The First Aid Kit for a Service Van

Why this matters

The kit in most service vans was bought once, when the van was new, and it was bought as an office kit: a plastic box of small bandages sized for a paper cut. The injuries a field tech actually gets are a forearm opened on duct edge, a chemical splash at a pool pad, a burn off a flue pipe, a fall from a ladder. A kit that cannot stop serious bleeding or flush an eye is not a smaller version of the right kit; it is the wrong kit, and nobody finds out until the day it is opened in a hurry.

This card covers what the consensus standard specifies, what a field trade needs beyond it, and where the kit lives in the van. Owning a good kit is not the same as knowing how to use it; hands-on first-aid certification is what makes a responder (see related: How to Choose First Aid and CPR Training for the Crew).

Where the legal requirement ends and the standard begins

OSHA requires first-aid supplies to be readily available, at 29 CFR 1910.151(b) for general industry and 29 CFR 1926.50(d) for construction, and it does not list what goes in them. Both standards point, in non-mandatory appendices, to ANSI Z308.1 as an example of an adequate kit. So the federal floor is "adequate for your hazards," and ANSI/ISEA Z308.1 is the yardstick an inspector, an insurer and the shop's own safety lead will measure against. Some state-plan states layer their own first-aid rules on top of the federal ones, so check yours. The legal requirements in full, including when a trained responder must be on site, are their own card (see related: What OSHA Requires for First Aid at a Small Shop).

ANSI/ISEA Z308.1 is a consensus standard published by the International Safety Equipment Association through the ANSI process. It binds nobody on its own; it binds a shop when a regulation, a contract or a customer's site rules adopt it, and it binds kit makers who label a kit as compliant. The current edition is 2021; the 2015 edition introduced the two-class system described below.

Class A and Class B

The standard defines two classes by the range of injuries they are meant for:

• Class A is sized for the most common workplace injuries: small cuts, scrapes, minor burns, splinters, a sprain.
• Class B carries the same item types in larger quantities and adds supplies for more serious injuries in more complex or higher-risk work, including a tourniquet, a splint and a larger roller bandage.

Both classes include the same core list: adhesive bandages, adhesive tape, antibiotic and antiseptic applications, a breathing barrier for CPR, burn dressing and burn treatment, a cold pack, eye coverings, an eye and skin wash, a first-aid guide, hand sanitizer, medical exam gloves, a roller bandage, scissors, sterile pads, trauma pads and a triangular bandage. Read the label on a kit for the class and edition it claims, and check the contents against the edition's table rather than trusting the box.

For a field trade, start at Class B. A tech working with sheet metal, glass, blades, ladders, chemicals, or alone at a remote site has the higher-risk profile the class exists for, and the tourniquet alone justifies the step up.

Kit types: what the box has to survive

Separately from the class, the standard sets four types by where the container lives and what it must withstand:

An enclosed cargo van with the kit mounted inside the cab or a side door usually lands at Type III. A pickup with a utility body, a lawn trailer, or a kit that rides in an open bin lands at Type IV.

What to add for field work

The standard is a minimum. These additions come from the injuries trades actually have, and each one has a reason:

• A second tourniquet, outside the kit. Class B puts one in the box. Severe limb bleeding kills in minutes, and a tourniquet that is under three cases of fittings does not help. Many shops mount a second one in a pouch on the driver's door or the tech's tool belt. Buy only tourniquets of a design recognized by the military and civilian trauma guidance bodies; cheap look-alikes break under the windlass. How to use one belongs to its own card (see related: Severe Bleeding and the Tourniquet).
• Extra trauma dressings and a pressure bandage. A deep cut that does not need a tourniquet still needs firm pressure for a long time, and the kit's own trauma pads go fast. Add several, and a roll of gauze for packing a wound (see related: How to Apply a Tourniquet and Pack a Wound).
• Eyewash bottles, as a first step only. The kit's small eye wash is for a speck of dust. A van that carries pool acid, hypochlorite, drain opener or caustic cleaners needs larger personal eyewash bottles. Be clear what they are: under 29 CFR 1910.151(c), where a worker's eyes may be exposed to injurious corrosive materials, the employer must provide facilities for quick drenching or flushing for immediate emergency use, and ANSI/ISEA Z358.1 calls for a continuous 15-minute flush. A squeeze bottle gives seconds, not minutes. It buys time to get to running water or a plumbed station (see related: How to Set Up and Maintain an Eyewash That Meets the Standard).
• A pocket CPR mask with a one-way valve. The kit's breathing barrier counts, but a face-shield sheet is awkward under stress. A pocket mask is easier to seal.
• Gel-soaked burn dressings in a size that covers a hand or a forearm, for flue, torch and steam burns (see related: Burns: Thermal, Chemical and Electrical).
• More gloves than the standard asks for, in two sizes. Gloves tear, and the first responder may be the person with the largest hands on the crew.
• A moldable splint, trauma shears, a small flashlight and an emergency blanket, for falls, crawlspace work and night calls.
• A card inside the lid with 911, Poison Control (1-800-222-1222 in the United States), the shop's office number, and the rule "call first, then treat."

What does not go in

• Prescription medication of any kind, and anything one person needs (an epinephrine auto-injector is a personal prescription with its own procedure; see related: The Anaphylaxis Response SOP for Crews).
• Loose or bulk over-the-counter medication. If the shop stocks pain relievers or antacids at all, they should be single-dose, sealed and labeled packets, and the kit is not the place to dispense them to a customer.
• Anything to make a person vomit. Syrup of ipecac is no longer recommended (see related: Poisoning and Swallowed Chemicals).
• Tools borrowed from the kit. The scissors and the tape walk first. A kit that doubles as a supply drawer is short on the day it matters.

Where it lives in the van

• Reachable in under ten seconds by someone who has never driven that van, without moving stock. Mount it, do not loose-pack it.
• Marked on the outside of the van door or the cab, so a stranger or a customer can find it when the tech is the one who is hurt.
• Out of the worst heat. A closed van in summer can bake its contents: adhesive stops sticking, gloves turn brittle, eyewash and burn gel degrade. The cab or a shaded side compartment beats a roof box.
• Separate from chemicals. Never in the same bay as pool chemicals or solvents, where a leak contaminates the very supplies you would use to treat the splash.

Worked example: setting one standard for a nine-van shop

A shop runs nine vans: six HVAC and plumbing, two pool, one electrical. Every van carried whatever came with it. The owner writes one standard and buys to it.

The base kit, all nine vans. Class B, Type III, mounted inside the passenger door. The two pool vans also ride with an open chemical bay, but the kit stays in the cab, so Type III still fits.

Additions by hazard:

The arithmetic, row by row: tourniquets 6 + 2 + 1 = 9; dressings 4 x 9 = 36; eyewash 6 x 2 + 2 x 4 + 1 x 2 = 22; burn dressings 6 x 2 + 2 x 1 + 1 x 2 = 16; masks 9.

The reasoning behind the two uneven rows. Pool vans double the eyewash because they carry the corrosives that make an eye splash likely, and they still need running water or a hose within reach for the real flush. They carry fewer burn dressings than the HVAC vans because nobody on a pool route is working near flues or torches; the electrical van keeps two because an electrical burn is a real possibility. That is the method: start from the standard, then add by what each trade's tasks can do to a person, and write it down so every van matches.

What would change it. A shop whose techs regularly work alone, at rural sites or far from an ER would add more bleeding-control supplies and a way to call for help where there is no cell signal (see related: The Remote Job Emergency Plan SOP). A shop with an open-bed lawn fleet moves to Type IV boxes.

The failure mode. The usual way this goes wrong is buying the right kits once and never looking again. Six months later three vans are short of gloves, two eyewash bottles are past their date, and one tourniquet has been borrowed to strap down a ladder. The monthly check is what keeps the standard true (see related: How to Audit First Aid Kits Across a Fleet).

The monthly look, in one paragraph

Once a month, someone opens every kit: seal intact or not, contents against the shop's own list, expiration dates on eyewash, burn gel, antiseptics and any medication, and heat damage. Anything used gets restocked and anything used without a matching injury report gets asked about. The full procedure and its record are the audit card's subject.

References

• ANSI/ISEA Z308.1-2021, Minimum Requirements for Workplace First Aid Kits and Supplies
• OSHA, Medical Services and First Aid, 29 CFR 1910.151, and construction counterpart 29 CFR 1926.50 (with non-mandatory Appendix A referencing ANSI Z308.1)
• ANSI/ISEA Z358.1, Emergency Eyewash and Shower Equipment
• See related: First Aid + AED on the Jobsite; What OSHA Requires for First Aid at a Small Shop
• See related: How to Audit First Aid Kits Across a Fleet; Severe Bleeding and the Tourniquet