The perfect first aid kit & how to use it

  • 15m 24secs
  • Views:769
  • Rating:Video Rating - 5 stars
  • Made by:Horse Hero
About this video

Knowing what to do with a wound while you are waiting for your vet is essential knowledge. First though, it helps to know what to have in your first aid kit! Vet Claire Williams from the Three Counties Equine Hospital explains to Fiona Price what her enormous kit contains and how to use its contents, including utensils, wound management materials and dressings. Claire also offers some great tips. For instance, did you know when to use a giant syringe, what strength your antibacterial solution should be, why you need saline or what to do if the wound is bleeding a lot? Using a model horse, Claire demonstrates how to dress a make-believe wound!

What you should have in your first aid kit

Claire recommends that your first aid kit should contain the following:

  • Hardware: digital thermometer; scissors; disposable gloves; roll of paper towel; plastic or metal bowl; torch
  • Wound management materials: Cotton wool (half a 500g roll); sterile gauze swabs; antibacterial scrub (Chlorhexidene 100ml); sterile wound dressing (eg. Vetguard wound gel)
  • Dressings: Non adhesive absorbent dressings (eg. Allevyn); poultice (eg. Animalintex); soft cotton bandages (eg. K Band); semi-adhesive bandages (eg. Co-Plus); Adhesive bandages (eg. Elastoplast); black tape; stable bandages and pads

Comments

Fiona Price 29 Jan 2010 There is also a video with eventer Polly Williamson demonstrating bandaging for exercise which is excellent and another with Laura Bechtolsheimer.
Silver Snaffles 29 Jan 2010 Brilliant - I was last shown how to bandage legs at Pony Club in the 50's when half of those bandages never existed!! Great many thanks.
peaches 26 Jan 2010 Yes I agree with DressageSpain, those cheapie head lamps are invaluable, especially if you are staying overnight at a showground and the lighting is poor, also they're are great for plaiting up in poor light. I just want to comment on the covering of the wound. I have known many people to apply cotton wool straight over a bleeding wound, and of course the cotton wool sticks to the wound like glue causing all kinds of problems when trying to remove it. If you don't have any kind of sterile 'non stick' gauze handy to put straight over the wound, you could use a 'sanitary' pad, they absorb the blood and do not stick to the wound and are clean.
DressageSpain 24 Jan 2010 I was thinking about this subject of bandaging after the debate on the other video. It seems a very bizarre theory that you should always bandage front to back. If you have a set of Eskadron or other bandages and follow this rule, then they end upside down. I cannot actually bandage properly with an even pressure if on the near legs, I bandage that way, so I do it the other way. I think it is much more important to do it evenly so there is an even pressure. Some of these "rules" only come from tradition, for example, mounting from the left side is only normal because the soldiers used to wear their swords on that side, so they had to mount like that!
Fiona Price 24 Jan 2010 The subject of exactly which way to bandage was debated on another veterinary video called "Dressing and bandaging a knee wound" (Health and Well Being category in the video library.

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