Can you use everything that’s in the kit? Look in it every time go on a trip.” The best kits we considered came with instructional booklets and cards, but it doesn’t hurt to dig out your own notes, wilderness-medicine guidebook, or class textbook and refresh your skills before a trip. Tod Schimelpfenig, the curriculum director of NOLS Wilderness Medicine, said, “Match the kit to your training. Consider first taking a CPR course, at the least, or completing a Wilderness First Aid, Wilderness First Responder, or EMT certification. When choosing a first aid kit, though, you need to make sure you’re comfortable using what’s in it. For more serious injuries, you can use the first aid supplies to help stabilize a patient until the EMTs or first responders arrive. Our experts could list more than a few instances in which, by taking action promptly in the field, they were able to prevent a downhill slide from the initial injury (a campfire burn, a knife gash, or even a bee sting) to an infection (if you don’t clean and treat the wound) to having to call for evacuation (if things get so bad that, for instance, a fever develops). “I think that the general attitude is, ‘It’s just going to be a day hike, so I will just bring water and my camera and be all set.’” Having a first aid kit on hand can also help you manage a medical situation before it worsens. “The most common reason we rescue people is that they are not prepared to go where they are going,” said Josh MacMillan, assistant director of education at the New Hampshire–based SOLO, one of the world’s oldest wilderness-medicine schools. Another benefit of having a first aid kit on hand is that its very presence serves as a reminder that any trip into the wild, however brief, requires adequate preparation.