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Hockey First Aid Kits
Today's article takes a long hard look at what should actually be in the first aid
kit for Hockey, a team sport where there is a great deal of contact, and the
perennial chance of serious injury. We've chosen hockey as a good example of a contact sport, but
this could equally well apply to other contact sports like football, soccer or rugby.The first pre-requisite for the first aid kit for hockey or any other sport is knowledge. There's no point in having a great hockey first aid kit if you don't know how to use it and an emergency first-aid certificate is a basic requirement for coaching hockey at any level. Courses for these certificates are held all over the country at widely varying prices - typically anything from £30 to £130. If you're in employment, then you may well find that volunteering to be a first-aider at work could get you on a course free of charge as well as getting you in the boss's good books. If you do end up going on a course, then the ideal strategy is to buy a good book and learn the stuff before you get there, then there's little chance of fluffing the assessment. Two ideal books for this are Sport First Aid 
or the cheaper
5-minute First Aid for Sport , both of which are well worth buying.So having acquired our knowledge what next? The options are to either buy a ready made kit, or alternatively to buy a bag and stock it ourselves. Ready made kits tend not to be specific enough for hockey, but two companies produce excellent kits which pretty much fit the bill. First Aid 4 Sport have been around for some years and are the market leaders. They sell a variety of kits for different types of sports which have been developed in association with Loughborough University. The relevant first aid kits for Hockey are Contact Sports Basic Kit , Contact Sports Intermediate Kit and Contact Sports Advanced Kit. There are alternative hockey first aid kits available at First Aid Warehouse and while of excellent quality, they're for general sports first-aid rather than specifically for contact sports. So our alternative to a ready made kit would be to purchase a decent bag and then stock it with individual items. For the empty bag the only place to go is the bags page at firstaid4sport who have a range from bum bags and grab bags to full size team kits. As to contents, an absolute minimum would be: scissors, dispo bags, plasters, disposable gloves, sterile swabs, gauze, dressings, triangular bandages, BP Jelly, safety pins and instant cold packs. A more comprehensive kit would also include instant hot and cold treatments like Freeze sprays, a foil blanket and possibly a resuscitation mask. Based on experience extra items can be added at will. There's no shortage of places to buy the individual components from, but a good starting list would be: First Aid Warehouse , Physio Supplies Ltd , Express Chemist or Boots.Com So that about rounds up our discussion on hockey first aid kits. Next up we'll be discussing larger kit like Stretchers. |
