Direct Relief, FedEx Mark 15 Years of Supplying Emergency Medical Backpacks for Global Disasters and Health Crises

First responders with SAMU Coahuila walk through a common migrant crossing path near the Mexico-U.S. border in Piedras Negras bringing along Direct Relief's emergency medical response backpacks, filled with medical essentials for triage care. (Photography by Paul Barcena for Direct Relief)

By Paul M. Sherer

August 12, 2024

When hurricanes and earthquakes injure people and destroy local health facilities, when wildfires force residents to flee their homes, and when people in the U.S. without homes need medical attention, care frequently arrives in the form of health workers carrying black and orange backpacks.

Direct Relief initially developed its emergency medical backpack program in 2009 to equip volunteer Medical Reserve Corps members in California with a standardized set of supplies. Each ruggedized pack contains medicine, supplies, and equipment to meet a variety of disaster-related medical issues, including infection control, diagnostics, trauma care, and personal protection.

Fifteen years later, and with continuous financial and logistical support from FedEx, 13,000 of the packs have helped people in more than 61 countries and 50 U.S. states and territories. The packs are among Direct Relief’s most requested products by health providers around the world.

Direct Relief delivered medical aid, including emergency medical backpacks, to Gulf Coast Health Center in Port Arthur, Texas, after Hurricane Harvey. (Photo by Bimarian Films)

Direct Relief staff deliver 50 emergency medical backpacks to the Ventura County Medical Reserve Corps on Oct. 31, 2019. The group of volunteer medical reservists provide care during the event of a disaster, and responded to both the Thomas and Woolsey Fires in Ventura County. The backpacks from Direct Relief contain emergency supplies commonly needed in a disaster setting. (Lara Cooper/Direct Relief)

Direct Relief emergency medical backpacks are staged for shipment to Ukraine from Direct Relief’s warehouse in Santa Barbara, California, on Feb. 28, 2022. The backpacks contain essential supplies for mobile medical care, including triage equipment like tourniquets and wound care supplies. (Lara Cooper/Direct Relief)

Shipments of medical aid, including Emergency Medical Backpacks, are packed at Direct Relief’s warehouse on June 11, 2020. These backpacks, and other requested medical aid, including protective gear, make up 45 shipments departing to health centers across the United States that have been impacted by recent protests. (Lara Cooper/Direct Relief)

Health workers in Nepal journey to Sindhupalchok District, Nepal, in April 2019, equipped with Emergency Medical Backpacks, packed with essential medicines, from Direct Relief. Jericho Road’s motorbike medical outreach program began a year ago with the hire of medical staff and the purchase of two motorbikes, which transport staff to the villages of Hagam and Hapra, near the Nepali border with Tibet, less than 70 miles from Mt. Everest. There are few options for medical care in the area, and the team conducts twice monthly medical missions to provide primary care for patients. (Photo courtesy of Jericho Road Community Health Center)

Health workers use a Direct Relief emergency medical backpack to provide care to a patient outside his home in Paradise, California, after the 2018 Camp Fire killed 85 people and destroyed thousands of structures, including many homes and health facilities. (Mark Semegen for Direct Relief)

Health providers from Doctors Without Walls Santa Barbara Street Medicine uses a Direct Relief backpack to provide patient care. (Mark Semegen/Direct Relief)

Mexico Beach Fire Chief Donald ‘Sandy’ Walker carries a Direct Relief emergency medical backpack to his cruiser after Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 storm slammed the Florida city in 2018. (Photo by Zack Wittman for Direct Relief)

Paramedics in Guatemala use a Direct Relief emergency medical backpack to provide triage care for firefighters. (Courtesy photo)

Direct Relief-donated hygiene kits and emergency medical bags arrive for IBB (Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality IBB) field hospital’s voluntary personnel in İskenderun, Turkey, on May 6, 2023. (Photo by Francesca Volpi for Direct Relief)

Dr. Yusuf Cekmece, whose medical studio has been destroyed during the earthquake in his hometown of Antakya, recives an emergency bag at the Adana Medical Chamber in Adana, Turkey. (Photo by Francesca Volpi for Direct Relief)

A health provider from Doctors Without Walls Santa Barbara Street Medicine uses a Direct Relief backpack to provide patient care. (Photo courtesy of Doctors Without Walls)

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The packs were carried by first responders after last year’s Maui wildfire, delivered to rescue workers in Turkey and Syria after the 2023 earthquake, and deployed widely to medics caring for people injured in the war in Ukraine. They helped care for people injured in Haiti by 2010’s earthquake and in Mexico by 2023’s Hurricane Otis, and for those displaced by the wildfires sweeping Western forests year after year.

Despite the name, they aren’t only useful for emergencies. The backpacks have equipped primary caregivers in settings as broad-reaching as street medicine care in Santa Barbara and mobile clinic outposts in rural Puerto Rico.

“Backpack-Based Medicine”

Each week, teams of volunteers equipped with Direct Relief’s backpacks walk Santa Barbara’s streets, cleaning and treating wounds, offering antibiotics, and treating skin and foot problems for people living on the street. Santa Barbara Street Medicine provided free medical care to nearly 9,000 people last year. The group runs 16 outreach missions a week, two of them at night.

“We are backpack-based medicine,” says the organization’s co-founder and executive director Marguerite (Maggie) Sanchez. “We do not operate in a building at all, everything we do is out of the backpack. It’s basically our most important tool besides our volunteers.”

FedEx, whose collaboration with Direct Relief began more than two decades ago, was the original sponsor of the backpacks initiative in 2009 and has helped fund the program ever since as it has grown substantially. The packs are just one part of the generous support FedEx provides to help Direct Relief fulfill its mission. FedEx delivers all donated medicines sent by Direct Relief to Federally Qualified Health Centers, which are the central strands of the U.S. healthcare safety net. FedEx has also airlifted huge quantities of medicine and supplies into disaster areas around the globe.

“FedEx has been the catalyst behind so many of our emergency preparedness efforts, both in the U.S. and around the world,” said Thomas Tighe, Direct Relief’s President and CEO. “The backpack they initially invested in, specifically for California’s medical volunteers, has now become the most requested item for disasters globally.”

“We’ve formed a powerful collaboration that delivers critical aid exactly where and when it’s needed most,” said April Britt, Director, of FedEx Global Citizenship. “The long-term collaboration between Direct Relief and FedEx is forged in the shared desire to help communities struck by disaster.”

Most recently, emergency medical backpacks were dispatched to the Caribbean to support first responders in Grenada and Jamaica after Hurricane Beryl. Many more will likely be requested this year during what are shaping up to be especially active hurricane and wildfire seasons.

Validated to Meet the Highest Standards

The Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) originated as a national program to improve community preparedness in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001. County-level MRC units are made up of local volunteer medical and health professionals who may include physicians, nurses, veterinarians, dentists, social workers, pharmacists, chaplains, paramedics, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), health educators, and others.

MRC volunteers are responsible for equipping themselves. “We thought, they’re volunteers, they shouldn’t have to purchase their own supplies, let’s see what we can do,” recounts Heather Bennett, Direct Relief’s Chief of Staff. The organization in 2009 initially donated 100 backpacks to Santa Barbara County’s MRC, and the program grew from there.

“Then we realized that this type of backpack is useful for more than just MRC volunteers, so we started deploying them after disasters to people who were doing the immediate search and rescue, and to doctors and providers that were treating patients in evacuation centers,” Bennett says.

The State of California’s Emergency Medical Services Authority has formally adopted the packs as standard equipment. In 2012, the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General recognized Direct Relief and FedEx with its National Partnership Award.