Thursday, June 30, 2011

Fun with Tyvek: a CPR essentials pouch

A while back Shira I were certified in CPR (it's a requirement if you're a foster parent). During the course, using a face shield was emphasized. We picked up a package of single use face shields, and they're actually quite pretty small - the package is about the same size as a condom package. And while I could toss one of these guys in my back pocket, I was curious about a good way to carry a face shield and set of gloves (gloves being the other essential in CPR, according to our training).

Sure, I could buy the face shield + glove + nylon pouch from the Red Cross -- but $5.00 to ship a $2.50 item? Man, you're killing me. Besides, I wasn't sure the pouch would be the most compact way to carry gloves and a mask.

Then it hit me - why not whip up a quick little Tyvek pouch? Having seen the Tyvek wallet hacks, I figured this wouldn't be too hard to do.

Besides, this didn't need to look good - it just needed to hold gloves and mask.

So I grabbed a postal mailer, an x-acto knife, a scissors and some clear packing tape. I cut and taped my way to this:

Hardly impressive, but it does meet my need. It's a super lightweight pouch to hold the essentials.

In the end though, I found a more compact way to carry a set of gloves and face shield: just stick them between two of my business cards and wrap clear tape around them:

You can't quite tell it, but I left part of the business card exposed from tape. The idea being that I can easily tear the paper and pull out the contents, without having to mess around with the tape.

So, in the end, I probably won't use the Tyvek pouch. But, it's good to know how easy and fun it is to craft with it. It sure would be a fun activity for kids on a rainy day.

Oh - and I really shouldn't recommend carrying life saving supplies like this. I, of course, have no idea what I'm talking about. I can't see how this is any different than the nylon pouch that the Red Cross sells - but still, take my experience above as a starting point, not as a hard and fast set of rules.

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