Remote & Outdoor Work

Under work health and safety duties, remote or isolated work raises the bar on first aid provision, because the time between injury and professional care is longer. The Safe Work Australia model Code of Practice treats it as a factor in its own right.

The SURVIVAL Workplace First Aid KIT PLUS is the compliant base. The SURVIVAL First Aid KIT - Medium mounts easily in a work vehicle and travels with the crew.

YOUR KIT IS THE TREATMENT, NOT THE STOPGAP

In town, a KIT holds a situation for fifteen minutes. Three hours from a highway, it has to hold for three hours.

That means more of everything, not just more items. Enough dressings to change them rather than apply them once. A splint, because a fracture has to be stabilised for a long drive. And the confidence to manage something serious rather than just cover it.

The SURVIVAL Trauma First Aid KIT covers major bleeding, and its product page names remote workers such as miners among the people it was built for.

COMMUNICATIONS ARE PART OF THE FIRST AID PLAN

A KIT and no way to call for help is half a plan.

Work out the coverage on every part of the run, not just the depot, and carry something that works where the phone does not. Then make sure someone knows the route and the expected return time, and that they know what to do when you do not arrive.

LONE WORKERS

The hardest case. Nobody is applying pressure for you, nobody is calling for you, and nobody notices for hours.

If your people work alone, a check-in schedule is as important as the KIT, and anything they carry needs to be usable one-handed. The Outdoor Bundle (Gen 8) pairs a full KIT with snake bite capability, which covers the two most likely serious events in remote country.

SNAKE BITE IS AN OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD

For anyone working in grass, scrub or stockpiled material, it is a work hazard rather than a camping story.

The SURVIVAL Snake Bite KIT carries a SMART Bandage with a pictogram that changes from a rectangle to a square at correct tension, developed with snake safety experts SSSafe. The bitten person must stay still, so the evacuation plan has to include moving them without walking. SURVIVAL recommends proper first aid training alongside any KIT.

Also see High Risk Workplace, Rural and 4WDing.