Surviveware’s Survival First Aid Kit contains both first aid supplies AND basic survival supplies. It’s designed as an all-in-one kit for carrying outdoors and on the move.
You can buy first aid kits and survival kits separately, but few products combine both in one durable package.
If you’ve read our round-up of the best first aid kits for survival, you’ll know that we’re a big fan of the Surviveware kits. In this in-depth review, we dig into the survival first aid kit to help you decide if it’s the right one for you.
Let’s get started.
Our Summary
What we loved:
- How well the kit is organized and labeled.
- Good quality items, especially the knife, shears and tweezers.
- Combination of essential first aid and survival supplies in one pack.
- Robust bag and zipper.
- The detachable CPR pouch with its pull-out emergency instructions is really well thought out.
- There’s additional space for you to customize the kit.
What we thought could be improved:
- A couple of large gauze pads and surgical tape strips for dressing larger wounds would be useful.
- Addition of basic medications such as Aspirin, Tylenol and antiseptic cream.
- A couple of larger plastic bags for keeping personal medicines or other items dry.
We’d recommend the Surviveware Survival First Aid Kit…:
- As a self-contained survival kit for your vehicle, to keep at a Bug Out Location or – at a push – carrying in your Bug Out Bag.
- For new preppers looking for an all-in-one kit.
First Impressions
The Survival First Aid Kit looks and feels like a robust, comprehensive kit. At three pounds, it is not lightweight. We wouldn’t want to take it backpacking unless we knew we’d be likely to use it. However, this is more than just a first aid kit and much of the weight comes from the survival and hygiene items.
There are plenty of attachment options, including a strap, metal D rings and MOLLE strips and snaps. The MOLLE system is attached to a hook-and-loop backing, meaning you can quickly rip the kit off its attachment point in an emergency.
This makes it a great choice for strapping to the back of your car headrest. The two handles make the kit quick and easy to grab.
Inside, items are neatly organized in labeled compartments that make it easy to find what you need. A lot of thought has gone into this and the ease of use sets this kit apart from other brands.
The labels are even color-coded: black for survival supplies, red for first aid, and green and blue for hygiene. The lack of internal zipped pockets (there’s just one for personal items) is a bonus as it means fewer things to break!
We particularly like the detachable CPR kit. When every second matters, it’s good that you don’t have to search for these life-saving items.
Contents
The survival first aid kit opens out into three main sections. Most of the survival items are on the left, the first aid supplies are predominantly on the right and the central section contains larger items such as wet wipes and bandages.
Here’s a rundown of what’s included:
First Aid Supplies
- CPR pouch containing:
- Face shield
- Nitrile Gloves
- Antiseptic towelette
- At-a-glance CPR instructions for adults, children and babies
- Skin cleaning wipes: antiseptic towelette (3), alcohol prep pad (3), sting relief pad (3)
- Burncare burn relief gel (5)
- Adhesive dressings (37) in a good range of shapes and sizes
- Butterfly bandages (10)
- Pack of three cotton gauze swabs – room for more – would have been nice to have a few packs of these
- Pack of sterile cotton balls
- Bandages: triangular (1), pressure (1), conforming (1)
- Splinter probes (2) and tweezers
- 25mm hypoallergenic adhesive tape
- Pack of cotton buds
- Shears
- Safety pins
Survival Supplies
- Signaling mirror
- Folding knife with 3.25” blade
- Multi-tool with pliers
- Wire hand saw
- Paracord survival bracelet with firestarter
- Penlight
- Whistle
- Poncho
- Emergency blanket
- Glowsticks (2)
What Would We Add?
Surviveware packs a lot into this survival kit, but there are a few things we would add. In particular, the first aid supplies are quite basic. Fortunately, there is enough space to customize the kit for your needs.
We’d add in some sterile dressings to cover larger scrapes or abrasions and more cotton gauze swabs (a single pack of three is included but that would only cover you for one incident). The kit includes butterfly bandages to wounds close up and heal, but surgical tape strips would also be useful for closing larger wounds.
In the “personal medications” pouch, we’d add some basic pain relief and fever meds (e.g. Tylenol, Advil and Aspirin), water purification tablets and any prescription medicine you need.
This isn’t a first aid kit designed for dealing with major trauma. If you’ve been trained in how and when to use a tourniquet then you may want to add one in along with any additional first aid supplies. (See our picks for best tourniquet.)
There isn’t a lot of space to add larger items. However, one thing that does take up a fair bit of space in the kit is the pack of 15 large wet wipes. Wet wipes are useful for all sorts of things, but you could argue that they’re not as essential as other items.
If you’re focusing on immediate survival, you may choose to switch them out for a pouch of emergency drinking water and a ration bar.
Finally, don’t forget to add in an AAA battery for the flashlight!
Quality
You may worry about the quality of components in an all-in-one pack, particularly when it comes to survival kit.
When your life is at stake, you need to be able to rely on your equipment to do its job.
Overall, we were really impressed with the quality of the items included in the Survival First Aid Kit. The knife is well-made, sturdy and sharp, and the shears are better than most first aid kits supply.
The paracord bracelet includes a whistle and fire steel in the buckle. We’d probably add in a specific fire-starting kit, but it’s good to know you have this as a backup option.
We felt the multi-tool was a little on the small side for practical use, but you could easily replace this with a larger one if you have a favorite brand.
The included flashlight is small and also feels a little cheap, but once we added a battery, we were rewarded with a bright, focused beam.
Wet wipes aren’t something that you find in a lot of survival kits. The 15-wipe pack does take up quite a lot of space and adds to the weight of the kit, but once we dug into the pack, we realized why so many people rave about them. The wipes are huge and strong – easily big enough to clean your face and hands. At a push, you could even wash and re-use them. No more baby wipes for us – we’re converted!
Versatility and Usefulness
We were impressed at everything that Surviveware managed to pack into the Survival First Aid Kit. Sure, there are things we’d add, but that’s largely down to personal choice. As an all-in-one kit, it’s incredibly versatile.
When it comes to survival, there are so many things you want to have that it can be hard to narrow down the list to the items you really need. Surviveware has done a great job of making that decision easy for you by including only essential items that you are likely to need in a survival situation.
We liked that the signaling mirror had instructions attached. These mirrors require some skill to use so it’s useful to have a reminder if you end up needing to use one in an emergency.
The detachable CPR pouch also included pull-out instructions on a fabric tab. This is a much better option than a paper guide which could get ripped, wet or blown away.
Unlike some of Surviveware’s other first aid kits, this one doesn’t include a first aid manual. It would have been great to have a thin, compact booklet included that covers emergency first aid and how you can use the items in the kit to keep yourself alive in a survival situation.
While we loved the fact that items are organized in individual pouches, this does make it less versatile if you wanted to replace or add bulky supplies. The empty pouch for personal items and medications is a great idea.
We liked that sealable plastic bags are included to store pills that you may need to decant from larger bottles, however, it would have been nice to have a couple of larger bags that could take packets of pills or a small pad of paper and a pencil.
Durability
One thing that often lets down cheap first aid kits is durability. I’ve had several kits where the zippers have split or the internal pouches have ripped apart, spilling their contents at the most inopportune moment.
That’s not something you’ll have to worry about with this kit. The water-resistant 600D polyester will stand up to most things you throw at it and the main zipper is large, easy to grab and study. The strapping and D-ring attachment points seem robust enough to do their job.
Inside, the elasticated mesh pockets for individual items are much more robust than the clear plastic pockets used in many cheaper first aid kits. A couple of the items can be a little fiddly to get out, but this isn’t a huge problem as they’re not supplies you’d need to access urgently.
The plastic pouches containing the first aid supplies are quite thin and may not stand up to repeated opening. However, they are generously sized which should help prevent accidental damage.
In some first aid kits, the pouches are packed so full it’s hard to get anything out, and in an emergency, you’d probably rip the packaging, so it’s nice to see that this has been considered.
Overall, we have no concerns about the Survival First Aid Kit’s durability and believe it should stand up to many years of use.
Value for Money
It’s hard to compare the Surviveware Survival First Aid Kit to others on the market for the simple reason that there aren’t many kits like it.
We were really impressed with the quality and variety of supplies included. It’s not the cheapest survival kit on the market, but it’s excellent value for money. Aside from replacing first aid supplies as they go out of date, you should get years, if not decades, of use out of it.
Would We Recommend the Surviveware Survival First Aid Kit?
Without hesitation. It might not be the right type of first aid kit for everyone – if you already have survival supplies, you may not need the duplicate items in this kit – but you will struggle to find anything else that compares to this in terms of quality and value for money.
Put simply, it’s a kit you can depend on both in day-to-day life and if the SHTF. Plus, when you buy from Surviveware, you’re supporting a small family company that provides excellent customer support.
We’d particularly recommend this kit:
- To keep in vehicles as a self-contained first aid and survival kit.
- When you want to carry basic survival supplies but not your full Bug Out Bag.
- For new preppers looking for a simple, easy-to-use kit that combines first aid supplies with basic survival equipment.
Surviveware do several different sized kits and you can check the full range on Amazon here.
