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Best Medical Devices to Have in a Zombie Apocalypse
These are the medical devices we would want to get our hands on first in the unlikely event of a zombie apocalypse.
Amanda Pedersen
October 17, 2022
6 Slides
It's that time a year again when zombies are on the brain (or maybe that's just me reading too many zombie apocalypse novels in the past couple weeks).
Last year, MD+DI published this Zombie Apocolypse Survival Guide featuring the safest places to be during a zombie apocalypse, and what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) wants you to pack in your zombie apocalypse kit. The guide was so popular, we wanted to update it this year with a list of the most practical/useful medical devices to have in the unlikely event we ever find ourselves in a zombie apocalypse.
As a quick refresher, here are the key highlights from last year's zombie apocalypse guide:
Where we would head during a zombie apocolypse:
Several years ago, a team of Cornell University researchers used statistical mechanics and techniques used in modern disease modeling and critical phenomena to explore how a zombie outbreak might spread across the continental United States. The researchers presented their work to the American Physical Society in 2015, and you can even play around with their interactive model, running simulations based on adjustable parameters such as "kill-to-bite ratio" and the estimated time it might take for a zombie to walk one mile.
According to the researchers' calculations, most of the United States will have been infested by zombies within four weeks. However, the simulations show that even after four months, remote areas of Montana and Nevada would remain free of zombies. Below is a screenshot of the interactive mapping tool, found here, showing what a hypothetical outbreak of zombies might look like in the continental United States, several months into the outbreak.
Don't forget to pack the zombie apocalypse basics
The accompanying slideshow features the medical devices we would want to loot from nearby clinics and hospitals, or even a medtech manufacturing warehouse if we're fortunate enough to be near one. Below, however, are the basic items the CDC recommends putting in your emergency preparedness kit (these would be useful in any emergency, including the unlikely event of a zombie apocalypse):
Water (1 gallon per person per day)
Food (stock up on non-perishable items)
Medications (prescription and over-the-counter meds)
Tools and supplies (utility knife, duct tape, battery powered radio, etc.)
Sanitation and hygiene (household bleach, soap, towels, etc.)
Clothing and bedding (a change of clothes for each family member and blankets)
Important documents (driver’s license, passport, birth certificate) — we're not sure how useful they'll be in a zombie apocalypse, but proper identification could certainly prove important during other emergency situations).
First Aid supplies (they won't do any good if you get bit by a zombie, but they'll come in handy for basic cuts and scrapes you might get while you're on the run - or during a more realistic emergency, like a hurricane or a tornado.
Once you’ve made your emergency kit, the CDC recommends creating a family emergency plan so that everyone in your family knows where to go if zombies start showing up in the streets — or during any number of more likely emergencies.
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