Fieldtex First Aid Kit

Chances are pretty good you won't need or use all of the supplies that come with this first aid kit. Prefilled first aid kits like this one are intended to cover a lot of bases. You could do the same thing cheaper by building your own, but it can be a lot of work. To fill a kit like this you may end up buying more than you need. Overall, this is a well-organized first aid kit at a reasonable price -- good for putting in the RV, the camping box or the disaster evacuation kit.

Fieldtex sent me this first aid kit for review free of charge. It is a trifold pack that comes either empty or fully-loaded with first aid supplies. Depending on where you look, the kit is marketed as general purpose or as a first aid kit for sports. It would probably work well for either use.

The complete kit includes assorted bandages, wraps, eye pads, tape, antiseptic wipes, a pair of tweezers and a pair of scissors, as well as ointments and burn gels. The complete kit also includes a first aid guide, which has the same faults as most of these pocket guides:

• It assumes you have training
• The illustrations show equipment not available to the average lay rescuer (and definitely not available in this kit)
• It's not well-organized
• It has some incomplete and incorrect information

The supplies are of good quality and many are name brands, not that common in prefilled first aid kits. At the time of writing, this kit was sold on the manufacturer's website for $35.90; the empty case was available for $13.25, a difference of $22.65.

I always wondered what it would cost to fill a kit like this yourself, just by buying the supplies at retail cost. All items in this first aid kit were available on the website with the exception of a triangle bandage (at least I couldn't find it). At retail prices, the items at time of writing cost just a bit over $23, which means the additional cost of the full kit is reasonable. Overall, I recommend this product as a good, general purpose first aid kit.