A TEMU IFAK vs. My Trauma Kit

After showing the ridiculous things in a TEMU IFAK, I'll take you on a tour of my trauma kit.

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Watch the full video here

I shot this one out in Sucker Creek, Oregon, sitting in the high desert with a fire going and a cup of coffee in hand. The whole purpose was simple. There is a flood of cheap Individual First Aid Kits showing up on Temu for fifteen or twenty dollars, and people keep asking me if they are worth grabbing. So I bought two of them and tore them apart on camera so you would not have to waste your money. The short answer is no. The longer answer is below, along with what I actually carry and why.

What Came in the Cheap Temu Kits

The smaller kit had three items inside. A tourniquet, a pair of black tactical shears, and one emergency bandage. That is it. The tourniquet had glue still oozing from the seams, which is exactly the kind of thing you do not want to discover when someone is bleeding out. I would not trust a Chinese-made tourniquet on a real wound. The shears were actually decent and I will probably use them in the garage. The emergency bandage was so thin you could see through it. I said on camera it would not absorb a paper cut, and I meant it.

The larger kit was bigger and packed with more stuff, but most of it was junk. There was a bottle opener built into the case. A letter opener. A cell phone stand. A whistle that did not work. A handful of safety pins. None of that belongs in a trauma kit. The gauze was paper thin. The trauma dressings were the same flimsy material as the small kit. The vinyl gloves were the kind you use to prep food, not handle blood. When I tossed one of the dressings into the fire, the smoke turned black and nasty, which tells you something about what those materials are actually made of.

The two items worth keeping out of the entire haul were the SAM splints and a couple of alcohol prep pads. The SAM splints will go in my truck first aid kit, not my trauma kit. Everything else went in the trash or the fire.

These are the plates I keep in the back of the Bronco. You know I love Premier Body Armor. They don’t pay me. I just like their stuff. They are Bible believing people too.

Why You Cannot Trust This Stuff in a Real Emergency

A trauma kit has one job. When the bleeding starts, the gear has to work the first time. There is no second chance to retry a bad tourniquet or wrap a wound with bandage material that falls apart in your hands. The whole point of carrying an IFAK is so that when seconds count, you have what you need. A kit that fails in the field is worse than no kit at all because it gives you false confidence.

I have been to tactical medic training. I served as the team medic on my department for a while. I have seen what real wounds look like and how fast a bleed can take a life. The gear in these Temu kits will not perform under those conditions. The tourniquets will slip. The bandages will tear. The gauze will not absorb. You will be standing over someone you love with a kit full of garbage. Do not put yourself in that position to save fifteen dollars.

Pre-Stage Your Gear Before You Need It

This is one of the things I covered in the video and it is worth repeating here. When I buy a new IFAK, I take everything out of the original packaging and pre-stage it inside the kit. Some people will tell you to leave everything sealed for sterility, and I understand the argument. But I learned this from a combat medic who served in Iraq, and his reasoning made sense to me.

When you are working on someone with blood on your gloves, the last thing you want to do is fight with a sealed plastic wrapper. You will fumble. You will waste time. You will get frustrated. And the sterility argument falls apart the moment you think about reality. The person has a bullet or a knife wound. That projectile or blade brought dirt, fabric, and whatever else with it into the body. The wound is already contaminated. A doctor is going to flush it and pump them full of antibiotics regardless. Your bandage being out of the wrapper for a few months in your kit is not what is going to kill them.

Pre-stage your bandages. Pre-stage your gauze. Open the chest seals and check them. When the moment comes, you want to grab and apply, not tear and curse.

What I Actually Carry in My IFAK

My kit is bigger than most because of my background as a team medic, and I will probably consolidate it down at some point. Here is what is in it and why each item is there.

A real Israeli emergency bandage. Mine is noticeably thicker than the Temu version. When I apply it, I put the absorbent pad on the wound and throw the tail over my shoulder before I start wrapping. That keeps the tail out of the dirt.

A CAT tourniquet. This is the gold standard. Wide enough to be effective, built to hold under pressure, and made by a manufacturer I trust.

A SWAT-T stretch wrap. There is some controversy around using this as a tourniquet, and I am aware of the arguments on both sides. The wider the tourniquet, the less it hurts the patient. The thinner the tourniquet, the more pain it causes. For a femoral bleed or something catastrophic, I am going to a CAT every time. But for a bleed I think I can control with steady pressure, the SWAT-T is an option I keep available. The trade-off is that you have to monitor the patient closely. They will want it off because it hurts less than a thin tourniquet, but if they pull it before the bleeding is controlled, they die.

CurlX gauze. This is far better than anything in the Temu kits and worth the money.

Nitrile gloves, not vinyl. Nitrile holds up to blood and tearing. Vinyl is for the kitchen.

Needle decompression darts, fourteen gauge two inch. These are for treating a tension pneumothorax. I was issued these in my tactical medic course and trained on their use. You should not carry these unless you have been trained on them, period. If you know of a way to source these without paramedic credentials, drop it in the comments and I will pin the answer for everyone else.

A nasal pharyngeal airway. An Asherman chest seal. Trauma shears. A Sharpie for marking the patient with time of tourniquet application or other notes. A small light. Steri-Strips, which honestly get used more than anything else in the kit because they close wounds that need more than a Band-Aid but less than sutures. Some burn gel. A few Band-Aids. An oil emulsion dressing. A small piece of gauze.

If you are starting from zero and just want the basics, here is what you actually need. A real tourniquet. An Israeli bandage. CurlX gauze. A wrap to secure everything. A nasal pharyngeal airway. That covers the major causes of preventable battlefield death and most of what you will encounter in a civilian setting.

Practice Your Skills Before You Need Them

I shot this video out in the high desert because I believe in getting outside, getting uncomfortable, and practicing the skills you say you have. Sleeping in the woods. Building a fire. Working through your gear when you are cold and tired. That is when you find the holes in your preparation. Sitting on the couch reading about it does not get the job done.

The Bible tells us hard times will come. Some of them are already here, depending on where you live in the world. When those times come, you will either survive or thrive. I would like to do both, and I want the same for you.

“A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.” Proverbs 22:3

Get your gear right. Train with it. Pray for the people around you to get prepared. And remember the basics. Always Be Caring.

What is in your kit? Drop a comment below and let me know what you carry and why. If you have used any of this gear in a real situation, I want to hear that too. Share this with someone who is just getting started in prepping or who has been thinking about putting together their first IFAK. Honest information saves lives, and the people of God ought to be the most prepared folks in the room.

Copyright © 2026 Keith Graves. All rights reserved.