Alternative Shoulder Bag Uses for the MIRA Safety Drop Leg Pouch

So you’ve got your eye on the MIRA Safety Drop Leg Pouch, but you want to make sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck. You’re wondering how often you’ll use it, given that present-day society doesn’t typically permit a person to walk around the mall with a gas mask pouch strapped to their leg. (Maybe next year.)

But a shoulder bag? You can carry one of those just about anywhere.

With so many things you can do with our Drop Leg Pouch, you can use it on a daily basis–and not feel like you’ve just purchased something that’s just going to collect dust on your shelf.

So what exactly can you do with it? Let’s dive straight in. We think you’ll find it’s pretty cool.

Table of Contents

• 01

  Disc Golf Bag

• 02

  Forager’s Bag

• 03

  Headrest Sanity Saver

• 04

  Mass Casualty Bag

• 05

  Airsoft Event “Stuff” Pouch

• 06

  Get Home Bag

• 07

  CBRN Go-Bag

• 08

  Which Color Should You Choose?

• 09

  Frequently Asked Questions

Disc Golf Bag

Anybody who plays disc golf regularly understands the importance of heading out to the course with multiple discs. After all, you can’t just go out there with a putter and expect to beat your friends. As with regular golf, players of disc golf need specialized drivers, putters, mid-range discs, and more.

The catch is that carrying all of these discs in your hands can become something of a hassle. If you try to do this, you’ll get burnt out trying to keep all your discs from falling out of your grip (again).

These days, a lot of disc golf enthusiasts are starting to wheel around little carts full of discs. Adopting this strategy, however, may feel a bit ridiculous. After all, who wants to push a shopping cart around the woods?

Enter our drop leg pouches. If you throw all your discs into it, you can easily carry all of them around the course without having to sacrifice your dignity in the process.

And no–you don’t have to strap it to your leg. Just pop on the shoulder bag strap, and you’re good to go. Once you reach the next hole, fish out the disc you need and toss it on the ground.

Easy enough, right?

Forager’s Bag

Let’s say that you like to spend a lot of time walking around, foraging in the woods. If you do this on a regular basis, then you know that carrying a bag with you is a must. Once again, this is a situation where the MIRA Safety drop-leg pouch can help.

Grab the pouch and pack it full o’ stuff.

Whatever you find in the woods–be it morel mushrooms, chicken of the woods, huckleberries, or sassafras–this bag makes for excellent on-the-go storage. Granted, a lot of outdoorsy types use a grocery bag for foraging, but this leaves you with only one hand free. In order to navigate steep slopes and tricky terrain, it’s best to have both righty and lefty at your disposal.

(Image courtesy of Next time you go out looking for chanterelles or morel mushrooms, you’ll have a better means of keeping them at your side and intact, compared to just stuffing them in your jacket pockets.)

Headrest Toy Bag

Let’s say you’re going on a long car ride this coming Christmas. You have a car full of littles in the backseat, and you are mentally dreading what this eight-hour drive is going to entail. How many times are you going to get asked, “Are we there yet?” How many of the kids’ arguments are you going to have to put a stop to? On how many occasions are you going to be told somebody is bored, hungry, thirsty, or in need of a tissue?

Headrest Toy Bag

Let’s say you’re going on a long car ride this coming Christmas. You have a car full of littles in the backseat, and you are mentally dreading what this eight-hour drive is going to entail. How many times are you going to get asked, “Are we there yet?” How many of the kids’ arguments are you going to have to put a stop to? On how many occasions are you going to be told somebody is bored, hungry, thirsty, or in need of a tissue?

In short, you better understand how your parents felt when you were a kid.

This is yet another area where we can demonstrate a pretty cool use of the MIRA Safety drop-leg pouch. The two thigh straps on the pouch work perfectly for attaching the bag to the back of a headrest.

If you and your spouse both attach one to your chairs, the kiddos seated behind you will have easy access to a ready-made container for their tablets, toys, snacks, drinks, books, and whatever else they need to remain contented on a multi-hour car ride.

(Image courtesy of Alright, so it’s not technically a shoulder bag use, but we’re still pretty proud of the idea.)

No longer will you have to face the barrage of “I need” questions each and every time you start your car up. Those boogers will have everything they need right there in that bag in front of them.

You can even let the kids pick their favorite color or pattern from the four options available: black, desert tan, MIRACAM, and tactical green. That way, there’s no fighting over whose pouch is whose.

In this manner, you’re able to take an extra step to protect your sanity, and you have a better chance of showing up to your mother-in-law’s without already being in a sour mood.

(Image courtesy of The straps don’t interfere with the head or hair of whoever is sitting in the front either. They stay safely tucked out of the way.)

Mass Casualty Bag

Unfortunately, there are far greater evils in this world than long car rides.

It is an unavoidable fact that some people, for example, actively seek opportunities to murder as many bystanders as possible. And these would-be perpetrators live among us.

For this reason, you likely carry a weapon on your person on a daily basis. You may even have another weapon in your car and a CBRN go-bag.

To be truly prepared for such a calamitous event, however, it is advisable to store a cache of lifesaving medical gear–like a tourniquet for example–in your vehicle.

(Image courtesy of While you could wear it as a thigh bag right after an event, we reckon that a shoulder bag makes for a faster response time. )

After all, when EMTs show up to the scene, they’re only going to be able to attend to so many victims, meaning that some may lose their lives before being rendered aid.

This is one of the things that mass murderers hope for. They don’t want people to be rescued. They want to cause as much death and destruction as possible.

Upstanding citizens, therefore, make other plans, like packing a mass casualty bag fully stocked with plenty of tourniquets, QuickClot, compression bandages, and HyFin chest seals. In the aftermath of a mass shooting, these supplies could potentially save a lot of lives.

If you’re going to carry one of these types of kits, though, you’ll need a place to stow it all away–like our drop-leg pouch. You can throw a ton of gear in its roomy depths, keeping it safe and ready for when it’s needed most.

To determine the best way to pack this bag–as well as how many lives it could go on to save–let’s consult the facts.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, it takes less than five minutes for somebody to bleed to death. Meanwhile, the average EMS response time for urban environments in the US is seven to nine minutes. Rural areas take even longer, with an average of more than fourteen minutes.

What this means, in practical terms, is that there are a lot of people who will bleed to death before EMS workers ever reach them. And many of these casualties, it must be stressed, could have been saved.

Before we discuss how, let’s take a look at how these numbers play out under the very worst of circumstances–like, for example, a mass murder scenario.

Consider this: a killer wreaks havoc in a public area with a knife or firearm of some sort. Thankfully, however, they are stopped–leaving the injured to see to their wounds.

So, what happens now?

Well, for a situation like this, we may be able to attain some degree of clarity by consulting statistics from the US military.

From 2001-2011, 4,574 American military personnel were killed in combat. Of this number, 87% died before they ever received medical treatment. About a quarter (24%) of these prehospital fatalities had potentially survivable injuries, meaning they could have lived if they had received appropriate care fast enough.

All in all, that’s 955 people who didn’t have to die, roughly 21% of all those soldiers killed.

What if we were to apply that metric to mass killings?

No doubt there are many variables to take into consideration. However, if we assume for a moment that 21% of those who die in the aftermath of a mass murder had survivable wounds, that suggests, then, that we have the potential to prevent over a fifth of all mass murder deaths.

But to do this, we have to stay prepared.

US military statistics seem to bear this out. If we go back to the study mentioned above, for example, we find that over 90% of those potentially preventable deaths were from blood loss. This means that if early medical intervention had been taken, the majority of those soldiers could have survived.

The same may hold true for victims of mass killings. If so, it would make sense to primarily pack instruments that stop hemorrhages in our emergency medical kits–meaning QuickClot, compression bandages, tourniquets, and the like.

A question remains however: How much of each should you include?

To determine the ideal ratio of items, we can once again turn to the US military for answers.

Of those blood loss deaths we discussed above, the site of the injuries were as follows:

• 

  67% torso wounds

• 

  19% groin and armpit wounds

• 

  14% limb wounds

Other studies of civilian populations seem to show similar breakdowns. If we look at Harris County, Texas in 2014, for example, we find that 74.5% of the people who bled to death died due to “isolated truncal bleeding.” In other words, they had some type of injury to their abdomen or torso.

This study went on to note that 34.5% of those who bleed to death will do so outside of a hospital setting or within an hour of reaching the hospital.

2 Israeli Battle Dressings, 2 OLAES bandages, 2 packs of HyFin chest seals, 2 CAT tourniquets, 2 packs of BleedStop, 1 pair of EMT shears, and a whole mess of gloves.

There are two things we can glean from this. For starters, lives could be saved if more people had the gear and skills to treat blood loss at the scene. And secondly, we can see that, just like in the military, torso wounds seem to comprise the bulk of hemorrhage deaths.

So if we have a limited amount of funds to throw at the problem, the stats tell us that we should allocate about 70% of our money to treating torso wounds.

That means that HyFin chest seals and compression bandages are going to comprise the lion’s share of your optimal medical kit. Granted, tourniquets and QuickClot are obviously still important, but you wouldn’t want to spend the majority of your money on these if we’re operating according to the above data.

(Image courtesy of There’s definitely room for more in there, too.)

Informed by these numbers, you can feel reasonably confident about the gear that you ought to stow in a shoulder bag like this one. That way, you can help to save lives as you move through a mass casualty event. Hand out gloves like candy, and get the gear to the people who need it most.

Airsoft Event “Stuff” Pouch

Let’s say that you’re big into the world of airsoft, and you have a few fields in your area that regularly put on themed events. This month, you’re trying to fend off hordes of zombies; next month is a remake of D-Day; and last month, you got your booty handed to you trying to protect a caravan of innocents on their way to the nearest castle.

Yes, themed airsoft events really do play out much like the open-world video game Skyrim. You’re given missions and tasked with completing side quests along the way, all the while trying not to get shot by the bad guys. Typically, these side quests involve the transportation of “medicine,” gold coins, or some other type of valuable from Point A to Point B–earning you points, and getting you that much closer to the grand prize.

Naturally, those with a winning mindset will want to find someplace to put these quest items, freeing up their hands for carrying their gun.

Once again, this is a situation where a leg bag can really shine. Because it’s large enough to store all sorts of odd-shaped items, you won’t find yourself attempting to finagle that container of zombie virus into your plate carrier.

Get Home Bag

Let’s say you don’t have the space for a full-sized backpack in your vehicle or office, but you still want some means of carrying emergency supplies with you, should you need to leave your car to find help after an engine breakdown in the middle of nowhere.

The MIRA Safety Drop Leg Pouch can help here too.

Here’s what we have in ours.

• 

  Camo poncho

• 

  MRE (meal ready to eat)

• 

  Water bottle

• 

  Fire striker

• 

  Water filter

• 

  Paracord

• 

  Mylar blanket

CBRN Go-Bag

In the past, we’re already written about the benefits of keeping a CBRN Go Bag in your vehicle, such as a speedy evacuation and the protection of your health.

For these reasons, there’s a good chance that you already keep a decent amount of gear in your home, office, and truck, as these supplies can help you to readily “get off the X” when it’s time to head out ASAP.

This can be because of a terrorist attack, an incoming missile alert, fire, mob, or gas leak. And, of course, there are more mundane reasons too, such as a dead engine in a harsh Minnesota winter.

The point is that you keep this gear at the ready because you understand that there could be a problem that requires rapid evacuation on your part. Under such circumstances, you may find yourself having to walk seven miles amid harsh weather conditions, like a thunderstorm.

Sure, you could try to brave the elements. However, it sure is a much pleasanter prospect if you can stay dry in the rain, take a swig of something to drink, and maybe even eat something.

This is why people carry bug-out bags–to stay protected when disaster strikes.

But what if said disaster involves a CBRN threat? For such an event, you’ll need extra supplies, in addition to your bug-out bag.

Our Nuclear Survival Kit is perfect for this purpose. The kit contains Thyrosafe, an NBC-77 filter, a canteen, and a CM-6M gas mask–all of which can be conveniently stowed in one of our Drop-Leg Pouches.

That way, there’s no guesswork about where everything is when you need it most. After all, you don’t want to waste any time running around your house during an emergency–grabbing your gas mask from the closet, Thyrosafe from the gun safe, and so on.

Everything is right there in the pouch. Grab it and do what you need to do.

Which Color Should You Choose?

Well, to help you out with this, let’s do something of a camo test with the four patterns that we offer: black, coyote brown, OD green, and MIRACam. To find the color that best suits your local geography, we’ll take a look at each option in a variety of different environments.

Let’s begin.

Greened-Out Woods

Though our writers come from all over the country–and indeed the globe–this author happens to reside in The Shire. In these parts, the outdoors are lush and leafy for the majority of the year. Winter here is about three months long, while the fall lasts about a month or two. The rest of the year, it is a verdant wilderness.

Let’s see how each of the four colors fares here.

(Image courtesy of Black )

(Image courtesy of OD Green)

(Image courtesy of MIRACam)

(Image courtesy of Coyote)

Out of all of these, the MIRACam is the clear winner. The camouflage pattern really helps to break up the outline of the bag, and while the shade of green differs from the flora around it, the pouch ends up looking like a tree or a rock from a distance.

For these types of Tolkien-esque environments, therefore, this author humbly recommends the MIRACam, with OD Green receiving an honorable mention.

Pine Tree Undergrowth

Let’s say you live in the Deep South, and everything around you is pines. How do our pouches compare with pine tree undergrowth? Let’s take a look.

(Image courtesy of Black, hanging there conspicuously.)

(Image courtesy of Somewhere in there is a MIRACam pouch.)

(Image courtesy of Coyote pouch: another fairly unnoticeable option.)

(Image courtesy of OD Green, also doing a creditable job of staying out-of-sight.)

Again, the MIRACam proves superior when it comes to concealment. With that said, Coyote and OD green are also suitable options.

An Incredibly Versatile Piece of Gear

Even if you don’t currently own a gas mask, there’s still a lot that you can do with one of our MIRA Safety Drop-Leg Military Pouches. What other uses for it can you think of? Do you like the idea of the headrest bag? What about the CBRN go bag?

Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

Frequently Asked Questions