Treating Burns: Camping & Campfire Safety

Video Transcript

" Hi! My name is Dan. We’re here with Expert Village. We’re going to talk about some very basic burn first aid. When around campfires, the most typical burns involve hands. In case of a burn, you want to get it into the water as quickly as possible. I’m going to have Wes dump his hand in some cold clean water. This will help keep the burn from sinking any deeper and causing more damage to the nerves. If you don’t have a pot of water on hand but you do have a water bottle, you can soak a handkerchief, a clean one, in the water. Have the person who has been burned hold the handkerchief on the effected body part. I’m going to have Wes hold this on, that way they’ll know whether if it’s going to hurt too much, they’ll be able to adjust the pressure, and they can re-submerge or pour more water on it if necessary. Burns are very dangerous in the wilderness, because they’re very hard to keep clean and they’re very susceptible to infection. If a burn is severe, which is sort of hard to gage unless you’ve been burned, you typically want to be evacuated and seek medical treatment. Those are some of the basics of caring for a burn immediately after it has happen. "