Looking for something to do a quick bandage with an arm sling in the middle of the jungle while waiting for medical help?

Having an injured arm during your hike is indeed a dire situation where you lack immediate medical access. If you are living with a survival mentality, a spontaneous thought might run into your head, “Let’s make a bandage with whatever I could find!” You scan through the surrounding with the hope to find something useful. And yes, you have a spare t-shirt in the backpack. You wrap your injured arm with the t-shirt. Now, you need to make an arm sling. But that’s the t-shirt you left, including the one you are wearing right now. You keep scanning the items around you until you have seen your belt. Well, you can now make an arm sling with your belt. The bandage and arm sling might not appear to be professional. But it is enough to support and immobilize your arm until you receive the right medical treatment.

EDC or Everyday Carry refers to the things you carry with you on a daily basis. Of course, you can customize your EDC kit based on your needs for a particular day or a particular activity such as hiking or camping. The goal of getting yourself an EDC kit is to prepare yourself to go through the tasks or activities of every day, a particular day, or a particular activity smoothly and safely. There are different types of EDC. But this article only covers the EDC for survival when you are exploring the wild. In another word, this article is giving a guide for preparing you to survive if you run into certain problematic situations, especially when there is no help you can seek.

When comes to EDC for survival, the ultimate goal is to keep you safe and alive until you are rescued. Never buy into the optimism bias (aka “It won’t happen to me!” bias). You can never be sure about it. What if something goes awry? Instead, expect the unexpected and get prepared. Your preparation might not provide you a full guarantee of you being alive but it’s definitely will help to buy you some time to prolong your lifespan, so to speak.

Water & Water Filter

H2O is the most important thing among all the EDC items you must carry with you in the wild. No other words are required to assure the importance of water except hydration. You can survive without food but never without water for days. Although some studies showed that humans can survive up to 8 to 21 days without food and water intakes, 3 days are still considered as the general rule of thumbs to be without water. On a side note, water filters would be useful in this scenario in case you are running out of clean water.

Lighter

Fire is not only important to maintain your visibility of the environment, keeping a lookout for danger but also to keep you warm with the heat dissipation from the campfire at night. Besides, having the ability to generate fire in the wild allows you to do some cooking with the raw ingredients you gathered from nature. Having a cup of hot coffee would definitely warm you up faster than anything.

Army Biscuits

As mentioned, food is important to keep you staying alive. However, there is limited storage in your backpack. It’s impossible to carry as much food as you would like to, especially when you are going to spend weeks in the wild. A filling staple with lots of calories would definitely be the best EDC item in this scenario. Hardtack, a precise name of the army biscuit could be the one you are looking for. If you are new to this, hardtack is a rationed staple during the Civil War as it is not only sturdy and filling but also can be kept for a long time if kept dry since it is made of flour and water. Sometimes, with a bit of salt or sugar. The taste is indeed flavorless. But these biscuits are easy to be kept without the worry of being crushed into pieces while seated inside the backpack or get soggy with moisture. It is space-saving as a piece of it is pretty filling.

Medical Supplies

Medical supplies are essential in case you get a fever or nausea in the wild. If you have a medical condition, this is something you must never miss out on. Just hang in there with these supplies until the arrival of the healthcare providers.

Knife or Pocket Knife

Knives are not only useful to cut fruits, slice fish, and cut off the branches or wild grasses that obstruct your path. They can be used to defend yourself when necessary. For instance, scare the animals away. Also, you can use the knife to cut through the fabric for wound dressing.

Firearms

Firearms like guns are the typical EDC items carried by most Americans. It is mainly for self-defense purposes. You never know what you might run into. However, a gun permit is a must before you make it into your EDC kit.

Pepper Sprays

Again, pepper sprays are for self-defense purposes. There are different ingredients inside the pepper spray on the market. If you want to use it to scare the wild animals away, look for the pepper spray with capsaicin-containing as it can trigger a burning sensation of the animals after touching or consuming it.

Nylon-Webbing Belt

A webbing belt made of nylon is a great choice to wear into the wild. This material is quick to dry when gets wet, sturdy so that you can carry lots of stuff on it. Important EDC items like the ones we listed above should be carried within your reach so you can have instant access to the right item at an urgent moment. What if you lost your backpack somehow? Moreover, every second matters in the life-or-death situation. You would never want to spend time rummaging through your backpack. Keep the EDC items well-organized on your nylon belt so that every item is within your reach in seconds!