Important tow vehicle tip for first aid while traveling

By Gail Marsh
It was a lot like a slapstick movie! Or so my husband says. All I wanted was an aspirin for my niggling headache. It wasn’t a full-blown migraine—yet. I just needed to take an aspirin and I’d be good to go. Getting to the aspirin is the unlikely impetus for this important tip.

I pride myself in being a highly organized person. I’m the gal with the mantra, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” So why hadn’t I ever considered that I might sometime need a simple aspirin while on the road? I can’t tell you. But after my recent struggle, my husband agreed. We needed tips for accessing first aid while traveling.

Background

We currently own a fifth wheel RV that we pull with our F-350 dually truck. It’s a pretty big rig, both in length and width. This is important information, as you’ll soon see.

We happened to be traveling on a state highway in the middle of nowhere. Just FYI, all state highways are not created (or maintained) equally. Some roads have seen recent improvements, while others, well, let’s just say they could use some attention. I’m talking sharp curves, steep hills, narrow lanes, and little to no shoulders. Even some of the “improved roads” still await highway markings (center stripes, etc.).

The ordeal

An aspirin. That’s all I needed, but getting to one was going to be an ordeal. Of course, I first searched my purse. I found the campground reservation information, two Olive Garden mints, and the button that fell off my husband’s sports jacket last Sunday as we were leaving church. No aspirin. (So much for “A place for everything and…” —well, you know.)

The search

My headache had progressed so that now I figured it was going to require two aspirin. Not finding any medication in my purse, we had no choice but to find a safe place to stop our rig. (I knew we had aspirin in the RV’s medicine cabinet.)

The highway’s shoulder was nonexistent, and the road dipped up and down. We figured our safest bet was to pull over as far as possible at the top of a hill. At least traffic following us would see our rig in time to slow down and go around. We hoped. My husband set the brakes and activated our emergency flashers.

Cones

Next up, we needed to retrieve our orange traffic cones. I knew they were in the back of our pickup truck. I didn’t know they were stuck under the large blocks of wood we usually placed under the landing jacks when parking in soft soil or sand.

While my husband carefully crawled out of his truck door and gingerly sidled against the truck to grab the cones, I decided to exit as well. Seeing he had loosened and grabbed the cones and was busy placing them behind our rig, I figured I’d open the RV and get the aspirin.

Two steps

I took just two steps out of my truck door and slipped about ten feet down into the ditch. Recent storms had not only greased the long ditch grass with rain, but it saturated the ground, as well. I won’t go into the messy and embarrassing details, but it took me four tries to get out of the steep ditch.

Doggone steps!

My next hurdle was deploying our solid step system. With the RV parked so close to the ditch, those steps were not even close to solid ground. I was muddy and wet through to my skin from my ditch disaster. I slowly belly-crawled over the deployed (and useless) steps, up and into the RV, accompanied by my husband’s applause and shouts of what I hoped was encouragement.

At last

By the time I righted myself inside our RV I was way past caring about making a mess on the floor. Or muddying the bath light switch. Or embedding grass and muck into the bathmat. I was flinging mud like a mad woman. Hey, I was a mad woman! (Angry, not crazy.) I needed aspirin, darn it! Probably four or five, by now!

My husband helped me open the pill bottle and got me a cup of water. He lifted me down, out of the RV’s exit door and set my feet on a tiny patch of pavement while he closed up our rig.

By the time I clambered back into my truck seat I was overcome with laughter. I thought to myself, “This is why we RV. We’re making memories! We may end up muddy and wet and embarrassed. But, gosh darn it! We’re making memories!”

The tip

If you’ve read this far into the article, you may be wondering, “What’s the tip? When is she going to describe the important tip for accessing first aid while traveling?!” If you haven’t guessed it by now, I’ll tell you: Keep a first aid kit inside your tow vehicle. At. All. Times.

Do you keep a first aid kit inside your truck? Ever have any misadventures like mine? (Please tell me I’m not the only one!) Use the comments below.

And if you need a small first aid kit to always keep handy, here are several options.

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