First-aid top 10: Must-haves for outdoor adventurers

As with many good ideas, the founders of Adventure Medical Kits more or less stumbled onto the idea of developing specialized first-aid kits for wilderness, adventure and outdoor travel.

Frank Meyer, who founded the Oakland, Calif.-based company along with Eric Weiss and Amy Quirk, said that when Weiss was training to be an emergency room physician and attending conferences, he kept getting asked by adventure travelers about what items they should have in a first-aid kit when traveling abroad to such places as Nepal.

"A light bulb went off," said Meyer, who this year attended the Summer Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City. "Nobody was doing this stuff and this could be a good market. That was 23 years ago."

Now, the company offers around 30 specialized kits for individuals, families and groups, almost all of which include a book on wilderness and travel first-aid written by Weiss. The kits also provide numerous custom-made tools for emergency operations such as removing a tick, quickly treating a blister or pulling out a splinter.

Beyond such basic supplies, another component of outdoor emergency care is knowing how to use them.

"The best thing to take in your kit is what's in your head," said Gerrish Willis, a veteran Salt Lake river running enthusiast and backpacker. "Get some training. The stuff in the kit is useful but get the training first. Knowing what to do is more important than having all the tools in the kit. An emergency is not the time to pull out a book to figure out what to do."