Sequoia Survival Kit

Living in Iowa, the most treacherous time to travel any great distance is winter. Pure and simple. With four distinct seasons, each time of year has its low points, summer heat soaring to over a hundred with oppressive humidity and blizzard conditions with wind chills of forty below zero. We get it all.

So, since I run around in my car with four kids quite a bit, I have packed away a small first aid kit and other winter items for those long dark months. But, really, I’ve always thought that there is probably a list of items that should be included and I should pay more attention to what I have in my vehicle, if I were to truly analyze what I would want in an emergency situation.

When PBN sent out the notice about the Sequoia Vehicle Survival Kit, I thought they just saved me the time and effort and having to think about it myself – provided said kit was halfway decent.
For this review, I asked hubby to participate and help me determine the pros and cons of the Sequoia kit. Why? He’s really triple-qualified to help me here.

• He was an US Army Ranger, spending days on end in the field training for survival situations. He’s accustomed to what should be an absolute necessity in a survival kit.

• He is a firefighter now and a former deputy sheriff with experience helping people who had been trapped in their cars as the result of accidents.

• He works in the car business now and appreciates the marketing and appeal of something geared for use with one’s vehicle.

At first, it went a little something like this:

“Honey, that kit arrived that I need to review, you have time to take a look at it?”

Plop the bag on the table in front of him. He raises an eyebrow.

“That’s it?” Total disappointment.

According to the Sequoia website, the dimensions are 15” x 7.5” x 10” and it weighs 8 pounds. It is very small, that’s for sure.

But.

You know how good things come in small packages?

He unzipped the Sequoia bag, ready to rip its contents to shreds as some pathetic attempt at a survival kit. His criticism would have to wait for another day. After studying each and every component, he was hard-pressed to find any flaws.

“This is the most high quality civilian survival kit I have ever seen.”

I went through each category with him. He felt the water and food supply was above adequate. The only addition he thought to make to the first aid and shelter items would be a tourniquet.

The item that really hit his Go button was the Gerber tool. I saw him trying to stick it in his pocket.

“Don’t even think about swiping that from my survival kit!”

“But this is a GERBER! These are the best on the market!”

“Yeah, and it’s going in my survival kit.”

He was, well, stunned that Sequoia would include a Gerber brand tool when similar yet lesser quality tools are available. He felt that single item alone probably drove up the price of the entire kit.

Unless I’m wrong, according to the website the kit I got is valued at $99. Hubby was shocked. “I would be willing to pay up to $200 for a kit like this,” he told me.

I had to beg and plead with him to think of any flaws whatsoever. His only additions, which would be things a person could pop into the bag themselves, would be, aside from the tourniquet I already mentioned, a signal mirror and perhaps some non-aerosol insect repellent. That’s it, folks.

As a car dealer, he was so impressed he thought this would be an excellent item to use as a promotional gift for new customers. That’s saying a lot. There are some pretty dorky promotions that people come flocking into the dealership for, this one would actually be of interest to absolutely everybody.

I can safely say, up to this point, this is the highest caliber of quality product I have had the opportunity to review for PBN. If packaging a survival kit was an Olympic event, Sequoia wins the gold medal. It is a completely superior product and something I would recommend to everyone I know who drives a car.