Water, better still soap and water, are pretty good at getting the crud out. A syringe, in a pinch a plastic bag with a small hole, is great for getting enough water pressure to get the dirt out. Get the dirt out and your well on your way to avoiding an infection.

I generally try to avoid sealing a laceration shut unless your quite sure the wound is clean. If there is any contamination your body is going to react. Puss, pain, swelling, redness, we have all seen the result. If the wound isn't sealed the body moves the contaminate, along with puss and other nasty stuff, to the surface where it flows out of the body. Seal a wound shut and there is a good chance the infection doesn't move out. Infections can move in and travel by way of blood vessels, lymph system and bone. Once they get into those systems they are much harder to fight.

The classic case is a deep puncture wound to a finger tip. The skin rapidly closes the wound off and the bone is just a few millimeters form the surface. If an infection gets into the bone your in trouble. People have lost an arm. A few their life.

In the field a stick to the finger tip is best washed out aggressively and forced to bleed if it isn't already. At the first sign of infection you dig down to the infection so it can drain and you irrigate and pack the area. If the infection gets into the bone your looking at expensive and risky treatments, like injecting antibiotics directly into the bone, or, the safer bet, amputation of the finger well above the site of the infection.

Lesson here is you don't want any infection to travel deep or get trapped in the body. A good way to make sure of this is to make sure that if there is any possible chance of an infection you give it way out that decreases the odds of it creating bigger problems.

With this in mind superglue is good, but possibly too good. It is easy to seal the laceration so well that a minor infection that would otherwise drain away and resolve could become a serious issue.

My preference is to keep the wound edges moist and loose edges of such a wound held in their approximate positions with Steri-strips for a day. If after 24 hours there is little redness or pain then seal it.

If you use superglue be very observant of any signs of infection and consider leaving a portion of the wound unsealed. At the first sign of infection cut through the superglue and drain the infection away. Follow by irrigation and packing until the infection clears.

Yes, do check on your tetanus shot history. If you need it, you need it within 3 days, my doctor told me. ("Ah... is two days and twenty hours okay?")

Tetanus shots prevent tetanus. People can die of tetanus, and it's a really miserable way to die.

A contaminated wound closed with superglue can lead to an abscess.

Art is dead right on all counts. If it's to the bone, you'd best see your doctor. Be on the lookout for red streaks going up your hand/arm, that's an indication of blood poisoning -- your local Emergency Room is indicated. (My brother: four days in Intensive Care.)

And if you're wanting to donate blood, contact the Red Cross and don't waste it.

Sue

I have it in D2 Todd.

This was after sharpening, two hand sheathing because it wasn't on my belt.

Good points, The blade was freshly washed in soap and water, I do that to clean up the steel for a new coating of lubricant, no lube was on the blade yet.

I donate locally to the Oklahoma Blood Institute.

I stopped taking the free t-shirts, now I just take cookies and water.

Old time remedy to prevent Tetanus, soak the cut appendage in Coal Oil.

That's what they did before there were Tetanus Shots.

Good advice on being careful around infections-there are some nasty bugs out there that do not respond to most antibiotics, and minor cuts can turn quickly into life-threatening illness. Regarding late closure of the wound: most of the er docs I work with won't close any wound after 8-24 hours. The rationale is that the wound will be colonized with bacteria by that time, and that closure is will likely result in abscess formation as described. Old wounds, badly contaminated wounds, and animal bites are left unclosed to heal from the bottom up.

RE Bugs that don't respond to many antibiotics

You can add - Or any, as far as I know

(I've had the fun of sitting in the hospital with an Invanz(sp) drip, and have had to take Zyvox. What fun and joy - luckly that wound has heald)

That picture sure brings back some fond memories

Looks like a nice, clean cut. There really shouldn't be too much worry about injecting bacteria or foreign matter into the wound with a cut from a sharp knife: The possibility exist, but it is usually not a problem. However, a cut to the bone and any deep / large cut should be checked by a doctor. Some fibers (such as tendons) may need surgery to be fixed properly, and infection in the bone structure is serious stuff. Fix either of those problems NOW and it's no hassle, wait and you'll really have to fight it hard.

I don't worry at all about cuts that aren't too deep or to the bone, don't actually have cut through stuff as tendons or aren't obviously badly infected.



Er, no, only against tenatus. Which, as stated in other posts, is a rather horrible way to die. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetanus Stepping on a dirty, rusty nail is one a classical way of getting it. Unless you've dipped your knife in horse droppings there's really not much chance of getting it in a knife cut. But still, you really want to take that shot to exclude tenatus from the list of possible infections.