Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to:
- Explain why training and planning matter more than any single piece of gear
- Build a core wilderness first aid kit, and name the skill behind each item
- Pick the right over-the-counter medications, and know the scope rules for helping someone take them
- Scale a kit by time-to-help, trip length, group size, and activity
- Get a group ready before a trip: medical information, a communication plan, and kit upkeep
Every skill in this course has a physical counterpart. Bleeding control needs gauze and a tourniquet. Splinting needs something rigid and something soft. Calling for rescue needs a device that works where you're going. This lesson turns the course into a packing list.
This lesson pairs with the course's interactive kit checklist. Tick it off as you build your own kit, and print it for restocking.
Key points
Kit Principles
Skills over stuff
Before anything goes in your pack, ask: "Have I practiced using this?" A tourniquet you've never applied, a splint you've never molded, or a wound-closure strip you've never placed is dead weight, and it gives you confidence you haven't earned. Buy less and practice more.
Scale by time-to-help
Kit size depends less on how many days you'll be out than on how long help would take to reach you. An afternoon in a remote canyon can justify more kit than a week of car camping near a town.
| Trip | Adjust the baseline |
|---|---|
| Short day hike, front-country | Trim to gloves, bleeding control, blister care, basic meds, whistle, phone |
| Full day, remote | The full core kit, plus a satellite messenger if you'll be out of coverage |
| Multi-day backcountry | Double the consumables (gauze, gloves, meds), and add a low-reading thermometer and repair items |
| Group or trip leader | Scale consumables by head count, collect medical information from every member before you leave, and carry group shelter |
Protect the kit itself
- Waterproof everything. Pack it in dry bags or zip-top bags, which double as irrigation reservoirs and improvised ice packs.
- Organize for the emergency, not the shelf. Bleeding-control items go on top, where shaking hands can grab them. Group items by problem, not by size.
- Know your kit blind. You might be opening it in the dark, in the rain, with cold fingers. Repack it the same way every time.
- Restock after every trip. The gauze you used last time is the gauze you won't have next time. Check medication expiration dates seasonally. Gloves, tape, and hemostatic gauze age out too, so swap anything brittle, sticky, or past its date.
Key points
The Core Kit
Here's a day-trip baseline for two people, sorted by the problem each group of items solves. Each group points to the lesson that teaches it. If a line surprises you, go back to that lesson.
Protect yourself (Lesson 1)
- Nitrile gloves, 3–4 pairs: not latex (allergy risk). They tear, so carry spares.
- CPR barrier mask: a pocket mask or a keychain shield
- Hand sanitizer: before and after patient contact
Stop bleeding (Lesson 4)
- Gauze pads (4×4"), 6+: direct pressure is the workhorse for any bleed that isn't life-threatening
- Roller gauze, 2 rolls: holds pressure dressings in place
- Commercial tourniquet (CAT-style): for life-threatening limb bleeding. It goes on first, high and tight, with no pressure trial. Practice with it before you need it.
- Hemostatic gauze (optional): for junctional wounds a tourniquet can't reach. Pack it and hold pressure.
Wound care (Lesson 4)
- Irrigation syringe (10–20 mL): pressure irrigation with clean water is the best infection prevention you can carry
- Adhesive bandages, non-adherent pads, wound closure strips: strips are only for small, clean, superficial cuts after irrigation. Never on bites, punctures, or dirty wounds. A gaping wound gets cleaned, dressed, and taken to a clinic, which decides on closure (Lesson 4).
- Antibiotic ointment or petroleum jelly: single-use packets stay clean
- Medical tape: cloth tape holds when skin is wet
- Blister kit: moleskin or kinesiology-style tape. It's the most-used item in any hiking kit.
Bones & joints (Lesson 6)
- Moldable splint (SAM-style): one splint that bends into dozens of shapes
- Elastic wrap (3–4"): sprains, securing splints, pressure dressings
- Triangular bandages, 2: slings, swathes, and ties
Tools & documentation
- Trauma shears: cut through clothing, boots, and straps fast without cutting skin (Lesson 2: expose to assess)
- Fine-point tweezers: splinters and tick removal (Lesson 12)
- SOAP note forms and a pencil: print the course field reference card. A pencil writes wet and cold (Lesson 1).
- Headlamp, emergency blanket or bivy, duct tape: light, shock care and a hypothermia wrap (Lesson 9), and repairs
Call for help (Lesson 13)
- Whistle: three blasts signal distress. It carries farther than your voice, and it never goes hoarse.
- Phone with backup battery: airplane mode saves the charge
- Satellite messenger or PLB: when you're truly remote, the highest-value item in the kit
- Paper map: you can't give rescuers a location you don't know
Key points
Medications & Scope
Over-the-counter basics
| Medication | What it's for | Course link |
|---|---|---|
| Ibuprofen | Pain, swelling, inflammation | Lesson 6 |
| Acetaminophen | Pain and fever when NSAIDs aren't a fit | — |
| Aspirin | Suspected heart attack | Lesson 11 |
| Diphenhydramine | Allergic reactions. In anaphylaxis it goes after epinephrine, never instead of it. | Lesson 10 |
| Antacid, anti-diarrheal | GI problems end more trips than trauma does | — |
| Oral rehydration salts | Heat illness and GI fluid losses | Lesson 8 |
Scope rules for a wilderness first aider
- You may offer over-the-counter medications at package doses to an alert adult who consents. Show them the label.
- You may assist a patient with their own prescribed medications: their epinephrine auto-injector (Lesson 10) and their inhaler (Lesson 3). Other prescription meds, like nitroglycerin, are the patient's or EMS's call, not a WFA skill.
- You do not give anyone a prescription medication that wasn't prescribed to them. That includes your own.
- Give food and drink only to a patient who's fully alert and swallowing normally (Lesson 5). The exception: a confused known diabetic who can still swallow gets sugar (Lesson 11). Small sips of water are fine for an alert, stable patient facing a long wait.
Pre-trip preparation
- Group medical information: before the trip, collect each member's allergies, medications, and relevant history. It's SAMPLE, gathered in advance (Lesson 2). Know who carries an epinephrine auto-injector or an inhaler, and where they keep it.
- Communication plan: know your coverage, program local emergency contacts, and leave a trip plan with someone at home: route, party size, return time, and when to call for help if you're overdue (Lesson 13).
- Way out: know the nearest road or trailhead from each stretch of the route, and where a helicopter could land. Work out the evacuation before anyone needs it.
- Kit check: restock consumables, replace expired medications, and confirm every group member knows where the kit rides in the pack.
Key points
Scenarios
Setting: At the trailhead for a remote day hike, a friend hands you a large, brand-new commercial first aid kit. "We're covered. This thing has everything." You flip through it. There's one pair of vinyl gloves, thirty adhesive bandages, a foil blanket, ointment packets, and a triangular bandage. There's no irrigation syringe, no tourniquet, one small roll of gauze, and no medications beyond aspirin.
Questions to consider:
- What can this kit actually treat well, and what can't it?
- Which gaps matter most for a remote day hike?
- What would you add from your own supplies before leaving the trailhead?
What's going on: This kit handles small cuts and blisters, the most common problems. It doesn't handle the most dangerous ones. It can't stop serious bleeding (one gauze roll, no tourniquet), can't properly clean a backcountry wound (no irrigation), and offers little for allergic reactions or pain.
What to add first: More gauze and a tourniquet; an irrigation syringe (or, as a field improvisation, a spare zip-top bag with a pinhole); several pairs of nitrile gloves; and OTC medications, including diphenhydramine and ibuprofen. Find out who in the group carries prescription epinephrine or an inhaler, and where it is.
Judge a kit by the worst problem it might have to handle this far from help. How many pockets it has doesn't matter.
Setting: You're leading five friends on a three-day rafting trip on a remote river. There's no road access between the put-in and the take-out, and no cell coverage in the canyon. It's the week before, and you're putting the group kit together.
Questions to consider:
- How does this trip change the kit from your solo day-hike baseline?
- What preparation matters beyond the physical kit?
- What activity-specific risks should shape your choices?
What's going on: Six people, three days, no exit, no coverage. Every scaling factor points up. Consumables scale by head count. The time-to-help makes a satellite messenger close to mandatory (Lesson 13). The river adds drowning and cold-water immersion risk (Lesson 14), and it guarantees everything gets wet.
Kit changes: double-bagged dry storage; a full hypothermia setup (insulation layer, blanket or bivy, and sugar-rich food, per Lesson 9); double the gauze, gloves, and medications; a low-reading thermometer; blister and sun care for six.
Preparation: collect SAMPLE-style medical information from all five friends before the trip. Confirm who carries prescription epinephrine or inhalers, and brief the group on where they ride. File a trip plan with a contact at home, including the overdue-call time. If the messenger supports check-ins, agree on a communication schedule.
On a group trip, most of the leader's first aid work happens before anyone gets in the boat.
Knowledge Check
10 questions. Pick an answer to get immediate feedback. Answer order is shuffled each attempt, and your best score is saved on this device.
Lesson Summary
Your first aid kit is the physical half of this course. Build it around the skills you've practiced, organize it around the problems it solves, and size it by how long help would take to reach you. Preparation counts as part of the kit too: group medical information, a trip plan left at home, and restocking after every trip.
The course, as a packing list
- Protection (gloves, barrier mask): Lessons 1, 3
- Bleeding control (gauze, tourniquet): Lesson 4
- Wound care (irrigation, dressings, blister care): Lesson 4
- Splinting (moldable splint, wraps, triangulars): Lesson 6
- Environment (blanket or bivy, insulation): Lessons 8, 9
- Medications (OTC basics; assist with their own epinephrine or inhaler): Lessons 3, 10, 11
- Communication (whistle, phone, satellite messenger, map): Lesson 13
- Documentation (SOAP forms, pencil): Lessons 1, 2
Build yours now with the interactive kit checklist, and print the field reference card to ride on top of it.