Mini survival kit

In a previous post I talked about survival kits, and mentioned I think it is better to assemble your own rather than buying one. An exception I might make is for a mini or personal survival kit. I do not currently have one, but if I were to decide I needed or wanted one, I would probably get the Personal Survival Pak designed by Doug Ritter, and marketed by Adventure Medical Kits. The primary reason I consider this a buyout item over a DIY kit is that by the time you acquired the things in this kit, you can just buy the kit at Amazon or eBay for about what it would cost you to assemble it yourself. I still suggest you take it apart and become familiar with the items in the kit.

It has one oddity I just have to comment on. The only cutting implement it provides is a scalpel blade. I thought this was odd, being as a scalpel blade by itself is close to useless, especially in gloved hands or when your hands are cold. Some other PSKs at least give you a single edged razor, which is a lot easier to use IMO. If a scalpel handle was supplied it would have a lot more utility. Why no handle? Who knows? Maybe budget considerations. Maybe the minimalist nature of just supplying a blade and no handle appealed to Ritter for some reason. He does mention on his Equipped to Survive website that you could fabricate a handle for the blade. Of course there are no tools to fabricate such a handle provided in the kit. Maybe it is a marketing gimmick like some of the Altoid tin style kits that have a condom (water container) or a couple of tampons (tinder) included.

I have wondered why he did not put a low cost folding blade knife in the kit in lieu of the scalpel blade. He talks about this a bit in some of his commentary, but I am not sure I am convinced. Maybe he felt it would be a problem to get and keep them sharp, or maybe space, weight or cost constraints came into play. It is not always easy to tell why these kind of decisions are made, and it seems quite possible that it was driven by marketing issues (the cynic in me says it is to help market his small knife, but I suspect that is but one aspect of a fairly complex decision ).

In any case, he has a pretty decent review of various PSKs on his web site that goes over the good things and the deficiencies and limitations of some kits on the market, including those of his own kit. I think he is mostly dead on with his comments. Part of the problem with this kind of kit is that it is severely constrained, and he covers this in his commentary far better than I could, so I will refer you to what he has to say.

http://www.equipped.org/psp/index.htm deals with the Personal Survival Pak. It goes into considerable detail on what is in the kit, and more importantly, why.

http://www.equipped.org/comkit.htm#Personal covers other commercial mini kits. Lots of good commentary on various kits, that can also apply to this type of kit in general.

This kit is heavy on signaling (mirror and whistle) and fire building (tinder, freznel lens, and Spark-Lite fire starter), and the gear supplied for these purposes is high quality. IMO, it would be a good kit just with this stuff. A small compass, cord, fishing line, fishing "kit", wire, some safety pins, duct tape, and aluminum foil are also included (I might have missed a few miscellaneous items). You might get some use out of these items, but I think they are there mostly so the item count is increased to compete with other kits (Ritter admits this about some of the items in the kit in his commentary and he should be applauded for being upfront about it).

Whats missing? Well, some obvious things are missing. No food, no water, no shelter, no first aid, no flashlight. His commentary goes into some of his thinking process along these lines. If you restrict yourself, by size, weight and cost the way this kit restricts you (along with the constraints of your kit design philosophy), the most important things you can actually do anything about are going to be fire and signaling, and the kit handles that pretty well, given the constraints.

Is this for everyone? I don't know. It seems mostly oriented around planes crashing out in the middle of nowhere, or getting lost in the woods on a hiking trip. I don't think I would carry it as an EDC item. If I am out in the woods hiking, I am going to be taking a little more than this with me if I go more than a few hundred yards away from civilization. It does kind of make sense to me as something you put in your pocket while you are on a rafting trip just in case the rest of your gear goes overboard, so maybe as a backup to your regular gear it makes sense. It also might make sense as the fire starting and signaling part of a small kit for hiking or hunting. Maybe something to put in your glove box if you just refuse to have a more realistic car kit, although as a minimalist car kit it really is not going to be all that useful.

Personally I might be inclined to add a space blanket, a small multitool (at least a small knife), and a small flashlight. I don't know if a space blanket would fit in the kit, but you can certainly put it in another pocket. Its not like I think space blankets are the greatest thing in the world, but they are small and cheap and will serve to keep the wind and rain off of you. Staying dry and out of the wind is a big deal.

BTW, I am not denigrating the kit (or Ritter for that matter) by mentioning that marketing decisions affected the choices Ritter made. The bottom line is after all the bottom line, and if he can't sell enough of the things to make it worth the time he spent on it, he will have failed. He won't have helped anyone if the kit can't be sold for some reason.