Red Cross Blogs

How would you deal with a dog bite?

By Chris Jefferies
March 11, 2010 at 10:42 am

There’s an interesting article running on the BBC website at the moment, all dog owners could soon have to insure their dog against attacking people. I can see it now – comparethepoodle.com, for courageous poodles. Maybe not.

Joking aside, whilst reading the article a shocking fact jumped out at me – “Each week, more than 100 people are admitted to hospital after dog attacks.” I certainly never realised dog bites were so common. I’ve personally only seen one dog bite in my first aid career (and that was from a police dog – a story for another blog post I think…)

Luckily though, there’s some handy first aid knowledge that can help you out if you ever encounter a dog bite.

Dog bites can cause quite deep puncture wounds to the skin. One of the biggest risks is from germs and infection. Perhaps the most well known infection is rabies, a serious disease affecting the nervous system. Luckily for us, the last known case of rabies in the UK was over a century ago. However, if you travel to other countries where rabies is present you need to be aware of this risk! Worldwide there are an estimated 55,000 cases of rabies a year.*

In the event of someone suffering a dog bite, you can do the following things:

• Thoroughly wash the bite and the area around it with warm soapy water. This is to reduce the risk of infection.
• Pat dry the wound with sterile gauze swabs.
• Cover the wound with a sterile dressing.
• Seek medical advice promptly, if you can then try and identify the animal.

If there is severe bleeding, then elevate the wound and apply direct pressure to control the bleeding. You can find out more about major bleeding on the British Red Cross website. If you suspect the casualty is suffering from shock then do not delay in calling an ambulance.

Remember your personal safety comes first – if there’s a rabid dog running around then I’d suggest calling someone to deal with it first. Someone far braver than me.

* Statistics from the Health Protection Agency

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Tags: dog bites, First aid, first aid tips, infection, rabies

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