the contents of the First Aid Bag are needed during an emergency, just open it up, dump it out, and grab what you need.


What was the result of the 'on the trail' trial of the two prototype First Aid Bags?  After the June work trip, the trail supervisor had to call around to find a First Aid Bag that had been out with a crew ..... it wasn't obvious who had the FAB because the crew member carrying it had been able to put it in his pack and then ...... forgotten it was there! This was a great result because the usual scenario with the hard-sided kits is that whoever has been "talked" into toting it all day cannot wait to unload it and it's the first thing out of the pack back at the tool shed.  The sawyer crew on the most recent August work trip also gave a 'thumbs-up' to the FAB ..... it had been clipped to a pack where it rode easily all day long.


It remains to be seen if folks will cheerfully and without prompting, ask for or volunteer to carry a FAB, but they certainly won't be running the other way when the trail supervisor hands them out on future work trips!!