What’s in Your Trunk?

A properly stocked first-aid kit should also be available. To what extent is “properly stocked?” That depends on your level of training. At a bare minimum, you should have adhesive bandages, gauze, either sterile water or a cleansing solution, nitrile gloves, a micro-mask (if you still do breaths while doing CPR) and first-aid/surgical tape (it doesn’t stick to hair as bad). Most officers have a tourniquet available for themselves now but you really ought to consider having two in your first-aid kit. Not all injuries you come across can be handled with a 1” adhesive bandage. Many agencies now have an AED in every patrol vehicle. With minimal training they are easy to use correctly and have been proven to save lives.

Now, here’s the kicker: Do you have all those items in your trunk or storage space? If so, when was the last time you even looked at it? Is it all functional? Have you made sure nothing is expired in the first-aid kit? Is your AED inspected regularly? Is it fully functional?

Perhaps the only thing worse than not having the necessary equipment to help folks is to have it and have it not function right—so your assistance becomes worthless—no matter how well intentioned.

Basics to care for yourself

Thanks to growing awareness and increased training, accompanied by some minimal increases in budget, most officers today have a basic trauma self-care kit—most often referred to as a “blowout” kit. It will have a tourniquet, a pressure bandage, a hemostatic agent (like Quikclot) and usually some extra compressed gauze. Some emergency trauma kits contain other supplies, but at a bare minimum they’ll have the necessities to treat a gunshot wound.

Since not all officers carry a blowout kit, it would be smart to have an additional one easily accessible to treat a brother officer or citizen if necessary. If you choose to carry an extra kit, it should include several pair of nitrile gloves and duplicates of everything to treat a wound. Several companies make tear-away pouches designed specifically to carry those supplies. The officer’s blowout kit should NOT be left in the patrol vehicle. It’s a rare occasion that an officer is shot in his vehicle, and if they’re away from their vehicle when they’re shot, they need to have the blowout kit with them. One tourniquet, one pressure bandage and a package of QuikClot do not take up much space. It should be on the officer’s person at all times on duty.

Beyond emergency trauma self-care, taking care of your health on duty is also a concern. Some officers will take the time to prepare their own meals to take to work so they don’t have to live on fast food but those same officers may not think to insure they have emergency supplies for the unexpected long shift. We all need to eat and stay hydrated. Hunger and thirst become pretty distracting and can hinder performance if not tended to. It’s easy enough to keep a couple bottles of water and a few snack bars in your patrol vehicle. Keep in mind that they can’t simply be left in there forever. Bottles of water can’t be left in patrol vehicles during winter months if they might freeze (and break and leak when they thaw).

The last personal care item that should be kept in the patrol vehicle (at a minimum) is rain gear. Keeping a raincoat in your trunk is an easy solution to avoiding the discomfort of getting unnecessarily wet when duty calls you to work in the rain. Contrary to popular belief, not all rainstorms are predictable and our duties don’t go on pause when the rain starts to fall. Keeping yourself and your gear dry can be as simple as keeping a spare raincoat in your trunk.

Basics for responding

In today’s world, active shooter events are unfortunately not going away. It behooves every officer to be ready and every agency to make sure every officer is ready. Officers have to respond to such calls immediately and with what they have available in the moment. If it’s at all possible, an officer should have a rifle, several magazines for it and additional trauma care supplies. The need for a rifle and magazines—and a method of easily carrying them on short notice—is obvious.

Varying law enforcement agencies embrace different protocols for active shooter response; some enabling single officer response and some still requiring the build of a four-man team before entry is made. Either way, having a rifle for the longer engagements that might occur inside a school, mall or business building makes good sense. And while most gunfights don’t require more than a few rounds, we can’t always count on that, so extra magazines—even if it’s just one—should be available to grab at the same time you grab that rifle.

Beyond that emergency response to neutralize an on-going threat, we have the duty to treat the wounded to the best of our ability. That will require that we also take into the scene with us additional trauma treatment supplies. Anything is better than nothing so even having just one additional tourniquet, pressure bandage and hemostatic packet is better than not. Having six of each would be a great idea—but don’t forget the gloves. Also don’t forget that you need to change gloves in between each victim, so have plenty pairs of those as well.

Last, but certainly not least, have a Sharpie. On occasion, you might be required to actually write information on a victim. If you don’t, the responding emergency medical personnel might, and with multiple victims it’s easy to get overwhelmed. They’ll need your help too.

Now if you go back and read through that list of equipment/items, you’ll see it’s not too much. Most of it will be (or should be) provided by your agency. If not, the value of it can’t be measured, so reaching into your own pocket to pay for it shouldn’t be avoided. Considering that it might be your life that you end up saving, don’t avoid buying the things you might need to save it.