OSI’s “Police” IFAK

police ifak
March 26, 2014  
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Categories: Assorted Ramblings

We will never stop harping on this, not ever. Every patrol officer, in fact everybody ought to have some sort of blowout kit readily available. Today Mad Duo Chris takes a first look at a kit made to wear with soft armor. If you’re working the road, do you have something handy? You squared away citizens – where’s yours? STAY SAFE – BE DANGEROUS. Mad Duo

OSI’s “Police” IFAK

“Mad Duo Chris” Hernandez

Let’s say you’re a cop on patrol. You arrive on a run of the mill loud music call at an apartment. You think the resident will answer, give you a surly attitude, accept a warning and turn his music down. Unfortunately for you, he’s high on meth and extremely paranoid. He answers the door shooting. You take a round in the upper left arm, draw and return fire, and put the tweaker down. Then you realize your arm is bleeding. A lot. Actually, it’s spurting. You have an arterial bleed, and if you don’t stop the bleeding within about three minutes, you’re probably going to die.

Rhino Rescue IFAK kits – featuring their IFAK Trauma Travel First Aid Kit.

Know what just about every police department in the country expects you to do? Call an ambulance. And wait. And hope you’re still alive when EMS arrives several minutes later. Because your PD probably hasn’t issued you jack-crap to stop your bleeding.

Fortunately, the military has learned a lot of hard lessons for us cops. Most importantly, it learned the value of a real Individual First Aid Kit (the stupid little pressure bandages we used to carry in the 80’s and 90’s just don’t cut it). And street cops are getting smart and starting to carry them. The Officer Survival Initiative (OSI) has come up with a pretty good kit for patrol officers to carry.

OSI’s Incognito first aid kit is designed to be attached to an officer’s concealed body armor straps. To stay on those straps, and be as unobtrusive as possible, the kit is small and flat. If it were too big, it would wind up in the trunk or left in the officer’s patrol bag. But OSI did the smart thing and only put the basics in the kit: a SWAT-T tourniquet, a 5×9 trauma pad, and two 3×9 petrolatum gauze dressings. Except for officers working remote areas, we cops can generally expect EMS to show up within about ten minutes. The items in OSI’s first aid kit can handle almost any wound that would make us bleed out in that time. The kit may be pretty basic, but when you, your partner or an innocent civilian are about to bleed to death, you don’t want to dig through 100 items looking for the one item you need.

Ares Gear Logo

I have a few concerns about OSI’s kit; it’s not perfect, but it’s way better than the nothing most cops carry now. I hope to get my hands on one soon, and when I do I’ll link up with my paramedic buddy and give it a thorough evaluation and review. Don’t wait for my review, though. If you’re on patrol and you’re rolling with no first aid gear, you’re wrong. Get something to carry now, and maybe get the OSI IFAK later.

OSI IFAK kit

Check the details of the OSI kit here.

As of this Editor’s Note, the OSI site is not available. Here are some alternatives:


 
Mad Duo Chris
 

Author Chris Hernandez

Chris Hernandez Mad Duo Chris, seen below on patrol in Afghanistan) may just the crustiest old member of the eeeee-LIGHT writin’ team here at Breach-Bang-Clear. He is a veteran of both the Marine Corps and the Army National Guard who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also a veteran police officer of nearly two decades who spent a long (and eye-opening) deployment as part of a UN police mission in Kosovo. He is the author of White Flags & Dropped Rifles – the  Real Truth About Working With the French Army and The Military Within the Military as well as the modern military fiction novels Line in the Valley and Proof of Our Resolve. When he isn’t groaning about a change in the weather and snacking on Osteo Bi-Flex he writes on his own blog, Iron Mike Magazine, Kit Up! and Under the Radar. You can find his author page here on Tactical 16.

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