My fishing trip was cut short this weekend when a deckhand fell against the escape hatch and lacerated her head. It ultimately required 11 stitches. But.... we were 120 miles down into Mexican waters and needed to get her back. As it wasn't that serious an injury, we elected to turn around and go back to port and take her to the emergency room. So at about 5:30 p.m. we headed for home.

Two of us had our PFAKs with us. He had some topical antiseptic and numbing agents but not a lot of pads, mostly just large bandaids. The boat kit was not a lot better as it it was meant to cover a lot of situations in addition to cuts.

My PFAK is always with me and it is a bit of overkill, but I had the things needed to do the job right. A small bottle of Povidone for cleaning the wound; 4x4" gauze pads to apply to the wound and vet wrap for keeping the gauze in place. The other fellow had a pretty good kit but his was geared more toward stitching something up. The upshot was that as the laceration was pretty jagged we put 3 gauze pads on it after cleaning with Povidone and wrapped her head laterally and vertically with vet wrap to hold the gauze in place until she got to the ER.

If you don't have vet wrap or Povidone you can get them much less pricey at the feed store vs a pharmacy.

Links provided below.

Vet Wrap
http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.h...FeV7QgodR0IA4A

http://www.farmingsuppliesdirect.com...FYhxQgodAjsAfQ

Povidone

http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.h...2-00b0d0204ae5

http://www.bizrate.com/equestrian-cl...dine-betadine/
Note the price difference!

Also note that vetwrap comes in various colors for the fashion conscious!