A bug-out bag is a pre-prepared cache of supplies collected for use in times of emergency. The entire concept is to have this bag packed and ready to go at a moment’s notice. You may not have much warning and even less time to gather needed supplies.
Small bleeders are typically easy to control by direct pressure and by using dressings such as sterile gauze pads, Band-Aids, steri-strips, or by taping the wound closed with simple duct tape. Rarely should you attempt to sew a wound closed. Serious bleeding should be controlled by direct pressure and pressure dressings.
One thing that has always impressed me about S.W.A.T. Magazine is that just everything you see being reviewed here is actually reviewed. While contemplating what to work on for this month’s Against All Odds, I got an email from Simon Ashdown, PR Director for Adventure Medical Kits (AMK), detailing the new single-person survival kit that AMK had just released. Naturally I wanted to review it.
About 15 years ago, we were without power for ten days when a 220-inch snowfall snapped pine trees and took down power lines throughout Northern Alabama. I realize that a major snowfall doesn’t seem like much to all of you who live up North, but down South we don’t have the equipment to deal with it, since snowstorms in these parts are a rare event.
I’ve gone for several days without eating in the bush and when you finally get the chance to eat, your stomach has changed. Just about anything you put in it, especially raw meat, causes it to react in strange ways, and you may end up spending a few uncomfortable hours until the digestive process catches up.
Maybe it’s just the media giving more airtime to stories about human tragedy, but this past year seems to have had more than its fair share of people getting lost and dying in the wilds. While some of these events had heroic efforts at self-rescue, others showed signs of the victim just giving up and dying without a fight.
Tactical medical care is a hot topic. The basic principles of this care were developed for the military but are equally useful in the tactical law enforcement environment. This care begins at the point of wounding and extends to definitive care or surgical intervention.
Kimber has recently come out with two new “non-lethal” self-defense tools—the LifeAct™ Guardian Angel® and JPX™ Jet Protector. Featuring patented Jet Projection Technology™, LifeAct products are the most powerful and technologically advanced projection systems for liquid irritant agents. Revolutionary is an apt term. Jet Projection Technology was developed by two graduate Swiss engineers, Juerg Thomann…
Many moons ago, during a visit to a group of Indians on the Chambira River in Peru, I was amazed at how sharp their machetes were, even though no grinders, files or commercial sharpening stones were anywhere in the village.
Back in the early 1980s, a buddy of mine who was “connected” started telling stories out of school. Stories about nukes being hijacked by terrorists, tales of bombs already sighted in American cities, hints about the existence of a “fifth column” of terrorists who infiltrated through our porous Southern border. I did what checking I could and began to become nervous—very nervous.