How to Cleanse Wounds

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Chip and I'm a paramedic instructor for the state of North Carolina. We're going to talk briefly today about how to cleanse a wound. Talking about wounds, it can be a cut, an abrasion, a scrap, anything you need to clean out before it gets infected. What we need for that is any kind of clean water, it can be tap water. I don't recommend well water but regular tap water is fine, some kind of mild soap any hand cleaning soap will be fine as well and obviously a sink or a bucket to clean it in. What we're going to do is make sure that the area, first we want to clean it with any consideration for gross contaminants to make sure that if there's any gravel, dirt or visible things we can rinse that out. Then we go to any kind of a gauze. We want to pat dry. We want to take a look at it and make sure that there's nothing that we can see visibly as far as contaminants go. If so, continue to rinse, maybe gently brush and then blot away with the other side. Once you do that real good we want to make sure the edges are clean as well. We can apply our clean gauze, make sure it's totally dry. Get any type of over the counter of antibiotic ointment's fine because you only put that on there. What I do is I recommend that you put the ointment on the gauze first and then apply the gauze on there. That way you're not touching the wound site with your bare hand or with your glove any more than you have to. Apply that, some gentle pressure, wrap that securely so it stays in place, and make sure that there's no blood coming through the bandage. If so you might need to apply more pressure or apply more gauze, either one. If it continues to bleed you'll need to seek professional help. And that has been the basic ways to clean a wound. Thank you."