I recently took a remote medical class for advanced providers and have found myself to have a huge interest in backcountry medicine. I'm currently on a wildfire in WA state working as a line medic. I was wondering if you guys have any ideas or experience with packs. I'm kind of thinking something that can be modulated out and easy to work with along with it being somewhat versatile. Thanks for any info.
Backcountry ALS pack????
- Thread starter dahus7712
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I have used a Conterra pack for back country calls, it is modular and fits like a hiking backpack. It has plenty of space and I'm pretty sure you can unzip several of the compartments to make it smaller. They call it the ALS extreme pack. The downside is that it is $400 but they have less expensive ones. Are you on the Table mountain Fire?
socalmedic
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contera makes a good back for strictly back country or SAR. if you are working as a line medic i would say true-north makes the best pack as it will be similar to your standard web gear.
socalmedic
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if you want a military type pack there are MANY options for you. if you are going to be on the fireline you should have a line pack though, with room for medical gear. just my $0.02.
Jambi
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CentralCalEMT
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At my service we have Stat Packs for our calls. We cover over 2,000 square miles of mountains and desert so we have calls where we have to hike in to our patient fairly often. For me, the stat pack is comfortable and fits everything that I need for the call including trauma and ALS meds.
Right on, I'm glad the smoke has finally cleared out from Eburg. You might try some of the websites that tailor to the military and SAR crowd, they would have medical packs. us cavalry, botach, maxpedition and remote medical international.
wildrivermedic
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I used the True North Firefly Medic this season. It has a modular design so you can switch stuff around --- even ditch most of your medical supplies and just carry your shelter plus a few pockets of essentials. Pretty comfy for me (5'7" female). The suspension yoke leaves much to be desired though, IMHO.
http://www.thefirestore.com/store/product.cfm/pid_5381_true_north_firefly_medic_pack/
If I were taller, or carried more gear, or felt more driven to try and keep up with the shot crews, I'd totally just get:
http://www.mysteryranch.com/fire/hotshots-packs
Way way better suspension system. The most experienced line medic I worked with carried his 70 pounds of gear in one of these.
http://www.thefirestore.com/store/product.cfm/pid_5381_true_north_firefly_medic_pack/
If I were taller, or carried more gear, or felt more driven to try and keep up with the shot crews, I'd totally just get:
http://www.mysteryranch.com/fire/hotshots-packs
Way way better suspension system. The most experienced line medic I worked with carried his 70 pounds of gear in one of these.
socalmedic
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anything more than 30lbs and I start to question their experience. he needs to thin out the pack a bit.
40lbs will get me through a 5 day hike, food, shelter, one gallon of water, and filter.
zmedic
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I feel like it's been discussed else where but too tired to do a search.
I used to do a fair amount of wilderness medicine (ski patrol, search and rescue, and 911 ambulance responding to wilderness calls) My philosophy was that I had 3 different "kinds" of bags. The first was the basic medical gear that came with me whenever I operated in my day pack. Gauze, maybe an oral airway, triangle bandages, gloves, CPR mask.
The next level was a dedicated basic medical bag. I had one for ski patrol when I was working, I had another that my SAR team used. It had things like SAM splints, trauma shears, more airway supplies, trauma dressings.
The final was the mondo ALS bag. This was used for confirmed patient locations who needed ALS, with an easier carry in or the ability to put the bag in a litter with a wheel. This bag had IVs, meds, OB kit, O2 tank, BVM, everything. We had one on SAR, we had for on ski patrol for the medics to bring to a call. It was a full sized, probably 40lb pack.
Note that the gear that you carry tends to expand to fit the size you give it. So you buy a huge ALS pack you are going to tend to bring a bunch of junk you don't need.
So the first step in buying a pack is figuring out exactly how you are going to be using it. Is it going to live on the truck and be grabbed to carry in for just medical calls? Are you going to carry it all the time on the fire line? Do you have to ski/climb/run with it on your back?
I used to do a fair amount of wilderness medicine (ski patrol, search and rescue, and 911 ambulance responding to wilderness calls) My philosophy was that I had 3 different "kinds" of bags. The first was the basic medical gear that came with me whenever I operated in my day pack. Gauze, maybe an oral airway, triangle bandages, gloves, CPR mask.
The next level was a dedicated basic medical bag. I had one for ski patrol when I was working, I had another that my SAR team used. It had things like SAM splints, trauma shears, more airway supplies, trauma dressings.
The final was the mondo ALS bag. This was used for confirmed patient locations who needed ALS, with an easier carry in or the ability to put the bag in a litter with a wheel. This bag had IVs, meds, OB kit, O2 tank, BVM, everything. We had one on SAR, we had for on ski patrol for the medics to bring to a call. It was a full sized, probably 40lb pack.
Note that the gear that you carry tends to expand to fit the size you give it. So you buy a huge ALS pack you are going to tend to bring a bunch of junk you don't need.
So the first step in buying a pack is figuring out exactly how you are going to be using it. Is it going to live on the truck and be grabbed to carry in for just medical calls? Are you going to carry it all the time on the fire line? Do you have to ski/climb/run with it on your back?