An essential every rider should carry and know how to use.

It’s a side of motorcycling easily buried beneath the glory of dream tours, record breaking dirt jumps and lurid track lean angles: people get hurt in this sport.

Other drivers, weather, wildlife and pilot error can instantly change your day or permanently change your life.  Accidents happen anywhere from suburban intersections with help minutes away to remote mountains or deserts hours from assistance.  How prepared are you?

Professional first responders like veteran paramedic and ADV junkie NaDean Reinertsen preach the mantra: have a plan, plan for what to bring, know your plan for when things go wrong.  Preparedness is made easier with the Moto Medic First Aid Kit by My Medic.

My Medic was formed in 2015 after a car accident claimed the life of a father that could have been saved by timely first aid and proper intervention.  His four kids, now fatherless, formed My Medic in their father’s memory, helping us all be more prepared to prevent future tragedies.  My Medic offers first aid kits customized for every environment from boats to construction sites and new this year, one for motorcyclists.

The Moto Medic Kit comes in a durable, water resistant package measuring roughly 6” long by 8” wide and 2” deep.

Two equipment options, Standard and Pro, allow you to customize the kit to your liking.  The Standard kit is well rounded with bandages and gauze, burn gel, medication for pain and allergies, blister tape, chafing cream, antiseptics, water purification tablets, a finger splint, a CPR shield, EMT shears, ZZips (more on that later) and a space blanket.  The Pro level kit adds a tourniquet, QuickClot and additional gauze for hemorrhage control, chest seal packs for pneumothorax, paracord, a light stick and a survival guide.  The Standard kit, at the time of this writing, was on sale for $119.96 and the Pro level kit for $168.71.  Here is where my bias as a first responder shows.

Colored organizational tabs attach to the Velcro on mesh pockets for quick identification and can be moved for re-organizing contents.

Buy one.  Now.  Skip the Standard model and buy the Pro level kit.

People balk at the price of a first aid kit and the responsibility of carrying it.  I understand.  It takes up space meaning you will have to leave behind that extra jacket, the nice lens for your camera or the bottle of gin you were saving for the fireside.

An emergency instantly changes those priorities.  When facing a riding buddy with a broken finger, a deep laceration or uncontrolled bleeding you will forget about the extra jacket you couldn’t pack, the bottle of gin you left behind or how much the kit cost.  In that situation you would do anything, spend any amount of money, give up anything in your possession to comfort or save your friend.  Nothing else will matter.  So buy the kit and get familiar with its contents.  Among them is one of my favorite items: ZZips.

ZZips are the marriage of a traditional butterfly bandage and zip ties.  Two adhesives stick to either side of the laceration while zip tie attachments bring the edges of the butterfly together, joining the skin and closing the wound, a very effective design.  I am buying packages of these for my personal carry.

The compact nature of the Moto Medic kit makes it easy to pack.

I would like to see the addition of an oropharyngeal airway (OPA) or nasopharyngeal airway (NPA) for maintaining a patient’s airway, greatly increasing the versatility of the kit.  If you can’t maintain a patient’s airway, nothing else matters.  My Medic sells an airway med pack that would be a perfect addition to the kit.  Also, given the strenuous nature of motorcycling, I would add a tube of glucose for diabetic emergencies.

However, these items would take up more space and make the kit larger so they are a compromise.  But there is one thing that everyone should add to their Moto Medic kit that takes up no space.  It is the most important addition to the kit you will ever make.

Training.

All of this first aid gear is useless without proper training.  Without it, you will open the kit in the panic of an emergency and begin floundering, wasting precious time and resources.  The depth and scope of that training is up to you.

Mesh pockets make finding materials easy.  Practice finding them.  Practice using them.

As you pursue training, take the Moto Medic kit with you.  There is no substitute for practicing your skills using the kit you plan to carry.  My Medic offers items individually so you can replace contents as you use them.  While seasoned first responders can improvise on the spot (I’ve splinted tib-fib fractures with dismantled sets of ladder golf, beach blankets and duct tape), training cannot be improvised.

Buy a Moto Medic kit, train with it and replace its contents as you practice because once you buy one and learn to use it, accidents will find you.  They will.  I promise.

And when they do, you will have a plan.

Ted

*For more on the Moto Medic kit, click here:

Moto Medic

*photos by My Medic